1. A WordPress maintenance service can be both efficient and cost-effective!

A fast-turnaround WordPress maintenance service can make a lot of sense. At the end of the day, time is money. Designing, developing, or maintaining your company website can be a challenge. By getting direct access to experts you tap into skills that are unlikely to be available in-house. In the wrong hands the technical aspects of a content management system like WordPress can prove to be a costly mistake.

Outsourcing WordPress maintenance services to a UK-based web team means affordable fixed fees.

2. A WordPress support service can fill in technical knowledge gaps and provide quick access to experts

A WordPress support service provides tech-savvy staff support when you need it most. It’s not impossible to have a whole team of experts working in-house for every business need. Online forums and discussion groups can go some way to assisting you when things go wrong with your website. But it is better if you can get access to the assistance you need at the end of a quick call, zoom, or email. This is why all supply chains exist. Expert WordPress developers have unrivalled knowledge of the CMS. They understand hosting environments, security requirements and SEO. Inadequate hosting can mean slow load times and broken links which affect your SEO.

WordPress experts can fix poorly coded themes and plugins and apply the very latest accessibility standards. Having a mobile responsive website will provide the optimal user experience.

3. A WordPress maintenance plan will free up time to focus on what you do best

A WordPress maintenance plan can help identify and fix issues before they escalate. Most businesses have staff juggling capacities. They are managing suppliers, staff, sales and customer enquiries every working day. Managing a WordPress website on top of all this is a huge ongoing burden. It requires a lot of attention, resource, and specialist knowledge. Getting your website to look superb and perform well takes serious hours. Needing to spend valuable time trying to work out how to best to keep your content fresh? Ignoring your core business function can negatively affect your business goals, ambition, and of course profits.

Outsourcing your WordPress maintenance means you can focus on your core skills. Every aspect of your website could be skilfully managed, by a specialist UK-based, outsourced team.

4. A WordPress support and maintenance contract can help your business scale-up

A WordPress support and maintenance contract can help you grow and scale your company’s success. Your website acts as a digital shopfront for your products or services. It is vital to continuously boost your online presence. Lagging behind your competitors? A WordPress support company could help you increase sales and expand your reach. It can help increase customer engagement, and ultimately scale up your company effectively.

A WordPress maintenance plan can help with optimising your website for search engines. This will increase its relevancy. It will help drive organic traffic, allowing you to scale your company infrastructure based on demand. 

5. WordPress’ maintenance service for quality assurance

Regular WordPress maintenance helps in ensuring quality control. Addressing potential problems before they get out-of-hand makes sense. Improving user experience, maintaining your website’s performance and security requirements should be paramount. Your website will be inspected for bugs and broken links during regular maintenance. If problems are discovered, they will be fixed. This ensures a smooth user experience, avoiding potential disruptions. Checking that your content, images, videos, and links are up-to-date keeps search engines happy. Ensuring compatibility across various browsers ensures a smooth user experience for visitors. Testing your website on different browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari means an optimal user experience.

Reputable WordPress maintenance providers will have robust quality control systems. They have rigorous testing procedures, resulting in high-quality, bug-free websites.

6. A WordPress support service means new products or services can be implemented fast

The sooner your product or service is available to customers, the sooner you will begin earning money. An experienced web development team will expedite the development process. This assists with a launch, capturing market share and customer attention quickly. Speed should not compromise quality. While it’s often necessary to move quickly, it’s also vital to maintain the best user experience. Attracting and retaining customers is hard enough. A great web development team will know all about digital customer behaviour.  Improving brand image, increasing conversions, and staying ahead of the competition is vital.

Maintaining a high-quality website user experience is an excellent return on investment. This results in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and continued company growth.

7. WordPress support services can help mitigate downtime risks and financial unpredictability!

Quick response times and priority issue resolution are often included in website support plans. Professional web development companies are fully equipped to deal with problems. Customer satisfaction is enhanced when you have dependable support services. Fixed costs can be included in plans. This means businesses can budget monthly or annually for their support needs. A prompt response to a bug reduces the chance of extended downtime. This minimises the impact on company operations. Satisfied customers are less likely to seek out alternatives. Reducing the chance of losing business to your competitors should be a priority.

A WordPress maintenance support program will help to keep your website up and running. When your competitors site may be down yours will be there running effectively.

8. A WordPress support plan provides ongoing, regular maintenance

Regular maintenance like updating plugins, backing up databases, or refreshing content is important. But it can be tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating to the uninitiated. Outsourcing website maintenance and monitoring website health ensures it is secure, fast, and performing well.

Regular updates and maintenance are crucial. Ensuring your website is available when searched, boosts traffic, generates leads and woos returning visitors.

9. WordPress’ support for the interconnected world of business

For the inexperienced it can be a huge challenge making sure your company website is searchable. It needs to be user-friendly, and culturally sensitive to a diverse audience worldwide. WordPress maintenance support can assist with multi-lingual support for brands or e-commerce websites. A multiple language website will expose your company to a wider global audience. Global transactions using multiple currencies can be set-up and administered by experts. SSL certificates should be used to safeguard data transmission. This is especially important for e-commerce websites. Your website content, imagery, interactions, and cultural nuances can all be addressed. Websites can be optimised for search engines in different languages and regions. Global accessibility guidelines can be reviewed and improved.

Your website should resonate with visitors from diverse cultures. It should embrace inclusivity, extending your online presence effectively.

10. A WordPress support plan can solve in-house capacity problems.

Many people with an ounce of technical experience can use an off-the-shelf website package. They may even be able to have it up and running sooner or later. It may do the job for a while. However, developing a functional website that stands out requires technical expertise. Skilled designers and specialist WordPress developers will have years and years of expertise. There may be benefits in onboarding in-house staff to handle the process, it is a time-consuming process. High costs, technical know-how and capacity challenges that were not planned for or considered will impact your business.

Hiring professional UK-based web developers with a solid pedigree will eliminate your headaches. In the hands of an elite team of experts working in partnership with your company your stresses will disappear.

11. WordPress maintenance support will improve website accessibility and user experience

One out of every five people in the United Kingdom lives with a disability. Internet accessibility is a legal requirement for UK public & private sector organisations. You should always ensure your website is accessible to as many people as possible. All your potential customers should have the best possible user experience. An expert web developer will ensure that your website adheres to all current accessibility guidelines. Customers should be able to quickly access information and content on your website. You need to consider those with speech, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments.

Assistive technologies can be deployed by highly skilled UK website experts. Providing an appealing, responsive website with a great user experience is everything that matters.

12. E-commerce may be better left to the pro’s

Building and maintaining your own e-commerce website may seem like a great, affordable option. The reality of implementing a stunning B2B, B2C, or C2C website is more likely to be a pain. It is probably better to work with a dedicated specialist team to create your e-commerce platform. Customised functions specific to your business ensure flexibility as your business grows. Adding new integrations or technologies in the future may mean that your hosted solution fails. A professional cloud-based website will have the ability to integrate with existing infrastructure.

A top-notch development team will be able to design a solution future-proofed to your specific needs.

13. Website maintenance outsourcing is easy

Many businesses are used to outsourcing business functions, such as accounting, payroll, HR or supply chain, with ease. Have internal resources to provide basic IT support, or a marketing team providing content updates? Great, but it’s likely that you’d be better off employing experienced website specialists. Free up needless stress, anxiety, difficulty, or pain. Expert web developers can ease the agony of trying to compete constantly with your main competitors. Outsourcing website support, or maintenance requires little time or effort, allowing you to better manage your company’s day-to-day operations. The UK is home to a vast, technology and creative services industry talent pool. Renowned for their skill set and creative flair, why not outsource your WordPress maintenance and support?

Put the expertise and skill of a capable, reliable outsourced WordPress maintenance service provider to work. Giving your company the freedom to focus on more important tasks.

Speak to one of our friendly team at GWCM for help, advice, or emergency WordPress support, we’re happy to help.

Image credit: unsplash.com

Whether you’re launching a new agriculture-related business or you just want to drive growth with shiny new visuals, your agriculture logo plays a significant part in boosting recognition and attention from your target audience.

Here are five expert tips to help you hone your logo.

Use a combination mark

There are a variety of different kinds of logos, ranging from mascots to wordmarks to iconic, and beyond. But if you really want to boost name recognition from the very beginning, a combination mark is the best option.

Combination marks, or combination logos, do exactly what they sound like: they combine two different types of logos into one. In most cases, it involves a font-based element, your brand name, along with a graphic element, such as an icon or symbol.

Combination marks give the brand all the benefits of name recognition, since it is spelled out right there in the logo, along with a unique graphical identifier.

Later on, as your brand becomes more well known, you may choose to use only the graphic element. Combination marks also offer built-in adaptability in that way.

Choose a “Farm Fresh” font

Different fonts lend themselves to different markets and genres, and an overview of common typefaces for agricultural logos may not be as conclusive as you might think. The best font for your logo depends on the niche that you operate in.

Typically, the different types of font are viewed in certain ways. For example:

• Serif fonts are seen as traditional, reliable, and old-fashioned.
• Sans-serif fonts are viewed as modern, a little more edgy, and more corporate.
• Script fonts are often perceived as being a bit more arty, unique, fun, creative, and elegant.

Depending on the perception you want for your agricultural brand, you may lean towards a certain type of font. But even within that type, some fonts will lend themselves more to your brand than others.

For inspiration and more examples, you can look at fonts that are in common use for agricultural businesses and brands. Generally speaking, those fonts tend to be sans-serif or serif, and it often depends on the size and goal of the company.

Even more generally speaking, however, designers often recommend serif fonts for a farm-fresh, family-friendly, organic, healthy-feeling agriculture logo designs.

Use a hand-drawn element

With more of an emphasis on bespoke design and products that aren’t mass produced, consumers seem to be drawn to designs which are less sleek, more unique.

Hand-drawn elements also have an ‘organic,’ grass-roots feel built into them by their very nature. That makes them perfect for organic farms and environmentally friendly agriculture businesses, as it sends an appropriate message.

You could even choose to reverse-engineer your logo by starting with a regular vector image and then drawing it out and adding unique elements.

Add a colour pop!

In the world of logo design, colour choice is king. Every individual element plays a part in how effective a logo is, but the colour palette that you choose is what really makes the design stand out. So choosing your colours wisely is of primary concern.

With that in mind, professional designers recommend ensuring that your logo looks good in black and white, as much as in full colour.

A pop of colour, especially in an agricultural logo, can make a big difference in how well your logo shows up amongst your competition.

Greens and browns are popular choices for agriculture logos, but also look elsewhere for colour inspiration. Anything that has to do with the great outdoors, the skies, the colours of the vegetables you sell at your farm — anything and everything is a valid consideration for colour inspiration. This is especially true when it comes to choosing a colour pop. Try to avoid colours that are overused.

Include white space

Logos are pretty small and don’t take up much real estate. So the tendency may be to try to cram as much information or detail in that little space as possible. But here’s a helpful tip: don’t.

In order for the important elements in your logo to show up well, there must be empty space enclosing them. The eye needs something to focus on, as well as something that can help it to relax, or the viewer will end up overwhelmed, and the effectiveness of the logo is lost.

The answer here is to simplify your logo as much as possible. This is by no means a new tip — simplified design has long been viewed as an elegant solution to design conundrums, as well as providing memorable, effective end products. There’s a reason why simple design is so popular: it works.

So make sure to include white space or negative space within your design. Don’t fill your logo up completely; give the elements room to breathe, and remember that less is more.

Need a new logo to connect with your customers and grow your business?

GWCM’s brand strategists can help with naming, renaming and logo and branding development for startup businesses. If you require brand guidelines producing to ensure consistency, we can help with that also.

Writer Profile

Working as a freelance content writer is not only Chloe Philips’ profession but her hobby too. She loves to write about fashion design, interior décor and blogging. Connect with her to find out how she can help you in your content development strategy.

Traditional ‘bricks-and-mortar’ businesses offer products and services to their customers face-to-face from a factory, office, retail shop or warehouse, but this landscape has changed. Until the Coronavirus, many customers preferred to visit a shop in person at a physical shop where they can ask questions about products and services and receive face-to-face sales support. With a gradual relaxing of Covid-19 restrictions, shifting customer attitudes means businesses need to adapt quickly to an unprecedented changing economy and ever-evolving technology.

There has never been a more crucial time to promote your products and services online and let your target audience know you’re open for business. Businesses old and new must have either an eCommerce website strategy, or be ready to promote the advantages a customer has when visiting your physical business.

1. COVID-19 and future planning
2. A Bricks-and-Clicks model
3. Omnichannel
4. Small business eCommerce website design
5. The Governments Bounce back Loan Scheme
6. eCommerce websites design for small business checklist
7. Briefing a Website Developer or Digital Marketing Agency
8. Marketing
9. Customer loyalty
10. Measuring performance

1. COVID-19 and future planning

Social distancing, lockdowns and other measures during the COVID-19 pandemic has meant your usual customers may have had plenty of time to spend online shopping, using social media, streaming videos, films and games and keeping in touch via teleconferencing for work or friends and family.

Consumer habits shifted once the panic buying was over, and stay-at-home orders may eventually contract back. But having more than one way to sell to your customers and increasing your market share over your competitors will help to generate revenue and benefit you if there is a second wave of the virus, or more challenging times ahead. You may need a crystal ball to see what the world will look like beyond this crisis, but if your business relies too much on traditional ways of trading, now’s the time to diversify your operations and plan for the future.

2. A Bricks-and-Clicks model

Traditional Bricks-and-Mortar companies often limit their operations to a physical location e.g. a high-street shop, chain of shops, warehouse or factory and for this reason alone, their business operations may have been adversely affected by Covid-19.

Bricks-and-Clicks companies are different in that they have both a physical presence, and an ‘eCommerce’ presence that take orders online, then deliver the products to their customers. Because transactions occur remotely, they tend to have no need for a physical shopfront. Orders are entered remotely, then paid for by using digital payment methods such as credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal or bank transfers, with the goods then mailed to their customers. During the Coronavirus many UK supermarkets, high-street retail brands, electronic shops and even garden centres struggled to keep up with demand for online sales as their usual operations and logistics were challenged beyond belief. In the week immediately following the lockdown announcement, weekly growth rate for Media & Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty, Pet Care, Home Office, Business & Industrial went up by 200 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.

Adopting a Bricks-and-Clicks approach, also referred to as an Omnichannel model, can strike a perfect balance between the worlds of online and offline retail. Click-and-collect services that allow your consumers to place an order online then pick up the items from a physical shop have even been adopted by eBay, where you can collect your orders from a local Argos shop.

Fortunately, eCommerce website marketing and setting up and managing an online shop doesn’t have to be complicated, and your business and sales can be open 24/7, 365 days per year by taking a Bricks-and-Clicks or Omnichannel approach.

3. Omnichannel 

In today’s world, customers want to be able to purchase and communicate on their terms. They may visit your website, contact your sales or customer services team, leave a message on your social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, visit your shop, or even contact you through a live chat or a messaging platform.

This has forced the likes of Apple, Argos, John Lewis & Marks & Spencer to adopt an omnichannel focus. They can connect with their customers via email, provide detailed product information via their website, send delivery updates via SMS, or chat with customer service representatives on the phone or via webchat.

Omnichannel is easy to implement at a relatively low cost and the flexibility means these companies accept more payment methods, do most of their advertising over social media, and can connect with shoppers through phone or chat, and use mobile apps to help shoppers discover new products and services. Social media retailing is another potential sales channel, where customers can buy products through adverts on Twitter or Instagram.

With both a physical and online shop in place, click-and-collect services, online returns, exchanges in shop, and more can enhance the overall shopping experience for your customers and provide new opportunities for businesses needing to embrace change in order to survive.

4. Small business eCommerce website design

In the short term, the most obvious benefit of shifting your business sales online is that you’ll be able to keep your customers at safe distances while enabling them to be able to buy from you. Anyone using a smartphone, tablet or computer connected to 4G or the internet, wherever they are, will be able to view your eCommerce shop, browse your products and services and buy from you locally, nationally, or even globally.

For sure, opening an online shop means shifting stock is not as easy as running through a scanner at the checkout counter. You are likely to need a third-party service as part of the logistics, plus a warehouse and staff that takes proper steps to sanitise your products and packaging before they are mailed out.

If you have an existing website the good news is it may be possible to bolt on a simple eCommerce website design and/or platform to manage your sales that fully integrates with your existing stock inventory and seamlessly syncs with your online shop, making it easier to manage.

5. The Governments Bounce back Loan Scheme

Small and medium-sized (SME) businesses engaged in trading or commercial activity in the UK established by 1 March 2020 can now apply for a 100% state-backed loan worth up to £50,000. The Bounce Back Loan Scheme has no interest charges or repayments in the first 12 months and is designed to support SME’s who have been affected by coronavirus (COVID-19).

There are no strict rules on what the loans may be spent on, as long as it is under the banner of working capital, investment, or necessary business running costs. This could be marketing or website improvements, diversifying your business by bringing a new product/service to life or even developing new capabilities to cater for a changing marketplace.

Many brands are still making consistent sales through the pandemic and businesses that have a clear message and a wide sales funnel are more likely to emerge strongly from the pandemic. The lockdown should have given many business owners plenty of thinking time. Reviewing your marketing strategy now, in order to stay ahead of digital trends, better engage with your leads, or developing new products for competitive advantage will put you in a prime position to get customers buying again.

Your marketing strategy should involve much more than the odd update or share on your Facebook page or Tweet. It should be addressing a whole mix that creates a dynamic digital presence with regular updates and changes.

If you are in receipt of a loan or planning to apply to use the Bounce Back Loan, why not look to investing in eCommerce website design and development, or some professionally designed video content that sets out to achieve everything possible to ensure your business succeeds and grows beyond the pandemic. Read more about the Government’s Bounce Back Loan here.

6. eCommerce websites design for small business checklist

Choosing an expert eCommerce website design and development company to produce your online shop should be a no-brainer. A digital marketing agency with a good list of clients, and a range of sector expertise and professional staff willing, friendly and able to advise, and provide assistance at every stage makes sense too. A well-established digital and creative marketing agency should possess a team of highly trained staff likely to include marketing strategists, creatives, designers, copywriters and web developers that can manage your project from start to finish, but also update and maintain the site going forward.

You’ll need to decide which products or services from your Bricks-and-mortar business will be sold or available online as some inventory may not be able to be sold online easily. But there may also be some niche products or services that open up new opportunities that you can sell online alongside your main products that you wouldn’t otherwise sell in your shop.

Once you’ve narrowed down your products or services, it’s a good idea to produce a spreadsheet or a checklist that will ensure your website developer creates the best eCommerce experience for your customers. This should focus on everything your web developer needs to consider when designing the platform, and the steps to consider before, during and after the site launch.

The web has hundreds of expansive checklists to help you in deciding what is needed to consider when developing a customised eCommerce website design, simply search ‘eCommerce website checklist’, but here are a few examples of things you must think about:

• What product(s) or service(s) do you want to sell?
• How many product(s)/service(s)?
• Are products simple or variable? e.g. a single product with no options, or products with different sizes/colours.
• Will you need to manage stock via the website?
• Is delivery required and chargeable?
• Are you restricted to where you can deliver? e.g. will you post orders abroad or just to the UK?
• Is there a limit to the number of products or orders a user can make?
• Do you have a merchant account setup? If yes, who is it with?

You will also need to think about your budget and how much you are prepared to spend on the finished solution. You will need to produce a brief to enable your designer, developer or Digital Agency to provide you with a bespoke eCommerce website design quote. They will need to know the answer to a list of detailed questions such as:

• Is there any on-going cost for the web agency eCommerce platform?
• How much is annual website hosting
• Is the solution scalable enough to continue supporting my business as it grows?
• Is the solution easy to update with new information/products/services?
• Will the design of the site be bespoke to my business?
• How secure is it?
• Does it come with maintenance and support?
• Can it integrate with my existing business systems, or third-party accounting, and POS systems?
• Can it link to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram?

eCommerce can be complex, and not all eCommerce websites are created equal, and if you want to succeed online then an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solution is probably best avoided. A beautifully designed, bespoke eCommerce site, developed by highly experienced professionals may cost more in the long run, but should always pay dividends above and beyond the initial investment.

7. Briefing a Website Developer or Digital Marketing Agency

Commissioning a new website can be both daunting and exciting, so where should you start? Getting a decent brief out, with an outline of your available budget, to a supplier such as a good Web Developer or even better a Digital Agency is how.

In eCommerce, your website is your shopfront so it’s essential the website is easy to use, aesthetically pleasing, portrays the complexity and full range of your products or services and can process numerous payment types. Additionally, it should offer multiple search and filtering options, connect with your inventory, with sales funnels like your social media content and generate any financial reports you need and above all be easy and efficient to manage.

Your Web Developer or Digital Agency should be capable of building both the frontend and the backend of your eCommerce website to ensure customisation. That way the site will be bespoke to you, your brand and business, in terms of the core functionality and the customer facing design. A responsive design that automatically resizes to different sized devices, tablets, mobiles or laptops is of paramount importance too. So, ensure your web developer is fully versed in mobile integration and constructs your site on a flexible platform.

Decisions to develop a new website or redesign an existing one are usually made in response to launching new products or services, or competitor activity. If a competitor website appears to be more effective than yours, you will need to up your game. A good Digital Agency will employ a variety of tools to identify your competition even if you are unsure who they are. They will be able to reverse engineer competitor’s success, identify their weaknesses to help you compete, improve conversion, traffic, and of course sales.

Although not part of the Web Developers role, your content, messaging and tone of voice must all be decided in advance in order to attract, hook and move your customers through the functions and features of your website. Your brief should specify how you intend to provide the copy, so think carefully. Using a professional copywriter will ensure your content is optimised for search and that each page has authoritative, friendly, or cost-driven headline statements defining your brands, products or services. Vital for search engine optimisation is the consideration of your ‘Keywords’ within your content. Keywords determine where your website appears in results pages of Google and should be part of your website marketing, so again, using a good copywriter will ensure the copy is not only compelling and flows well, but will help with search too.

Web Developers are not usually Graphic Designers too. Building a good website that focusses on function over design could have drastic effect on your customers who are turned off by poor design, so do not overlook the importance of design and aesthetics. If your site sells landscape gardening, using 360-degree views of work you have produced or stunning photography from multiple angles is a must to capture audience attention. A Digital Agency will have Graphic Designers, Web Developers, Copywriters, specialist Photographers, and Video Film crews all on-hand, working together under the direction of a Creative Director overseeing the design process and inspiring the team on your behalf.

Your website is likely to be built in a Content Management System or CMS such as WordPress, the world’s most popular website builder, powering around a quarter of the world’s sites. The WooCommerce plugin can be added to WordPress and is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms worldwide. It will turn your website into a powerful online shop and the good news… they are both FREE.

Even if you are well-versed in checkout functionality, content writing and SEO, deciding what information a developer or digital agency needs to design you a great website should be well-considered.  So, if you are feeling daunted at the possibilities of how to write a brief, there is good news, you can request our very own briefing document here to help you every step of the way and make it worth the time and money you are willing to invest in it.

Download our eCommerce web development services briefing sheet for FREE

Request

8. Marketing

Even the most engaging website will fail to attract visitors without ongoing marketing, promotion and advertising, so considering how to promote your shiny new website is of paramount importance. Many businesses don’t have the luxury of an in-house Digital Marketing Manager in charge of bringing traffic to the website, meeting ROI goals and strategising social media campaigns. It is also common for business directors and entrepreneurs to believe that creating a website means simply ‘build it and they will come’.

It is important to consider the most effective ways to promote your website and grow traffic. A good Digital Marketing Agency can develop a marketing strategy that identifies the most appropriate channels that are important to your customers, where they hang-out. This may be a combination of social media, email, paid search campaigns, blogs for promoting products, influencer marketing, SEO, and any other tasks that build online brand awareness and new customer acquisitions.

Depending on your sector, you should definitely be using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These are a free way to build brand awareness by placing weekly updates that encourage people to respond, repost and remember you. By placing emphasis on clever marketing that enables you to shine brighter than your competitor

Above all, try to build your brand, whether that is by advertising on Google with a targeted cost-per-click campaign, or if you are a service provider or B2B operation, try networking on LinkedIn by posting industry related content. Or promote your services via an online webinar. Don’t forget the simple and obvious, if you have company vehicles, brand them up with your website URL as a mobile billboard promoting to audiences who’d otherwise never have seen your details.

9. Customer loyalty

Developing brand-new customers from scratch for eCommerce brands and keeping them requires effort. Customer trust and loyalty is king, without this your business is weak. If you are shifting from a bricks-and-mortar business to a bricks-and-clicks model you have an advantage here. Your existing customers can be reached out to by your own support or sales staff via phone, email, live chat, teleconference, or in-app messaging. Some of which can be personalised and branded to your business to optimise the channels, and offer traditional marketing strategies such as loyalty schemes, discounts or rewards which can also be seamlessly implemented into your website and user experience.

By hooking-up your Customer Relationship Management tools (CRM) you can segment your visitors to identify and communicate better with them based on their customer journey. Past sales purchases or website enquiries, geographical locations, browsing behaviour and landing pages visited can all be studied. You can then anticipate customer needs and set out automated offers, discount codes and a seemingly personalised service e.g. free delivery or discounts, creating loyalty and sales whenever you want to.

Clearly display customer testimonials and case studies. Run a competition that generates PR and outsmarts your competitors. Make your contact details easy to find for when things go wrong. A phone number that gets answered by a human, an email that is quickly responded to, or better still, live chat and having a customer service priority over profit is key. We all know it’s easier to maintain an existing customer than to find a new one.

Having totally satisfied customers from ordering online through to delivery increases trust and may even get you some good reviews. Having a number of Trustpilot or Google My Business reviews can help build trust, but “Businesses with customer loyalty programs, on average, are 88% more profitable than those who do not.”

10. Customer loyalty

You need to be constantly researching your competitors and analysing the data in your Google Analytics or other tools like SE Ranking. This will show you real-time ranking positions of your website’s keywords across major search engines in any country, city or region. Or Leadfeeder, a lead generation & website visitor tracking tool that identifies real companies visiting your website that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

By monitoring and measuring your data on a regular basis, changes can be made for improvement based on what is actually happening instead of making decisions based on guesswork and gut feelings or likes and dislikes. eCommerce metrics for improving sales, revenue, and customer satisfaction include overall website traffic, bounce rates, time to purchase, abandoned shopping carts and referral traffic.

It can be difficult to keep on top of all the data available and hard to evaluate what it all means. Your Web Developer or Digital Agency should be well-versed in Google Analytics and able to assist you here. They can explain the data and produce a variety of simple reports or suggest solutions to optimise your website based on the findings from the data.

Looking to run your business online? 

The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic may last for a long time. A professional digital agency, like GWCM, has a team of marketing staff, talented designers, eCommerce developers and Google Analytics experts providing affordable eCommerce website design to ease the transition from bricks-and-mortar.

Contact us today to find out how we can develop you a thriving online eCommerce shop.

Socially responsible business is more important than ever. Companies that care less about their profit margins and incorporate social values and responsibilities into their mission and business plans add true value towards their customers, community and the environment.

The Nielsen Global Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) found that more than half of people surveyed are “willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact”. Examples of CSR include; conscious investments both social and environmental, reducing carbon footprints, community volunteering and engagement, charitable giving and improving labour policies. The people buying your product or service want to know that you are being innovative and hands-on with your pro-social initiatives. Companies that do this well, with stand-out social responsibility include the likes of Google (for its 100% renewable energy) and TOMS (for donating a pair of shoes for every pair sold).

Doing Good for The Environment

Sadly, over eight million metric tonnes of plastic waste are floating in the world’s oceans. Fortunately, there is increased awareness and proactive efforts being made to reduce plastic waste. Single-use plastic is declining thanks to plastic bag taxes and the rise of reusable coffee cups and water bottles. Boots and Morrisons are just two of the many companies who have expressed their commitment to reducing single-use plastics by rolling out paper bags. Paper bags are sustainable, cost-effective and are a great way to boost CSR. Boots use unbleached, brown paper which is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and printed with water-based inks so they can be easily recycled at home and the profits from their sale goes to BBC Children in Need.

Although the big environmental issue cannot be solved by recycling alone, it really does make an impact. In July, WRAP launched a £1 million grant in order to increase business waste recycling in England. The grant aims to achieve a 55% recycling rate by 2025 for non-household municipal waste under the Resources and Waste Strategy. This year, WRAP is holding its 17^th annual Recycle Week, with the ultimate aim of encouraging an increase in recycling.

A big brand which we can all take notes from, for their influence on reducing the impact of packaging on the environment, is Walkers. The Crisp Packet Recycling Scheme is the outcome of a partnership between the snacks brand and TerraCycle. Walkers are accepting crisp packets, by any brand, which can be dropped off at their collection points. The packets are cleaned, shredded and then used to make various other products e.g. outdoor furniture, trays and flooring.

Big brands like PepsiCo owned, Walkers have a wide reach, but there are simple influences that we can all be a part of to be more environmentally friendly and make a difference. Your business can help the environment by switching to Eco-Friendly cleaning products, or encouraging staff to carpool, or travel to work using Eco-Friendly transport, reducing office paper waste, switching to energy-saving light bulbs, using recycling bins, turning off electricals, or even office composting. These are easy to implement into your business and can make all the difference.

Doing Good for The Community

An example that really caught our eye was Timpson’s promotion of their ‘FREE dry cleaning service’ where Timpson offer to dry clean an outfit free of charge before an interview for the unemployed. View their service here.

Other amazing efforts have been shown by The National Lottery Good Cause scheme, which has raised over £45 billion for over 565,000 projects throughout the UK. The projects include anti-crime within communities, body positivity celebrations, support for the vulnerable and addiction rehabilitation.

Rates of homelessness in Britain continue to rise and at the end of last year, 320,000 people in Britain were recorded as homeless. This is an overall increase of 13,000 people from the previous year. With Britain’s worsening housing crisis, these figures are only to grow. Although there are numerous charities working hard to end homelessness, there are great impacts that businesses can make to these individuals’ lives. One great way of doing this is to offer your time and not just your money.

National Lottery-funded charity ‘Haircuts4Homeless’ is just one of the great projects offering a helping hand across communities where skilled hairdressers give their time free of charge to give haircuts for homeless people in the UK & IRL.

Haircuts4Homeless, set up by veteran hairdresser Stewart Roberts, is built up of skilled hairdresser volunteers who are giving their time free of charge. The registered charity wants to make a positive difference for the homeless. Communications agency Adam & Eve DDB launched a campaign for National Lottery operator Camelot, which featured Haircuts4Homeless. The 60-second TV spot was shown during an ad break during the X Factor and focusses on the good causes funded by The National Lottery and its players.

Selfless, London based hairdresser Joshua Coombes, shares images of his free haircuts for the homeless via Instagram hashtag #DoSomethingForNothing and the transformations are truly inspiring, see Joshua’s Instagram here.

Hats off to two, Northampton-based businesses who have each offered out their help and talents for free to the homeless. Jake Hillery runs five barber shops including Quarter’s Barbering who dedicated their time at Northampton’s Hope Centre last year by offering free haircuts to those without a home. Whilst Shades in Gold Street shut its doors for two hours to pamper 15 homeless women with free treatments including haircuts, blow-dry’s, facials and manicures.

Any company or business sector can adapt and innovate for the good of society and our environment. It may be just a haircut, a reusable cup or offering your staff time off for a good cause, but small changes can make big differences, and it’s never too late to make a difference. Why not revise your sustainability plans today to make sure you’re doing the best you can possibly do?

Sources:

Nielsen Global Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility

Haircuts4Homeless

National Lottery

Northampton Chronicle Barber Business Provides Free Haircuts

Northampton Chronicle Hairdressers Provide Free Treatments

WRAP Grant