If you and your business managed to survive 2020 and all its challenges, then you are one of the lucky ones. But what now? Surely it's not business as usual?
SO, WHAT HAS CHANGED?
In our case, the big thing that changed is the importance of our online presence.
PRE-COVID we ran a great business. We knew our clients because we met with them face to face and we met with them often. In 2019, we had a webpage, and a Facebook page, we also had a mobile app, but none of these was a substitute for an in-person meeting. Our online presence was low on the priority list.
POST-COVID nobody seems to want to have a face to face meeting. We don't get that same opportunity to make a first impression. A Skype/ Zoom meeting isn't the same.
The big change we found is in the winning of new business. Our online presence is scrutinized long before that first Zoom meeting.
INTRO TO SOCIAL
PRE-COVID, we posted every few months, but our message was inconsistent and had no objective.
POST-COVID Figuring out our online strategy has been a challenge. We did not try to do this ourselves. We hired a few social media consultants to help us along the way. We learned how many times to post each week and on which platform, but the challenge for us was having something relevant to say. None of the consultants we hired could help us with this.
That does not mean that their advice wasn't helpful; it was. Something that surprised me was just how important a great website is to the social media component of our online marketing.
(I previously thought most companies were moving to a Facebook page as a replacement to their website.)
ONLINE SALES
PRE-COVID - we did not have a way for our clients to buy our product online.
POST-COVID - we developed a new advertising product (deals) that lends itself nicely to an online sales platform. Now that we have an e-commerce platform, this gives us an objective for our online marketing. Our new website is all about conversion.
I will discuss online vs real-world sales in future posts. I have a lot to say on the subject, but to sum it up, I think the BIG change is that all businesses now should have an online sales component. That does not mean it's exclusively online, but online nonetheless.
SOMETHING TO SAY
My first instinct was to hire a social media person who could focus on our online marketing, but then Covid happened. Our finances took a big hit, our budgets tightened. The more I learned, the more I realized that the best candidate for handling our online message is me. And so here I am.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Pete. I am the CEO and one of the founding partners at iPoint Media. We developed a touch screen information service, and we sell advertising on our screens. Our clients are retailers or product owners who supply retailers. Our business is linked directly to the highs and lows of the retail industry. Shopping and how it's changing will be the theme of this blog.
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