Welcoming The New Digital Age After COVID-19

Operating a business through 2020 has been tough for many Australians. If your business didn’t already have a prominent focus on ecommerce and digital marketing, then you’ve probably been hit the hardest by this COVID-19 situation. As things begin to go back to normal after the lockdowns ease, the importance of building your online presence has never been more important. Think of this as the new digital age.

So, what does this new digital age after COVID mean for your business, and how can you welcome it with open arms? 

Preparing Your Website For The Future

The first part of welcoming this new digital age is by emphasising the importance of a high-quality website. If you work in retail and your products can be sold online in conjunction with your physical storefront, then they should be. The number of opportunities that you are missing out on by limiting yourself to in-store sales only is enormous. 

If you do have an existing online store, but it’s becoming outdated and in need of some love, then the following information may be useful to you too. Websites are like an old computer – technology moves so fast and if you don’t keep things up to date, your systems will become unreliable and lower quality after some time.

The importance of a premium website isn’t only for ecommerce, either. Regardless of the industry that you work in, your business needs to be found online. When people are looking for your services or want to know if they can trust your business with their needs, they will look up your website online first. If your website looks outdated, unprofessional or unappealing, consumers will think your business operates the exact same way.

So how do you prepare your new or existing site for the future? 

Firstly, your website should be modern, clean and professional. It should be easy to navigate so customers can find what they are looking for, and it should be a quick and easy checkout process to reduce abandoned carts. 

Additionally, your website should represent the true value of your business to build trust with new visitors. Think of your website like your physical retail store. You wouldn’t open up shop if your premise was unorganised, messy and full of confusing checkout processes. Your online store is no different – it should welcome new customers with open arms and “wow” them with the aesthetic, yet simple user interface. 

Remember, simple is always better! If it’s easier for a customer to close the website and find another place to purchase from, rather than continuing their search on your site, then they will leave, and you will lose the potential sale.

Another key element to improving your website is the page speed. This probably won’t surprise you, but online shoppers aren’t patient – they’re not interested in a slow website. If the page takes too long to load each time, then chances are that they will just leave the site and go elsewhere.

Take a look at the PageSpeed Insights Tool by Google and see how your website performs on both Mobile and Desktop. This will give you an indication on the areas for improvement, as well as what the cause of slow load times are. Typically, images are the most common cause for a slow load time, but there can be a number of other factors too. 

If you would like to have a chat about how to improve your existing website, or if you would like assistance in developing a new website, then please feel free to get in touch with the Spacey Studios team. We would love to discuss how we can assist!

Building Your Digital Marketing Strategy

The second part to welcoming this new digital age is to rethink your current marketing strategy. A lot of people will continue to practice social distancing and isolation through the rest of the year. With this, comes an increase in online browsing and social media use. 

Where should the focus of your marketing strategy be then? Digital, of course!

Social Media

Social media advertising should be a significant focus of your digital strategy. People use social media daily, so a combination of organic and paid content distributed across the relevant platforms is a great opportunity to put your media in front of consumers, clients, leads and relevant professionals.

The perfect content is short, sharp and engaging. Your copy should fit in with the communication style of your target audience, while still remaining short enough to fit within the viewable content (before you have to click “see more”). The perfect visuals are eye-catching and pop out from the user’s social feed, so they engage with the content and don’t just scroll past it without a second glance.

Your target audience is also extremely important. Don’t just target 18-50 year old’s in Australia because you think it will reach as many people as possible – this is a waste of your time and money. Instead, develop a picture of your ideal customer in your mind and target your campaign to them. This doesn’t mean get so specific that you’re only targeting 18 year old males from Lilydale that own an iPhone and play basketball on Saturday. But always add locations, age brackets (such as 20-30 years old), a range of behaviours, interests and demographics to boost your performance and reach a highly relevant audience.

Retargeting ads are also a great way to reconnect with consumers that have visited your website or social media profiles recently, so you can get them back to your website at a later point. All your need is a Facebook Pixel installed in your website for tracking and analytics, then set up this retargeting audience in Facebook Business Manager so you can use it on your retargeting campaigns.

Google

The use of Google Ads allows you to position your content in search results, website display ad placements, YouTube placements, as well as other digital placements that operate with the Google Ads network. 

Likewise to your social media strategy, consider the target audience for this content and really think about who your ads would appeal to. This will be important in driving the right kind of people to your website. You don’t want to target anyone and everyone – it’s an ineffective use of your money.

For your ad content, this should also be short, sharp and simple too. Google ads are typically displayed in conjunction with other advertisers competing for the same audience, so what makes your business standout and why should they click your ad? Take the time to think about how you can make your ad engaging to connect with your target audience. 

Google is one big competition – the best ads will come up on top, while the lower performing ads will show less frequently at a higher cost.

Developing Your Strategy

Map out your strategy on paper and plan it out properly. Don’t just open up your ad manager account and set up your campaign then and there. Use your plan to perfect the campaign strategy, then seek feedback from others before you go live. 

The essential things that you should be considering for each element of your plan includes:

• The objective
• The target audience
• The ad content & copy
• The budget
• The schedule (specific or ongoing campaign)
• KPIs to track performance

Don’t limit yourself to just this though – there are many other things you could consider in your plan too, including A/B testing, advertising phases (such as awareness, engagement, retargeting), landing pages, and more!

If digital advertising is outside of your comfort zone, or if you simply don’t have time to manage your digital campaign, let’s connect to discuss your needs. Spacey Studios would love to bring your digital marketing strategy to life!