In a post-covid era more and more businesses are turning to remote working and internet-based services. For any company to exist today, it needs some kind of online presence and technological aptitude. Here we will provide a few basic tips on how to effectively run your business online.
- Make sure you can make and accept online payments. The basis of any business is to earn money through the exchange of goods or services, and these days, most financial transactions are conducted via the internet. Rather than old-fashioned bank transfers or invoices, you need an effective method for customers to send cash instantly. Many companies use financing software to help with the managing of their accounts and services – see FreshBooks.com as an example. FreshBooks have an integrated payment app to make accepting online payment easy and stress-free.
- Maintain an online presence through marketing and social media. Having a presence online goes far beyond just having a professional company website, you will need to utilise social media and email marketing in order to stay relevant. You can outsource your entire digital marketing to a specialised provider, or you can sign up for various services to help you manage your social accounts (such as Hootsuite or MailChimp). In addition to social media posts, you could start a company blog to regularly share more extensive information and engage with your customer base.
- Become an expert in online communication. With face-to-face meetings becoming less and less common people are turning to online communication methods like email and video calling. Whilst the old-fashioned phone call is still an option, the younger generations are much more comfortable and familiar with conversing via the internet.
Emails are always a valuable form of communicating as they can be read and responded to at any time. Emailing makes it is easy to keep an accurate record of exactly what has been discussed – it is also the ideal way to exchange documents (which can be now be signed using digital signatures, completely eradicating the need for printing or scanning). You should also be prepared to make use of video conferencing software, like Skype or Zoom, as this is the perfect alternative to meeting in person and can make a conversation much more personable than over the phone or via email.
Take your internet security seriously. It is always a good idea to outsource your IT services to a specialised company if you cannot afford to employ IT technicians yourself, as they can protect your devices and servers and prevent any disruption to the running of your business. It is vital that you protect anything you store online such as customer details or confidential documents and safeguard yourself against cyber-attacks – an IT-based problem can completely halt your operations and needs to be rectified as soon as possible in order to prevent loss of business or profits. If you decide to outsource, it would be a good idea to find a service that offers 24-hour support to make sure you are never left in the lurch.
