If you have plans to expand your business in the future, now is the time to prioritize your digital infrastructure. Today, Cascade North offers a few tips on how you and your IT team can prepare your digital presence for profits as you grow throughout 2022 and beyond.
Make Sure Your Branding is On Point
Your brand is a collection of icons, images, colors, and text (among other things) that helps people identify your business. Marketing firm Accelity likens your brand as the face and voice of your business. Make sure that your website and social media pages represent your app consistently, cohesively, and continually. One thing you can do is to use a banner-making app, which can be customized with all of your branding elements plus video and animation. While you could hire a graphic designer, using a banner template is a cheaper and streamlined way to customize the visual elements of your social media, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and your website.
Integrate with Your CRM
Your website can serve as a great tool to capture email addresses so that you can better maintain a customer database. Ideally, you’re already using a customer relationship management (CRM) program to help you keep up with your clients. Integrate your website and CRM using apps, such as Salesforce, Hubspot, or Freshsales. Your e-commerce site should also link with your resource planning programs so that you can best manage inventory, shipping, and other aspects of the fulfillment process.
Focus on Optimization
You’ve probably heard about SEO before, but that’s just adding content so customers can find you based on keywords, right? Nope. While content is critical to your search engine results pages, you must also prioritize some “back end” processes, such as optimizing for location. As more and more location-based tools (think GPS and mobile phones) wind up in the hands of consumers, having your online listings set for your location is crucial. Other ways to best optimize your website include making sure it loads quickly, reducing the number of plug-ins it utilizes, and, perhaps most importantly, confirming that it’s fully functional on mobile devices.
Your website has to grow with your business. Failure to prioritize digital security, branding, optimization, mobile capabilities, and system integrations can stunt your expansion efforts. Remember, it’s called the Digital Age for a reason, and your website and online presence are your greatest digital assets.
Cascade North designs modern, responsive websites that provide value from day one. Get a free proposal today!