How To Be A Top Business In 2021’s Digital Age

Though still early, 2021 looks to be a better year for business. Even with the world seemingly in turmoil, companies are expected to reach close to $5 trillion in online sales over the next 12 months. You need to be one of these organizations.

Even with vaccines being distributed, eCommerce is going to remain a powerhouse this year and beyond. Thus, you need to be at the top of your game. Here are a few tips on how to excel in 2021’s digital age.

Promote Your Strengths

For your business’ survival, you created an essential website during the peak of the pandemic. This allowed you to bring in online sales and maintain a revenue stream. You tweaked the site over time, yet it remains much the same as it did when first introduced.

It’s time to fix that in 2021 by promoting the company’s strengths. You sell something that is probably unique to the market, but no one except your regular customers knows it. Thus, it’s time to let people know.

For instance, you might be a company like Atlas Barriers that sells protection equipment like crash rated bollards. This isn’t something one can find at their local big box store. Therefore, you need to promote the subject matter expertise of your salespeople for these items. This will eventually draw new customers.

Interface and Operations

Though your company sells the best products in your industry, the consumers who should purchase them might not be able to do so. The reason is the website isn’t easy to navigate, too slow to process, or both. The solution is to tweak the interface and operations.

This is done via a user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) development process. The former smooths out the front-end of the website for more comfortable use. The latter enhances the compilation and display of data. The better the UI & UX, the more people turn to your site for purchases.

UI & UX development is best done through a team of coders. Subject matter experts in the industry know what’s required to improve your website’s operations. Though it will take a bite from your budget, the return on investment evens things out.

Go Beyond the Website

A website was probably sufficient for your business as you ramped up the eCommerce side during the pandemic. Now that it has a permanent place on the internet, it’s time to expand its influence. Creating an app does this.

There are several sites where you can use templates to produce a mobile application that fits your business. Like the website, it should have seamless UI & UX operations. Furthermore, customers who download the app must have the ability to change their security settings. Both pieces of technology entice a potential user to download the app to their phone for quick sales.

Update Your Digital Security

The above suggestions are well and good but won’t increase a customer’s confidence unless you update your digital security. Not only is this virus protection on the application and web server but also for the devices that store personal data.

The latter is critical. Customers trust you to protect their personally identifiable information (PII). If you get hacked because you decide security upgrades aren’t cost-effective, then your customers will leave in droves. You have to invest in upgrading to the most secure platforms available and let your customers know about it.

Move to the Cloud

Should you decide the costs are too significant for a security infrastructure upgrade, then the next logical step would be to move your data to a Cloud environment. First, you’ll pay for a service that should have the latest security protocols installed. Second, you’ll be part of an environment that can be expanded as your business grows.

Third, your salespeople should be able to access the Cloud data from anywhere with the right software interfaces. Thus, rather than returning to the office each day to spend hours inputting data, they’ll be able to do this from remote locations. As a result, their productivity increases.

These are some of the steps needed to become a top business in 2021’s digital age. Apply them gently and one at a time to get a feel for how each one works for your organization.