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In Business & Blogging

Preparing Your Digital Business For 2019

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on

digital business

2018 is fast approaching its conclusion. That said, there’s still plenty of time to make the changes needed to prepare your business for bigger and better things in 2019. I’m already planning and putting things in place to make 2019 my best business to date. If taking your digital business to the next level is your big plan for 2019, why not get a head start with these simple suggestions? 

Outsource and Utilise Your Network

The benefits of outsourcing are impossible to deny. Not only does it allow you to gain the best support at a more affordable price, it enables you to build a bigger team without increasing the size of your offices or other business premises.   

With a digital business, you’ll also have a chance to build a network of experts from around the globe. When not outsourcing to others, use your network to learn, to sharpen your skills and to discover more efficient ways to move forward into 2019.

Reduce Overhead Waste

Many business owners will enter the new year with a plan to cut their expenditure by a certain percentage, but you should take a different approach. There’s nothing wrong with spending money to make it. The problems start when you continue to unnecessarily overspend.

Reducing waste can be achieved in several ways. Reviewing business insurance quotes to unlock the best coverage at the best price is a great starting point. Similar sentiments can be used to save money on energy bills, office supplies, and various other items.

Furthermore, embracing smarter business habits should be high on the agenda. Encourage a culture where saving electricity, going paperless, and taking responsibility are vital. The extra money can be invested in far more important areas. This was one of my goals for 2017/2018 and it has saved me money in the long run and paid dividends.

Upgrade Your Online Presence

 As a digital business, perfecting your online presence should always rank highly. The world of digital marketing is constantly changing. If you want to survive in 2019, getting your business on Google My Business for example, will be vital. Embracing social media influencers will help too (yet don’t get caught up in the hype).

Your website will naturally continue to play the most integral part in your business’ online presence. Investing in new payment methods allows you to accept even more sales from a growing audience. Meanwhile, switching to Just Host service can provide greater stability. Regular downtime is not an option.

Customers will make judgements within seconds of interacting with the site. Positive reviews, a great layout, a strong search engine presence, and a large (authentic and relevant) social media following will benefit your brand. Consider launching an app too, and you’ll be able to send notifications right to service user’s pockets.

Improve Customer Care

Mistakes happen in business. There’s not much you can do about this other than do everything in your power to keep the errors down to a minimum. However, by responding to the issues in the most positive fashion, you’ll find that customers are far more likely to forgive you.

First and foremost, you should learn to establish a clear set of terms and conditions, for example, a fair returns policy. When coupled with a website FAQ, customers will have a far clearer understanding of where they stand.

Social media is a great solution for handling enquiries. Meanwhile, a virtual receptionist can aid your telephone communications. 

Target New Marketplaces

If you are in sales, look at ways of meeting new customers. Setting up an eBay store or an Amazon store can be a great way to reach new clients. They’ll trust the third-party platforms, which can give you a chance to gain their trust as a brand. This can be a great way to get rid of surplus stock too.

If nothing else, the increased visibility on those platforms further enhances the brand image and presence. For the sake of your on-site sales as well as the revenue as a whole, this is a step in the right direction. Just be sure to do it in the correct fashion.

Start To Show Personality

A digital business has many advantages over small ones working in brick and mortar stores, including being able to reach vast numbers of people online. Good quality photos and videos are particularly great ways to provide insight into you, your brand and/or your business. The Canon G7X Mark II review underlines the importance of a great camera. Don’t forget that it’s equally necessary to create great content too (trust me on this one, I’m a copywriter).

Listen To Your Digital Business Audience

It’s easy to get caught up in the ideas that you love. Ultimately, you cannot lose sight of the fact your business should be tailored to suit the customers. It’s their decisions that will ultimately decide whether the business succeeds or fails. With this in mind, they deserve your respect at all times.

 Many businesses forget to actually ask clients what they want. Use customer questionnaires and focus groups to gain further insight. By making changes based on those quantifiable results, the hopes of taking your venture to the next level are greatly increased.

A business that evolves with the best interests of the customers in mind will always do well. Get the ball rolling in the final weeks of 2018, and this will set you up perfectly for a bigger and better 2019. I’m on with this and it’s exciting! Are you ready to take your digital business into 2019?

 

In Business & Blogging

Secure Passwords Are Essential

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on
secure passwords
Secure passwords are crucial to online security. A Stormtrooper guard is not enough.

Have you ever been hacked? I have. It wasn’t fun and it cost me money. The whole experience made me re-think my internet security habits, especially my secure passwords.  Given the wealth of information we host, share and collect online, whether you’re running a business online or use it for everyday browsing and organisation your passwords are important. 

Despite being so important people are opening themselves up to vulnerabilities thanks to not using secure passwords.


People Still Choose Easy-To-Crack Passwords

Many of us still pick simple passwords. These might be our pet’s names or our birthdays; we still default to basics, mostly so that we can remember our many passwords. In business, the failure to choose secure passwords could cost you. Not only could using Snowy’s name as your password risk your profits; it also exposes customer info. Hackers can crack passwords like these without even needing equipment. To make sure it doesn’t happen, be smart. Always include upper and lower case letters, as well as numbers and/or symbols. 


People Write Passwords Down

The trouble is that complicated passwords like those mentioned above are tricky to remember. That’s good in many ways, but it also means a lot of us fall foul to writing them down somewhere. You may keep them on a post-it near your desk, or even save them in a computer file. You don’t need me to tell you why that’s bad. If passwords are written down in physical or digital form, there’s a risk that the wrong person will see them. It’s crucial, then, that you memorise passwords without making a note of them.

There are plenty of memory methods you could use to do this. If you have a whole team, it’s worth turning to sso solutions (single sign-on solutions) like those offered by ProofID. This means that staff members only need to remember one password to gain access to everything they need. Thus, there’s more chance of them being able to remember without jotting sensitive information down.

 

Shared Passwords Lead to Exposure

Within a company, it’s also not unusual for team members to share a password to certain applications. This is a fast way to make business easier and can seem like a no-brainer. That is of course until you consider that the more people who use that one password, the more risk there is of a breach. It is so important to make sure that if you share applications with others, as I sometimes do with clients, that you utilise secure passwords.

Secure Passwords Summary

My hack was some time ago and thankfully not caused by a password issue. It could have been though. These days I’m GDPR ready, secure passwords are in place, I use an encrypted online password manager and I don’t use the same password twice. I make changing those secure passwords periodically an ongoing business admin task and once I’ve finished using an application with someone else, I change that password straight away. With a little effort, you may enjoy the peace of mind that comes with using secure passwords on all of your devices and across all of your accounts and sites.

 

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