Lucy at Breathe Technology writes:
Several small businesses, both in the UK and worldwide, were forced to close their doors due to the pandemic.
Ultimately, those who remain trading are now more than ever reliant on their online presence. It’s not about just selling products online like Amazon, but we are living in an online virtual world.
Customers and staff are not visiting your offices and attending meetings in your meeting rooms, they are now going online to search for your website and your online presence … yes … there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, it has resulted in a changed world, with long term affects.
In fact, an international study by of the National Academy of Sciences survey found that roughly 43% of the 5,800 participating small businesses had to shut down temporarily, largely due to reductions in demand and employee health concerns.
As a result of these closures, companies have been forced to adapt and shift their activities to the online sphere.
This is likely one of the many reasons we’ve seen such a noticeable uptake in online activity since the pandemic began.
Beside the point, it’s customers who are not leaving their homes in many cases!
How has COVID-19 changed people’s behaviour?
Akamai, the content-delivery, cloud, and cybersecurity company that consist of a large part of the internet, has reported seeing a more than 50% increase in daily traffic than in an average day pre-COVID.
Clearly, businesses and consumers alike are in the process of adapting to the ever-changing digital marketplace in the wake of COVID-19. As a result, it’s vital for small businesses to build and curate their online presence as a means of maintaining connection with their customers in these trying times.
One of the best ways to do this is by prioritising your business’ website design to ensure your website is reaching your customers.
What do we need to achieve from our website?
- Accurately represent your brand identity and what you do.
- Build a website that is geared towards marketing and advertising. Not just graphically designed with good copy. It needs to be planned and aligned with your marketing. This is critical.
- Lose the fluff and sell your services. It’s not an old-fashioned online brochure any more.
- Interact with your customers and provide customer service or sales functions.
- Offload tasks and regular questions that customer would normally ask your staff.
- Consider any legal or statutory requirements.
- Finally, the Directors or senior management team should clearly define what the business needs to achieve during the pandemic, lockdown and then going forward, considering it might simply not be the same!
Evaluate how the website and your customer interface can accommodate or aid those goals or coping mechanisms. Gone are the days of your marketing agency or marketing manager simply designing something that looks good with your phone number on it. It needs to do more … it’s your first point of contact and a constant stable interface for animation or systems that allow customer interaction.
Remember … we’re all online for the long haul …
If you would like to have a conversation about your business strategy and your online presence, we would love to chat.
Call us on 01223 209920 or email lucy@breathetechnology.com.