The common misconceptions of small businesses when they’ve launched a website is to stop there. The truth of the matter is that launching is just the first step. Maintaining and running it is another. Do not fall into the trap of not caring simply because you have ticked off your to-do list. There are a lot of ways your website can do the work while you’re literally sleeping or resting. You might want to ask, how could that be possible? Well, with applications and software programs automated and built for convenience of both the business owner and shoppers, we’d say it is possible. A great and sturdy website is instrumental in doing all the work for you. In this article, we will be sharing some of the concrete ways a website can do wonders for you while you’re not physically attending to it.
- Market your business online. This is done by developing and documenting a marketing strategy. Incorporate marketing by sending email newsletters, opening of social media accounts and making sure your online presence is strong.
- Utilize auto-replies or scheduled messages across your business platforms like email, social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter. This is heavily important in making purchases. An email confirmation for invoices and a notification telling the customer that payment and order has been invoiced. Most businesses who utilize social media marketing and selling, have devised FAQs on Messenger or instagram and the visitor just clicks the FAQ and an automated response is obtained.
- Automate your buying process by making your user interface friendly to navigate. From product selection to adding to cart, checking out and payment options.This is the undeniable benefit of ecommerce as one may decide to visit your site and accidentally land on your site and make a purchase in the wee hours of the morning or beyond business hours. In ecommerce, there is no limit in the possible sales you will obtain a day unlike a brick-and-mortar, physical store. If your website is responsive and user-friendly enough, you’ll convert those leads into sales in time.
- Schedule social media posts. Otherwise known as a communication plan where it contains the schedule of the content you will be publishing across all your social media platforms ultimately linking in those content to your website. Make sure that this comm plan is accessible among all team members for easier collaboration and information should there be changes in the content. This is very helpful as you can put your worries to rest by not doing the dirty work of posting it real time and worrying what content to publish next. Indeed by having a commplan, you can attack PR related concerns on your business at one time and just do minor alterations along the way.
- Build marketing partnerships and influencers. This is helpful if you want to grow your brand online. When you partner with influencers, they can talk about your brand through their posts anytime and that is knowingly widening your reach for your brand.
- Conduct webinars. This isn’t time consuming because this presupposes you have pre-recorded videos of the topics you want to share. Most websites offer free webinars but mainly for the introductory ones
- Publish e-books. You can do this by making your ebook available to Amazon’s Kindle or you can incorporate your blogs as excerpts of the books and then make it available for only if the buyer decides to purchase the books.
- Offer online courses. This contemplates that your business is an expert of something, by something it means the kind of service or product you are selling. Again, these may not be 100% live and synchronous with learners. Developing a module and uploading pre-recorded lectures encouraging learners to access the course anytime and anywhere are keys for this strategy to succeed.
- Use blogging. We cannot stress enough how important constantly updating your content is. If you’ve got blogs and articles ready to be posted anytime or based on your content schedule, then there are high chances your reach will be expanded knowing your website is well-maintained in the content aspect.
Try affiliate marketing. This is done by adding special tracking links on your website, in social media and in turn you get a referral fee. The most common Buy Now links is also a product of this.