6 Simple Ways to Maximize Digital Opportunities in 2022
December 22, 2021 - 8 minutes read
The business world is becoming increasingly reliant on digital technologies to reach customers and grow sales. In fact, 65% of the world’s GDP is expected to be digitized by 2022. Simply put, if you’re not taking advantage of the digital opportunities available to your business, you’re leaving money and customers on the table.
Here are six simple ways to maximize digital business opportunities this year.
1. Focus on the Customer Experience
When maximizing digital opportunities, it’s important to shift your focus to the customer rather than the product. It’s all about catering to the needs and wants of your customers.
- What are your customers’ problems (pain points)?
- How can you create a personalized experience that solves their problems?
Consider your sales processes and marketing strategies. Are they customer-centric? Are they personalized? If not, how can you make them more focused on the customer? In order to do that, you must know and understand your customer.
2. Online Marketing
Digital marketing can drive traffic to your site and ultimately lead to more sales, but are you making the most of your online marketing efforts? The “build it and they will come” concept doesn’t apply to the digital world. Prospects need to be able to find you online. Here are some key questions you should be asking yourself:
- How are you attracting customers online?
- What’s your online presence like?
- Is your website easy to navigate and SEO-friendly?
- Do you have an active social media presence?
Online marketing has a lot of moving parts. To maximize this digital opportunity, take a closer look at your online presence. Could your website be better optimized or revamped to improve the user experience? Are your social media accounts collecting dust? Maybe it’s time to reinvigorate your online marketing plan.
3. Online Sales and Digital Opportunities
Selling online can help you reach a much wider audience. But beyond that, online sales are quickly becoming the preferred method of shopping for many consumers. In 2020, global e-commerce sales reached $4.28 trillion, and they are expected to reach $6.3 trillion by 2024. To put things into perspective, global e-commerce sales amounted to just $1.3 trillion in 2014.
Offering online sales is one thing, but how are you maximizing this opportunity?
Here are some things to consider:
- What is your current sales process like? Can you automate the process in any way to streamline things and save time? Taking advantage of customer relationship management systems (CRMs) and automated customer service solutions (like chatbots) can help you understand your customers and bottlenecks in your sales funnel.
- What’s the next step? Is it a sales call? Purchasing a product? Something else? Do customers understand how to take the next step? Maybe you need to revisit your calls to action.
- How are you nurturing leads who aren’t in the decision-making stage? Things like coupons, email nurturing sequences and informative content can help you gain trust and build credibility. Webinars and live videos can also help close sales for customers are ready to take the leap, but just need a little extra push.
Analyze your online marketing process with a fine-toothed comb, and find ways to improve and maximize this opportunity in the coming year.
4. Make Use Of Cloud Technology
We live in a digital world. While filing cabinets haven’t gone extinct quite yet, we’re moving in that direction thanks to cloud technology.
Today, 94% of enterprises use cloud services, and 48% of businesses store important, sensitive data on the cloud.
If your company hasn’t adopted cloud solutions, 2022 is the year to maximize this digital opportunity.
Moving to the cloud can help:
- Improve efficiency. There’s no need to print and file away documents. They can be quickly uploaded to and stored on the cloud. SaaS (software as a service) solutions make it easy to quickly access apps to streamline the workflow.
- Save time and money. Cloud-based apps and storage can be accessed anytime, anywhere, as long as your device is connected to the internet.
- Save space (no need for paper documents). Because documents are stored digitally, there’s no need for filing cabinets that take up valuable office space.
There are many ways to incorporate cloud technology into virtually every business. Explore your options and see how they streamline your processes or make your business more efficient in 2022.
5. Optimize Systems and Processes
Are your systems and processes in the stone age? Do you even have Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place?
Optimizing and documenting your systems and processes can make it easier to:
- Scale your business
- Hire new talent
- Ensure that your business can run without you
Along with written processes, you can incorporate videos, screenshots and other helpful media to clarify each step.
Your SOPs can also be stored on the cloud for easy access anytime, anywhere.
6. Hire New Talent
An estimated 45% of U.S. employees were working from home in September 2021, and that trend is expected to continue. With remote working being so widespread, 2022 is an excellent time to consider your team and which roles can be performed remotely.
When hiring in-office workers, you’re limited to the local talent pool. But when you hire remotely, you gain access to a much larger pool of talent. Someone across the state or country may be the perfect fit for an open position. With remote working, you can look beyond a 15-mile radius to find the best person for your team.
The Takeaway
As the trend towards digitization continues, it’s important to look at your business and find ways to maximize digital opportunities in the coming year. How can you optimize your business systems and processes? Can you streamline and automate your online marketing and sales? What digital or cloud solutions can make your business more efficient? Taking advantage of these digital opportunities can help your business grow in 2022 and beyond.
Do you have a plan to optimize digital opportunities this year?
If not, we can help.