Today I visited an actual shop for the first time in 10 days.
It was a lovely shop with a friendly and expert owner, who I’ll call Lydia. She sells a range of workwear items, uniforms and sportswear. She admitted that after having a record breaking Q4 last year, Q1 this year has been really quiet. For retailers experiencing a dip, it means the continuing paranoia of “will business bounce back or has it died a death?”
We chatted about the merits of having a high streetversus an onlinepresence as a profit-protection strategy. It’s a tough call, but we both came to the conclusion that it appears to be a lingering act of faith that keeps a shop open, long after it has lost financial viability.
But how do you migrate your business online effectively? Especially if you admit to being a little technologically challenged. Well, here are 3 tips to get you started.
1. Get your website sorted
Here are 4 companies that offer great (and cost effective) web templates. Each offers a range of commercial sites that can be fully customised to suit your brand and require very little in the way of teccie skills (although some are easier than others). I’d go so far as to say it’s quite fun matching a site to your business – and it has the unexpected benefit of getting you to be more brand-aware.
- Wix
- Site 123
- Square Space
- Go Daddy
2. Get your content sorted
Once you’ve made the site look visually stunning, you may want to get the content sorted. This is where you decide on the ‘tone of voice’ and the words you prefer to use. Not a problem if there’re just a few employees. But if you have large teams, your communications need to have an on-brand, congruent appeal – from your web copy to your sales brochures – to the conversations your employees have with potential customers over the phone. People, and by that I mean customers, will start to recognise your company as a distinct, trusted brand that they feel comfortable with, and offer loyalty to.
There are lots of great copywriting companies out there – just make sure that they understand who your customers are. A group of award-winning copywriters may have a well defined and really cool voice, but that may not match yourvoice and it may not appeal to yourbuyers.
3. Get your videos sorted
This is where we come in. A video will help customers (and I mean this non-judgmentally) who can’t be bothered to read about your offer, your brand values, your sensational team. So instead, why not just show them? The Video Advert Company specialises in all kinds of video production from live action to animated explainers and we offer great value. A 30-second animated explainer costs just £150. If you want us to add in a professional voiceover track is £290. The fees take account of everything including a musical soundtrack.
Using video on your websites helps search engines in three key ways. They increase click through rates, improve retention rates and build backlinks due to the fact that people are more likely to share videos than anything else.
