Sixty-two million Small Business and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are active in Indonesia today, with microenterprises making up 98% of this total. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was hard for SMEs, but SMEs are slowly improving. The number of loans given to SMEs in the first quarter of 2022 was close to what it was before the pandemic. Bank Rakyat Indonesia saw this as a sign that SMEs are once again confident in taking out loans to cover operational and growth costs.
Though much has been done to support the expansion of SMEs in Indonesia, much more needs to be done. Regarding the value of the internet economy among the ASEAN-6, Indonesia ranks first. However, the country’s private sector needs to speed up its digital transformation if small and medium-sized enterprises are to expand.
COVID-19 made a mess of everything. It has also led to many things that didn’t fit into the regular order. Like when grandmas set up Zoom video calls. The first showings of big-budget movies on your TV. It’s cool to knit. And a raccoon giving you a home loan.
What is something else that COVID-19 did that no one expected? How fast online business is growing.
You may have noticed that we do much more online now than a decade, year, month, or ten seconds ago. This is especially true for businesses that want to go digital. Online branding, advertising, and business are becoming more and more critical. Still, it’s surprising that only some have joined the digital trend.
What does this mean if you want to discover how to digitalize your business? Let’s talk it through…
Recent studies have shown that nearly half of all small firms do not have a website. We hope not anymore because COVID-19 increased Internet usage by a whopping 70%! Before the coronavirus hit, Nasdaq predicted that by 2040, 95% of all purchases would be made online. This timeline for SME digitization has likely been reduced significantly.
Simply put, the pandemic widened the gap between businesses that do business online and those that don’t. That isn’t as cute as the increase in knitted dog sweaters, but it’s just as important to know about. But it also means digitizing small and medium-sized businesses is more important than ever!
In the future, every business will have to go online or risk falling behind. Those who are slow to change and still rely on more traditional business models, like brick-and-mortar stores, will need help to stay in business, while those who focus on customers on the internet will see their gains grow.
This is the new normal, just like how your grandma might know more about Facetime than you do. So now, how will you set up your business to be successful?
Our recommendation: Go digital with your business. Today.
Why should your business be digitized? Here are a few explanations:
- Eventually, everyone will be connected to the internet
- You must keep in touch with your customers
- You need to maintain creating revenue
- Don’t let your rivals steal away your customers!
If you want your company to thrive in today’s competitive digital market, the following are some of the finest ways to digitize it and boost your online game:
Step 1 – Create your social media profiles
Transitioning online is indeed challenging. And it can cost a lot. But even if you need more money to build the best website, you can still create the best social media presence worldwide. If you do it right, you can use social strategies to learn how to digitize your business.
Even Poo-Pourri, the Arab Spring, and Justin Bieber started this way. If the Biebs are using social media, then you should too.
The best part is that making a social media account is free. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. Except for Google+. That doesn’t exist anymore. Please remove the Google+ button from your website if you still have it.
How great is it that you can use social media to digitize your business? Some social media platforms can also function as eCommerce platforms.
Picture: Pexels
For example, Instagram has created a “checkout” feature that lets people buy things without leaving the app. They also provide Instagram Shopping, which allows brands to add tags to their posts that link straight to their product pages. (See! This webpage is already proving useful)
Even if you can’t use the shopping features of social media or don’t have a website with eCommerce, you can still make sales through social media brand awareness. To develop a successful approach, all you need is creativity and time.
What’s that, you say? You only have a limited amount of time to begin tweeting at individuals. We get it. You are pretty busy.
But you can spread yourself (or your budget) thin enough to have a strong presence on social media.
We advise against doing so.
Too frequently, we observe businesses attempting to keep up with the current internet trends by juggling an absurd number of social network profiles. Far superior is to concentrate on a few social media channels and execute them well.
Still, trying to figure out where to begin? Should you use Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or TikTok?
Facebook and Instagram are two of the best choices, primarily since they work well with online shopping and advertising. LinkedIn should be added to the list of B2B enterprises. We recommend adding video to your digital strategy because it usually has the best return on investment (ROI) and can be easily shared on all your social media platforms.
And voila, you now have a strong internet presence. Let’s now share this with the world.
Step 2: Create a Website
A branded website is the heart of any successful digital business. All other online activity leads to your site, turning visitors into paying customers online and offline.
Here are some cool things that a website can do:
- Give your business credibility;
- Act as your directory listing (especially for local businesses);
- Generate leads;
- Directly generate revenue and sales;
- Collect data and track KPIs;
- Outperform competitors;
- Allow webrooming;
- Create a brand identity and increase customer loyalty;
- Get organic traffic for “brand” and “navigational” search queries.
Webrooming? Never heard of it?
Webrooming is when people look up information about a product online before buying it in a traditional store. (It’s like going to a store, but on the web.) It’s what all the excellent businesses are doing.
Even the most locally based businesses on the planet need a website. Over 80% of consumers research online before heading out to a store. People will only visit your store if you have a website showing your goods and services. This is called “webcasing.” Plain and simple.
Or just as worse:
Your offline profits go up if you have a website. It’s simple math. You can make your site the next Amazon. In some situations, a one-pager is all you need. The goal is to make the pages you need to help:
- Improve your SEO
- Get leads
- List your products and services
- Provide contact information
Once you’ve taken care of those, you can add an eCommerce platform and let customers buy things right from your site. The user experience can also be improved by structuring data, such as with the product schema. Just remember that your website needs to look good and work even better, no matter how many pages it has.
Step 3: Use SEO to boost sales
SEO optimization is usually a way to get more people to visit a site. Still, it is also one of the best ways to increase sales, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that are going digital. Have your doubts? Take a look at this:
39% of all e-commerce traffic comes from search engines. 53% of all internet traffic comes from search engines. And that’s just the tip of what can be done with technology.
We’ve already talked about the top benefits of SEO. The best one is that organic traffic gives companies a better return on investment (ROI) than any other traffic source. To make SEO work for you, you must ensure that your website and online content are set up to bring in high-quality traffic. This is done by writing with conversions in mind and aiming for sales-friendly search terms.
So, that’s about all there is to it. SEO includes a long list of things, such as site structure, speed optimization, content creation, backlinking, and competitive analysis. These can skyrocket your online traffic, sales, and visibility when put together correctly. The point is that getting a business online is only half the battle. Making sure your customers can find you is all that’s left.
So, in the end, you might have yet to want to bet everything on digital, but here we are with the new normal. We’ll help you digitize your business, contact us for help.
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