Six months ago, when we were welcoming in 2020, no one could have predicted a global pandemic shutting down the world, destroying economies, bringing industries down.
Now the question is – Is your website valid in today’s competitive market?
Businesses have been hard hit during this pandemic, and many found out very quickly the need for a strong online presence and an e-commerce requirement if their businesses were going to have any chance of surviving.
Many organisations without e-commerce options, scrambled to create websites, turned to social media to advertise their products and keep their followers informed, while trying to ensure that their business remained relevant.
Nielsen has released research predicting that consumer shopping habits have and are going to change, with more and more consumers looking for online options when making purchases. A collaboration from We Are Social, Hootsuite and Kepios gives us this visual representation of online shopping growth during the month of April:
Is your website valid
If your business has not developed a strong online strategy as yet, now is definitely the time. Ask yourself, what will make my companies’ website relevant in today’s world?
- What worked in the past may not work in the future. If your company relied heavily on face-to-face interaction, don’t panic, a new communication strategy is what you need. Use your website to interact with current and perspective customers – informative videos, having someone online to answer questions immediately and interact with customers while they are on your site, webinars and online meetings, all create an opportunity to interact. The all-important call to action button will help customers get in touch; being able to chat to someone about the products provides the feeling of being in control.
- Make sure that your site is constantly updated with new and interesting content. Chat to your consumers through blogs and articles – be the place where they get information and know that they can turn to your brand when they need an answer. If you haven’t yet, make sure that you are up to date with all government Covid-19 website requirements.
- Although most people are sitting behind their screens at home, the misconception is that they have time on their hands – they don’t. Your website needs to be easy to navigate and shouldn’t have your consumer searching for what they need. A well thought through navigation will keep consumers interested and coming back.
- Value is important and times are tough, consumers are shopping around more than ever and are exposed to a host of online options that they may never have previously considered.
Shopping online was already growing, but COVID 19 has increased the rate of growth beyond all expectations and introduced virgin online consumers to the world of ecommerce and opened the eyes of sporadic online buyers to other available products and markets.
Businesses looking to navigate their way through this pandemic and beyond, need to be looking online for not only growth, but for survival.
