4 Reasons Why Small Businesses Must Embrace New Marketing Technology
Technology is rapidly evolving. Even in just the past few years, the digital landscape has evolved greatly. Smart devices make it easier than ever to gather information and find products or services. Social media has completely shifted the dynamic for online communication. As a business owner, the constant evolution of technology can be a lot to follow. It may feel easier to simply stick with what you know. After all, you’ve made it this far, right?
Holding that mentality for too long can actually be a hindrance to your business. Learning the latest trends and tools may seem like a daunting task, but it’s beneficial for your business in the long run! Refusing to embrace new technology can set you behind the competition and could be a deciding factor when a potential customer is considering your services.
1 // To Communicate Better
Word-of-mouth is certainly a reliable marketing tool, but what happens if you want to promote a limited time offer? What if you want to engage directly with your loyal customers? Adopting new technologies expands and improves the way businesses communicate. Not only can you share information easier and faster, but now you are given a two-way communication street with your audience. You can respond in real time and have the opportunity to build a relationship with the consumer!
One of the tried and true technologies for improving communication is email marketing. While this isn't necessarily a new technology, it is still very relevant in today’s media landscape.It’s an inexpensive, consistent resource that allows for personalized communication with your audience. When someone signs up for your mailing list they are asking you for your content because they find value in it. A great beginner-friendly email marketing platform is something like MailChimp for you to build your audience list and send out emails with their pre-designed templates.
2 // To Stay Engaged
Engaging with your audience is crucial if you want to retain customers or reach new customers, which is where social networking comes in. What can we say that hasn’t already been said about social media? It’s a vital resource for engaging new customers, creating relationships, and providing helpful information for your audience. For effective strategies on leveraging your social platforms, check out our blog post here.
With the “why” understood, let’s explore more on the ”how” of engaging with your customers on social media. Keep in mind that the goal here should be to create customer loyalty and build brand awareness. Set aside time during your day to engage with those mentioning your brand, commenting on your posts, or responding to any direct messages in your inbox. Genuine responses can go a long way in building an authentic relationship!
3 // To Simplify Workflows
We are a huge advocate for establishing automated workflows across your business. Why work harder when you can work smarter? With automations, much of the heavy lifting is done for you when a customer does a specific action.
Let’s say you include a download link on an email and want to track who clicks the link. You can set up a workflow so that when a customer clicks on that download link, they are assigned a tag indicating they downloaded the file. You can even take it a step further by having the automation add them into another email funnel that follows up with them after a specified period of time.
This also works for project management. If you are collaborating with a team, you know the hassle of tracking which tasks have been completed and the back-and-forth messaging to get on the same page. Workflow automations in a project management tool, like Monday for example, can automatically alert someone when a task has been completed or is ready for the next step!
One side note is that there is work that must be done upfront for any automations, but it’s ultimately worth the work! You’ll find that you are doing less once the automations are set up, leaving yourself more time to focus on other projects.
4 // To Stay Relevant
One of the most important reasons for embracing new technologies is to remain relevant. Consumers today are making decisions quickly and often through the use of technology. They’ll look you up on social media, read reviews, check Google, view your website, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If you aren’t maintaining a presence on social media or creating a mobile-optimized website, you could be losing potential customers.
One of our suggestions to remedy this issue is a digital audit. First, evaluate the current state of your digital platforms. Next, take a look at your competition and take note of the trends that you are seeing. What technologies are they using that you are not? What improvements can you make to keep up with or get ahead of the competition? Consider a SWOT analysis, which walks you through evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business.
Evaluating your digital platforms can be challenging and time consuming, which is why we are here to help. We’re offering a FREE digital audit to help you better understand if your website and social media are helping you and making a great first impression on your target audience. Our comprehensive audit will detail the places you can make immediate changes to help you increase traffic and provide helpful insights for building trust with your audience.
