Planning the next 12 months for your business is never easy, but currently, you even could argue it is impossible. However, your competition will be drawing up their plans, so you need to as well, and a crucial part of that will be deciding which services you will be investing in during the coming 12 months.
The problem you’ll quickly find is that it’s so difficult to separate fact from fiction when you get told this or that service will transform your business overnight. A single bad call can mean your business has lost some of what might have already been a tight budget.
However, with enough research and the correct information, you can find the best services for your business, and they might even seem a little cheaper than you might have expected. To help you on your way, here are some of the things that have to happen in your business in the next 12 months in a quick and easy guide so you can get the ball rolling as fast as possible.
First Of All, You’ll Need To Invest Time & Money In Your Website
You should know by now that your website is a key aspect of your business; in many cases, there is very little that is anywhere near as important. So, it’s clear you need to put some time and money into it, but you might be wondering what it is you need to do. As a starting point, these are some things that can help your website, and the good news is they are reasonably cheap to do:
- You need to invest in chatbots to help guide your customers around your website. These provide a basic level of customer service to make the experience more ‘user friendly’ for your visitors.
- You also need to invest in website maintenance services. These will help your website stay in shape and keep it functional, meaning that your website is less likely to become slow and overcrowded.
- In addition to this, you will need to make sure that you have the best service model for your desired target audience. This might be a little difficult to pinpoint; however, with enough research, you should be able to design your website to make it more appealing to your primary target audience.
Next, You Need To Invest In Your Business’ Physical Security
Investing in your business’ physical security is something you might consider every bit as important as your website. However, if you have all of the necessary equipment, tech, and alarms you need, but you can’t find a surveillance operator to keep an eye on security, looking into reliable monitoring solutions can help you plug that hole and protect your business.
Doing this can help you keep your products and your customers safe as you’ll be able to easily investigate any shoplifting, robbery, and potential assault that might happen within your business. These are precautions that every business owner should take. Whether your office or store is situated in a ‘rough’ area or not, as it not only shows your employees and your customers that their safety is your priority, it also means you can get down to the bottom of problems faster.
At The Same Time, You Need To Invest In Your Business’ Cybersecurity
Put simply, there are as many threats online as there are walking the streets, so you need to make sure that both your physical security and your online security are at the top of their game. This might sound a little unnecessary, especially if you are just a good old-fashioned ‘bricks and mortar’ store and you’re not too interested in e-commerce.
However, it can prove very useful, especially when it comes to the interest of the safety of the devices that have become a necessary part of any business, whether they sell online or not. As a business owner, you will have access to many people’s sensitive data and information, meaning you will have something worth stealing in the eyes of cybercriminals. Investing in cybersecurity services can help your company remain in business and not go bankrupt due to a very sudden business cyberattack, which might prove devastating to your company.
To help protect yourself in the event of a cyberattack, you should have already invested in useful hardware or software such as firewalls and anti-virus software. These can make an excellent first line of defense against any smaller cybercriminals trying to get into your business and your devices. This can also protect your reputation as a business owner too, which might be equally as precious.
You Also Need To Invest In Your Business’ Advertising
Lastly, you need to make sure that you invest in your business’ advertising, but it can be difficult to know where to start with everything else that’s going on. You need to make sure you represent your business accurately to bring audiences for your brand that will spend money and not just waste the time of everybody involved.
There is one tool that can tick all of those boxes and make your time as a business owner far easier, which is using social media to your advantage. It cannot be stressed enough that social media is an excellent way to bring in new customers and be able to pinpoint your target audience and sell to them very cheaply. Using social media to post business updates is a great way of keeping your customers and potential new customers interested in what you are offering.
You can do this by using tags, trends, and hashtags to make your business posts more visible to those who might be interested. If you have the budget to spare, you might also consider using social media influencer marketing which can be another way to directly market to an audience through another creator marketing your content to their audience.
You don’t need to understand exactly how it works, as long as you understand that it can be especially useful if you are thinking about a product launch or you’re set up to take on a huge amount of new customers in a short space of time.
