There are certain areas of your business you need to pay more attention to in 2018 in light of the rapidly evolving entrepreneurial space, failure of which may result in business failure sooner or later.
This is a fact known to many business owners. What many people, however, do not know is which particular areas exactly to focus on and improve. This can create a major dilemma.
On the other hand, having clear-cut KPI makes troubleshooting and optimization a tad easier and the job of being a CEO or founder more enjoyable.
In this article, I highlight 4 key areas of your business you need to pay more attention to in 2018 and going forward because as we know it is cheaper to pay attention than to pay dearly, but first:
1.Customers
Customers, especially repeat customers (for non-luxury brands) are the life of a business, without them, you won’t have or be in business. This is why customer loyalty is so immensely important. Meeting and beating customer expectations will keep them grinning from ear to ear and keep your business wheels spinning for a long time to come.
2.Competitors
On the other hand, if you (repeatedly) fail to at least meet customer expectations you run the risk of losing customers to competitors who’re working hard to meet and exceed customer expectations. These competitors can capitalize on loopholes to lure your hard-won customers over if you fail to pay attention.
4 Areas of Your Business to Pay More Attention
1.Your Business Name
Yes, your business name. This is as important as it gets. Whereas it may seem unimportant to you the same cannot be said about your customers. It was important enough for investors to pay $872m to acquire the domain name Cars.Com. There are several other million dollar domain name purchases.
It is also important enough for your competitors to hire business name strategists, consultants, copywriters or use business name generators to generate business name ideas for their companies, startups or ventures.
For businesses going global, this is even more important. Your fancy business name may translate terribly in another language like Chinese.
Another key reason to pay more attention to your business name is the high cost of a business name change. Down the line, some companies need to change their names to reflect growth or expansion. Depending on company size such rebranding efforts can be pricey. It is estimated to have cost Utah $50m to change from UTA to TDU.
A good business name will also earn you good search points. Customers do not have all the time to try to figure out the right spelling of complicated business names or website addresses, which leads us to
2.Your Business Website
Speaking of websites, your business website can tell if you mean business in 2018 or not, especially for e-commerce or B2C companies.
Currently mobile accounts for 57% of all Google search traffic, ahead of desktop. Hence, it is not just enough to have a website, mobile responsive sites are the new trend, thanks to Google Mobile-First Index which gives preference to mobile responsive sites in search ranking.
Similarly, a slow loading website that fails to load in 3 seconds scares 54% of visitors away, much of whom will tell on you and 79% of whom will never return to do business with you again.
User interface and navigation are other important considerations for your business website. A well designed, easy-to-navigate website is bae for site visitors. No one likes to get lost on or offline.
A weblog or blog is another key consideration. Constant high-quality blog content will continuously drive targeted traffic to your website, all you need is a solid content marketing strategy.
3.Your Business Social Media
With over 2b monthly active users on Facebook alone, 800 million on Instagram and billions of others on other social networks, it is almost suicidal to ignore social media marketing, especially for B2C companies.
Facebook Messenger for Business, Instagram for Business and co, are all geared towards connecting businesses with users who have shared or similar interests.
With engagement soaring on most of these platforms, smart businesses are looking for ways to protect their products or services to users who now spend even more time online than ever.
It is not enough to have a Facebook or Instagram account alone. Following a definite social media strategy does the magic. Posting regularly at peak engagement periods have been known to yield positive results.
You can have dedicated staff, virtual assistants or freelancers manage your social media marketing or dedicate a few minutes each day to attend to it if a sole entrepreneur.
4.Customer Service
As businesses grow most tend to grow farther and further from their customers, taking longer to reach and hear from the owner. Often this is a direct consequence of unmitigated growth.
One of the key reasons for small business success is closeness to customers, where the business owner knows (most) customers by the first name creating a bond of familiarity and intimacy.
As businesses grow once close customers may now need to rely on third parties to communicate with business owners to whom they once felt close. This may create alienation resulting in abandonment.
Smart business owners know this and ensure that customers continue to feel connected with their brand irrespective of size, a connection necessary for commerce.
According to Gartner, 64% of people say customer experience is more important than price when making a purchase.
Another report states that by 2020 customer experience will be the key brand differentiator ahead of price and product quality.
Conclusion
Some only pay lip service, still some pay attention to business process optimization. The goal of this piece is to get business owners to pay even more attention to these areas highlighted above as they can have a huge impact on the bottom line immediately or eventually; then spread such attention to other areas as they’re discovered.
About the Author
Amos Onwukwe is an AWAI trained Business/E-commerce B2B/B2C Copywriter, featured in scores of blogs including Huffington Post, Dumb Little Man, Ecommerce Nation, eCommerce Insights, Understanding E-commerce, Result First, Floship, SmallBusinessBonfire, SmallBizClub, Successful Startup 101, Business Partner Magazine, RabidOfficeMonkey, etc.
Article was written by the guest writer Amos Onwukwe.
