Businesses everywhere, and small businesses specifically, have been challenged the past few months to maintain sales and grow their business. Many business leaders are recognizing that the current unusual circumstances are creating opportunities to start doing business in new ways. This is why we’ve put together some important elements for growing your brand and strengthening sales even during the pandemic.
1. Build your online storefront
This is perhaps the most essential step in our list. Businesses who’ve never set up online methods for generating sales are now embracing the idea of online storefronts, enabling them to sell to their customers online. This is a necessity when driving sales and changes the game for all businesses, and especially small businesses. With plenty of low/no cost options on the market, including WooCommerce and Amazon Seller Central, this is a great time to start growing your brand. And while this might not have been a priority for a lot of businesses in the past, more and more are adopting this model as the new normal sales environment.
2. Integrate it with your ERP
Storefront integration is a vital part of maintaining and filling orders, and without an integration, orders would have to be manually entered into your system. Sage 100 ecommerce integration automates order entry, saving time and eliminating errors, which keeps you focused on selling and helps you fulfill customer orders quickly and accurately.
3. Get more efficient with warehouse management
Customers have never been as focused on finding reliable companies as they are now, making efficiency and deliverability key players in your business model. Warehouse management can error-proof your processes through the use of automated data collection and other technologies to streamline the steps involved in receiving inventory and shipping orders. Look for opportunities to use warehouse technologies to create competitive advantage and stand out from the crowd with better processes that translate to an excellent customer experience.
4. Grow your brand through social networking
Social Media and email marketing consumption have increased dramatically since the onset of this pandemic, which is increasing the opportunity to get in front of your customers and build your online market. Creating social media content and email marketing campaigns will not only attract new customers, it will also grow your brand awareness and bring increased traffic to your storefront. An active presence on these platforms is essential for taking advantage of today’s online business environment.
5. Connect with your customers through caring support and customer service
Initiating the steps above are super important and lead to success and growth in your company, but especially during the times we face now, support and customer service are where you can really shine. If your company is great at interacting with customers this will naturally lead to customers wanting to talk to you, and they’re going to notice your friendliness and care now more than ever.
