As your business may have needed to close down during this critical time, you may be seeking options to take your offerings online. Let’s explore some possible ways you can do so.
1. Website
In the past, you may have never had the time to configure a website for your business, but now is the perfect time! Having a quality website that represents your business opens the door to gaining more customers through search engine optimization and other internet marketing tactics.
Not to mention, it’s all in your control! You can list your products or services or menu, display your online catalog, or even write blog posts that can help your customers with tutorials. With a website, there are so many possibilities that await to help you during this critical time. And if you are stuck trying to choose a platform to put your site on, we always recommend WordPress.
2. Online Shops
If you already have a website and are looking for ways to sell your products or services online, there are various plugins or ecommerce platforms that could work for you, especially if you don’t already have an online shop set up.
Examples include Etsy for more creative, homemade products and Shopify or Big Cartel for other items – you have a lot of options! These platforms will allow you to list your products with photos, descriptions, pricing, and stock quantity to help you continue business as usual while your physical location is temporarily closed.
If you have a WordPress website, you could also look into ecommerce plugins that could easily allow you to set up a virtual shop. Be sure to consider plugins such as WooCommerce, as it comes highly recommended from users and has 5+ million active installs.
And if either of those methods are out of your scope, you can also transform your current website to have ecommerce capabilities by looking into integrations with your web form platform. For example, Wufoo forms let you connect to payment platforms like PayPal, Stripe, and others that allow you to get purchases without the hassle of setting up a whole new environment and spending additional money.
3. Webinars/Video Streaming
Another way many businesses could take their services online is through video streaming. This can include hosting webinars to give tutorials or info sessions, or livestreaming a class. Depending on your offerings you could try expanding into video to see if it is a good fit for your business.
YouTube and Facebook Live are great places to start to explore what options are available (to either make your videos free or for a price) and to reach your current followers.
Alternatively, you can also use platforms such as Zoom, join.me, and freeconferencecall.com to record webinars or host a broadcast where you can share your screen and interact with the audience.
4. Virtual Reality
Many industries, such as real estate, are turning to VR to adjust to the current circumstances. Creating 3D tours of your facility, campus, or your products can help customers online get a better idea of what they are inquiring about and help them in the purchase process.
Google offers a tour-creating platform that you can explore if you are interested in this option. But there are also other paid options, which you could work with yourself or through outsourcing, that could meet your specific needs.
5. Social Media
While you may already have semi-active social media platforms, now is a great opportunity to boost your efforts and connect more with your customer base.
From creating polls to allowing customers to ask you questions through direct messages and more, social media is an easy way to reach a large amount of people at once and broaden your current online efforts.
Here are some helpful instructions on various ways to make polls on popular social media websites and apps:
Keep in mind that you could also create polls, quizzes, and more on Google Forms for free to share across your social platforms and to collect data all in one place!
6. Live Chats
To piggyback off of direct messaging on social media, another thing you can do to supplement your internet marketing is adding a live chat feature to your website. Chatbots and live chats can make it easy for visitors to your site to ask customer support questions, navigate your site, and find out what you have in stock.
If you have a customer relations platforms such as HubSpot or PipeDrive, you can use their own chat features through their price plans, but there are also independent chat platforms such as LiveChat that you can purchase to add to your website.
Learn More About Online Marketing and Advertising
Here are some blog posts that may also help you get your business thriving online:
- What Type of Marketing Do You Need?
- How Does Pay-Per-Click Marketing Work?
- Intro to SEO – Frequently Asked Questions
- SEO and SEM – What’s the Difference?
- 7 Signs It’s Time to Invest in Internet Marketing Solutions
Need Help in Taking Your Business Online?
As digital marketing experts, we can help you with your online advertising, e-commerce SEO, website design and development, and much more. Feel free to reach out.
