The COVID-19 pandemic has incited a huge widespread shift in working practices in the UK as businesses moved to remote working, with their teams now spread across the country. This shift looks set to leave a lasting impression on how companies conduct business from now on, with flexible working practices likely to remain in some shape or form. Why? It has shown those who may have been sceptical previously that traditional forms of communication and collaboration can be conducted just as easily – and, in some cases, more efficiently – through technology. This opens up opportunities for businesses across the country to start to collaborate and partner with those who may not be in close proximity to them. Travel times and expenses and similar previously popular concerns over long-distance partnerships can now be discarded in favour of adopting video meetings, shared project management systems, collaborative work software and other tech. As a Berkshire-based website design and digital marketing agency, we have always worked with companies both locally and further afield in the UK. Now, we are looking forward to the opportunity to offer our services to an even wider audience. How we provide our services across the UK One of the key concerns for businesses surrounding long-distance partnerships is communication. How, from a distance, can you ensure you can access the team and communicate effectively and efficiently? At Digity, we establish a meeting calendar with our clients either on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, dependent on their requirements, so that communication is planned and opportunities for discussion clear. During lockdown, we have been meeting with clients more frequently over Zoom calls to guide them through this unprecedented time. Every month we will discuss the plan of action for the following month, to maximise your impact where you want us to. We also use a cloud-based project management system which we give clients access to, so they can monitor, track and comment on all the work we are completing for them. This way, it is incredibly clear what stage we are at with the work, the order of completion, the percentage completed, and who in the team the task is currently assigned to. Additionally, we create a monthly marketing calendar for each client, into which we put all of their requirements for that month and the specific blogs, social media posts, email campaigns, Google Ads, webinars and other services we will be providing for them or collaborating with them on. Each item is placed on the day it will be going out, so the monthly plan is explicit. This can be shared amongst their team members and ensures that their team and ours are on the same page at all times. We work with you to determine what your level of activity should be to have the maximum impact, and then we deliver each month. Our work for our clients right now has been more important than ever, with the online space being the primary domain for advertising, sales and communication with customers. We are continuing to offer all our usual services to new and existing clients: website design and development – including SEO, E-Commerce, CMS, Mobile/Tablet Optimization & more, and our marketing services – including Social Media, Blogging, Email Campaigns, Google Ads, Analytics, Advertising, CRM and Website Updates. How our team is working remotely So, that is how we can work with you remotely. How, during this current time, are we as a team working remotely? Digity took quickly to remote working, as our work is almost completely online and therefore all of our systems were already cloud-based, collaborative and accessible by everyone. We communicate through weekly whole-team Zoom meetings, as well as more specific project meetings and client meetings. We utilise Slack to keep track of communication concerning each project, and our project management system, Avaza, ensures schedules, timesheets and project status are easily available. This has been an exciting time for digital marketing and website development, and we have been exploring features for our clients that previously weren’t considered necessary by many. Zoom call widgets, Calendy video call booking systems, COVID-19 business-as-usual pop-ups, webinars and related booking systems; all have been incredibly successful during this time, and are encouraging our clients to pay even more attention to how they present themselves, market themselves, and are accessible online. Find out more about how we can work with you, regardless of your location, and how we can revolutionise your online presence and growth by booking a free initial consultation call with us here.
The past couple of months have been the most challenging period of my career, both as a business owner and a marketer working hard to support many great clients with their own businesses. I know what it means to be under considerable and sustained pressure whether that’s from previous bosses or the market conditions. Having worked for both big and small companies during the last three recessions, I’m no stranger to the current situation and my career has given me a lot of invaluable business experience (and a lot less hair!). This business experience is what I wish to divulge in this blog. Too many times, I see business owners fall into the same traps – particularly when faced with times of adversity, but also in their day-to-day operations. So, by examining an often-repeated scenario, I will be exploring how to stop just surviving, and start thriving; with my Tips for Business Success. A crucial scenario to consider The reason for writing this blog today is to talk you through a scenario I’ve seen first-hand. I’ve focused on repeating it wherever I’ve worked and, over the past 9 years, I’ve been striving to instil it with both our team and our clients. In times of economic crisis, a survival instinct seems to kick in for business owners, where they want to protect what they have (i.e. their ‘perceived’ cash position) and they treat marketing as a cost like any other. It’s like falling in a river with your life savings, and rather than letting go and swimming hard against the tide, you hold tight and wait to go over the fall – just in case you actually survive. Here’s a more eloquent quote along the same theme: “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” – Henry Ford This is what usually happens: The initial hit Let’s say, for easy maths, your market is worth £10m and you have a 10% share, worth £1m (yes, I did that without a calculator!). Suddenly, your market takes a pretty big hit and shrinks by 30% (now down to £7m) and if you retain your foothold (which by the way, you’re still going to have to fight for, because everyone else just took the same hit as you) then your share is the equivalent of £700k. That sounds pretty bleak, but the reality is there are a lot of companies who have experienced far greater drops right now so if this resonates with you, count yourself lucky at 30%. The dust off The next phase is where companies either boom or bust following the initial hit. It’s the period you dust yourself off, take stock of the impact and work on your game plan for what’s next. If we go back to my earlier point, many companies will instinctively take themselves off the radar to ‘save money’ by cutting marketing and advertising. They’re in the same market conditions as everyone else, they’ve taken a big hit, and now they’ve reduced their costs to try to survive. However, what they’ve really done is reduce their chance of future sales . Those two words in bold are so vital to bear in mind, because there lies the real opportunity in all of this. You should never be thinking in just days and weeks – you should always be working in months and years. How you act now will shape your future. Refresh, reset and go for long-term success If you’re smart, your focus will have shifted from just trying to increase immediate sales to thinking further ahead and assessing the longer-term impact of what’s happened. Focus on the opportunities that are now being presented to you. You should be looking to engage more customers earlier in the sales cycle than ever before, so you can can take control and block out your competition. You’ll see businesses around you who are slashing their prices to get sales in the door, but unprofitable sales are never good a good strategy – don’t let the sight of money fool you for long. My advice to people who start a business is always consistent; If you’re not going to make good money, get a job and have more time to do what you enjoy. If you’re going to run a business, make it count and if you go for it in times like these, you should at the very least see your market share (albeit of the smaller market) start to grow again. If you’re competing hard for customers and engaging them earlier in the process/cycle, you’ll definitely move ahead of your competition. Those who remain obsessed with today will be the ones feeling more pain tomorrow. They’ll be the ones still looking at red numbers in spreadsheets in the next quarter, and the one after that. They’ll have to keep making more cut-backs, either taking a huge amount of time to recover (if they ever do), or relying on some heavy re-investment strategies to turn it around. If you accept that there are no opportunities to sell more, guess what will happen? If you don’t accept it, you will make things happen. If you are genuinely top of every Google search, in front of people on social media, emailing your contacts, following-up on old customers and prospects, running webinars, writing e-books, collaborating with other partners, looking for new products to inspire your audience with, refreshing your website, running campaigns, writing blogs, posting on LinkedIn personally as well as through your company, making videos and spending vast sums on advertising and it’s still not working…then change your team/agency. If you’re not doing all of those things (and more) then you’re holding yourself back so don’t blame COVID-19, look in the mirror. Reaping the rewards In the meantime, if you’ve got on the front foot and are now competing hard in every location your target audience could be, you will have seen your market share grow. Let’s say you have a strong few months, and grew your market share to 12.5% (from 10% previosly). It could still be regarded as 12.5% of a reduced market (the £7m now vs. £10m previously) giving you £875k, which is still short of the £1m mark you once had. However, the interesting part happens when the market starts to recover and grow – especially if it returns to where it was before. Then, you have control of £1.25m revenue within this £10m segment; perhaps significantly more, depending on what happens to those around you and how far you get ahead and dominate your space. So, if you’re sat there worried, get out a piece of paper and write down what you’re going to do to go to compete now . What could you invest, and where should you invest, to make the most of this opportunity? It’s not all about money, because you can waste good money on bad ideas. This is where you need strong advice and direction to push forward with a robust plan. What’s the point of saying all of this? Well, recently I recorded a video discussing 5 Key Marketing Tips to help during this pandemic. It was more practical in a marketing sense but it needed some context in terms of business. So now, I have produced my 5 Fundamentals for Business Success . They’ve been written in a tough economic climate, but I believe they are just as valuable during the good times as they are in the bad. That’s the point – you don’t turn it on or off, you hold firm and you keep competing and not accepting failure. My 5 Key Tips for Business Success 1. Identify your target audience 2. Establish your relevance Then… 3. Be seen again and again 4. Stand out every time 5. Convert browsers in to buyers. To take it a step further and achieve exceptional sales, you need to… 6. Be exceptional in points 1-5. The above 5 points are so simple but so powerful. There are a whole host of detailed points and areas to cover around each one, but keep this as your road map and you will quickly stop trying to merely survive, and start focusing on what to do to thrive. If you’d like to discuss how we can help you do just that, book in an initial consultation call with me, today. Our team is helping clients day-in, day-out to start thriving, and we’d love the opportunity to evaluate your current position and where we feel we can help. In the meantime, here are some ways we help clients to achieve points 3-5 in particular:
When it comes to the world of digital marketing there is so much you can focus on that we could create a whole website on the subject and one day we just might. In the meantime, we’ve created this handy graphic which highlights to us on a daily basis all the key areas we could and should be assessing as we look to grow our market share. We adopt the same philosophy and way of thinking for ourselves that we do for clients and now the chaos of COVID-19 is calming down, we’re going to be banging the digital drum even harder than ever. Take a look below and right-click to save the image to refer to. Use it often, we hope it helps and if you decide you need help to raise your game and grow faster, get in-touch. We’d love to show you what we can do for your business and play our part in your future success.
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