Businesses today are in a fight for survival ever since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began. Millions of small businesses worldwide face economic challenges as COVID-19 forces everyone to stay indoors, bringing our lives to a grinding halt. To stay afloat, business owners have to develop newer strategies to continue doing business and engage with their customers.
Despite these attempts, many businesses have failed, forcing them to shut down. Meanwhile, others survived by relying on innovations to generate revenue and pursue new opportunities in the hopes the economy will soon recover. The current situation is especially difficult for businesses operating in distressed areas. This led many entrepreneurs to join the list of HUBZone companies to gain preferential access to federal procurement opportunities.
Aside from seeking relief options, reliance on technology opens doors for companies to keep their operations running and reach out to customers despite physical distancing restrictions. Relying your business on technology tools may be a daunting task, especially for non-tech-savvy entrepreneurs, but it can be the secret to propel your business towards success.
If you want your business to thrive in this uncertain period, here are three basic digital tools you can utilize to navigate the business landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marketing tools
The emergence of technology has produced a host of the latest marketing strategies to keep with the changing consumer demands and the ever-growing digital climate. As more people spend a considerable time online during the pandemic, entrepreneurs should utilize these tools to reach more customers and drive revenue. These include social media platforms, search engine optimization (SEO), email campaigns, content creation, and pay-per-click advertising.
When used well, each marketing strategy is a powerful tool to grow a business online. It paves the way for businesses to access a remarkable source of customers and traffic for brands. But despite the opportunities presented by these tools, many businesses are still hesitant to jump on the digital marketing bandwagon because of the expenses involved.
Hiring a marketing agency may seem a daunting task for startups and small businesses, especially if they’re short on financial resources. But one of the great appeals of marketing tools is they are affordable and easy to use for managing campaigns. One example is social media management platforms such as HootSuite, making it possible to schedule and organize content from a single platform.
Modern marketing strategies employ a big-picture method by allowing integration and campaign analytics with other digital platforms. Some even offer guides and tutorials to help marketing teams employ the ideal practices that work for the business and result in better ROI.
Machine-learning software
One of the most appealing advantages of digital tools is the ability to gather data. It gives businesses the power to learn about their customers and the efficiency of their processes to make adjustments or key changes to the business to boost profitability.
The challenge of data monitoring lies in knowing how to use the data to spot the weak and strong points of the business. This is where machine-learning tools come in that track data trends automatically and offer insights about what the figures really mean.
Machine-learning software provides data analysis of business behavior using certain metrics that work for your system. From this paradigm, machine-learning tools can determine if any changes in the system are unusual. These changes can trigger alerts to inform you of the emerging trends affecting the ecosystem of the business. In turn, entrepreneurs can use the data and numbers to learn relevant information about their business and apply significant improvements.
Virtual assistants
An entire day is never enough for entrepreneurs to manage everything in their business. This is especially true for solo entrepreneurs who have to manage the entire business without having their own workforce. While there are plenty of tasks involved in managing a startup, most of these are repetitive, mundane activities that have no significant impact on business growth.
One of the emerging business trends today is the use of automation tools or virtual assistants for overworked entrepreneurs. Automation tools offer a wide range of capabilities from sending reminders, tracking expenses, generating contracts, or managing clients. With strategic use, virtual assistants take out unnecessary burdens from entrepreneurs, giving them time to devote their efforts to worthwhile tasks that offer greater contributions to the business.
No matter what industry you’re in, using the right tech tools can make a difference for your business. Despite the daily challenges presented by COVID-19, technology offers a way to reinvent or adapt your business and keep the doors open. It may not be easy to reinvent your business according to the current demand, but it can propel you to adopt new practices and stay afloat in these trying times.
