Transforming your business is key to stimulating new growth, boosting productivity, and substantially improving the bottom line. Successful digital transformation is more than just the adoption of technology for employees. It requires C-level executives to explore new objectives, expand the company vision, and the willingness to be agile.

This often means sitting down with employees to assess key pain points and reviewing all business processes to see what is working, what isn’t, and what can be improved.

It is easier to identify these pain points because it is difficult to define clear objectives and goals for successful digital transformation. Common goals should include the following.

• Leveraging technology to discover new business models
• Improving the customer experience
• Identifying new products, services, and strategies
• Making major and minor changes to everyday business processes
• Finding more efficient processes through continued innovation

Every Digital Transformation is in a State of Flux

It is important to keep in mind that digital transformation is an ongoing process. There is no end to it and organizations must pursue new innovations to improve their operations – and if possible, brainstorm industry-leading changes.

Technology is always in a state of flux, and it is difficult to keep up with the incredibly fast changes. CIOs and other executives will have to keep on the latest disruptions that are transforming their industry; whether in the form of artificial intelligence, blockchain, the internet of things, edge computing, or others.

It is important to identify which of these tools will have an impact on the business. Also of note is the fact that the new strategies may not have a place for old processes. You may have to brainstorm ideas for new business processes useful in driving change.

Creating a Climate of Change that Drives Innovation

The best place to lead digital transformation is by working as a team. You also need access to people with the right IT skills in key business units to support the digital transformation and allow for continued innovation.

Successful digital transformation is driven by creating a company culture that doesn’t resist change and innovation. Letting go of the status quo is a fundamental aspect of digital transformation. The ideal company culture should embrace

Every industry and business will have a unique path to digital transformation. There is no cookie-cutter solution or blueprint that you can apply to your environment. This is because blueprints are for specific environments. It is important to identify your specific business environment. That being said, fostering a company culture that rewards employees for embracing change and innovation is important. Digital transformation is equal parts human and technology.

It must be understood that all digital transformations represent a certain degree of risk. This is why it is important to create a work culture conducive to change. The workforce needs to be adaptable and agile to deal with ongoing disruptions. Going digital is about taking risks, experimenting with technologies, and the willingness to explore ideas that may have unpredictable results but, more often than not, are in the interests of customers.

Digital transformation can open up new business models but they all come with risks. Starting your journey is all about taking a calculated risk on systems with unpredictable consequences than having reliance on processes that are 100% reliable. Failure is part of that journey. And failure does not come easy to organizations that haven’t fostered a climate of change before leading a digital transformation.

The Most Basic Steps Involved in Digital Transformation

Although all the exact steps involved in any digital transformation will depend on the specificities of your organization and industry, the basics mostly stay the same. If you sell a physical product, selling it online can be as simple as building your website or establishing your social media presence.

The buying process can be as simple as clicking ‘add to cart’ by visiting your digital interfaces, allowing you to ship their product. It is important to make the buying process as friction-free as possible with a straightforward user interface (UI) that is self-explanatory and easy to follow.

Providing services online is just as simple – at least in theory. However, we advise consulting an expert in your niche to navigate the nuances involved in moving the service-based business online.

Let’s discuss the basic steps that are mandatory for digital transformation.

• Starting a website (with an ecommerce component)
• Creating a social media presence that connects with the website
• Creating content regularly
• Creating a Google My Business page
• Registering your business across important directories, including the BBB and TrustPilot

These are essential steps that no enterprise should skip because they serve as the foundation of your digital transformation.

This blog will take an in-depth look at the basics.

Identifying the Products and Services You Can Sell Online

Before taking your business online, you should thoroughly evaluate your product and service lineup. Then carry out an audit of the market to see which of these offerings can be sold easily through your digital assets. The main goal is to study your target audience’s preferences when they shop online.

The idea is to solve a customer pain point. A product that doesn’t address customer pain points will do relatively poorly in terms of performance because no one would find it relevant. For example, if you are selling pet food, try to identify the pain points pet owners face. You could have a chat with pet owners to learn about the difficulties they face.

The most common customer pain points include the price point, durability, choice of ingredients, and others. It is worth paying attention to the products and services that your competitors are offering. Remember, your digital transformation should solve customer pain points and annoyances.

This might mean phasing out certain products that are incompatible with your market and rolling out a new line of products.

Planning Product Inventory

Once you have a list of the products and services you want to sell, you should take stock of your product inventory. You will need to introduce an inventory planner to keep stock of the products and the sales made across online and offline interfaces. An inventory planner will be useful in staying on top of data and knowing which products are available.

A major advantage of moving your business online is that it allows you to outsource certain aspects of sales to other businesses. If outsourcing is on the agenda, clearly identify the right vendors and partners before you start your digital transformation.

Here are a few tips that can be used to make the move to a digital interface a bit easier:

i) Maintain a record of all the products and services you plan on selling using your online interfaces. Make sure to keep details about each product in your inventory. These details include brand and product name, category of product, price, size, expiry date (if applicable), available inventory, product descriptions, product images, and product reorder time.

ii) Keep tabs on the inventory if it is distributed across multiple locations. You should know where your products are kept, whether they are distributed across warehouses, store rooms, store shelves, or even if they are in transit. A key part of your digital transformation, especially if you are a brick and mortar store, is to use barcodes, labels, and RFID tags. This will help you trace your entire product portfolio and keep the stress out of tracking inventory.

iii) Buy an inventory management system to maximize your sales and marketing channels. An inventory management system will help you track your inventory more frequently. Manual inventory management can lead to various errors. However, an inventory management system helps you automatically sync your products across online and offline sales channels.

iv) Review your sales data regularly. This is useful in determining which products should be restocked and when. An inventory management system lets you trigger alerts for products once they fall below a maximum threshold. Choose an alert that provides enough buffer time to allow the sales to continue. Regularly reviewing your sales data will help you learn more about the most profitable and popular products.

At the end of the day, digital transformation is a numbers game and if you’re not using an inventory management system, then you won’t be able to take advantage of your online business unit.

Sorting out the Legalities Associated with Digital Assets

No successful digital transformation is complete without taking care of legal issues. Before you take your business online, you must ensure your products and services are aligned with relevant regulatory bodies.

To stay on the safe side, you should take the time to learn about the following:

• Tax collection
• Trademarks and copyrights
• Shipping restrictions
• Inventory
• Age restrictions
• Licenses and permits
• Customer privacy
• Insurance (for business)
• PCI compliance

Taxes, in particular, are a slippery slope because they differ by location. For example, in the US alone, sales taxes vary based on state. You may also have to account for cities, counties, and special taxing districts, including statewide legislation.

Failure to collect the appropriate tax amount could hurt your profit margin and open you up to various liabilities. You should also pay attention to taxes if you import your products from foreign-based suppliers (including wholesalers and dropshipping partners). Some of your imports may be subject to import duties. Use the US Free Trade Agreements tool to learn about your specific scenario and your tax obligations.

If you haven’t already done so, you may have to register a new business. Collecting payment for services may also require the registration of bank accounts and payment gateways. It is recommended to consult with a legal expert before you start your digital transformation.

Building a Website

Building a website is as basic as it gets and serves as the stepping stone to your digital transformation.

The first step is to choose a domain name. It is recommended for the domain name and business name to match. For example:

Business Name: Eli’s Supplement Company

Domain Name: EliSupplements.com

The domain extension, also referred to as a top-level domain (TLD), are the letters that follow the website’s name. The most widely used TLD is ‘.com’, followed by ‘.net’. We recommend buying out most TLDs for branding purposes and to prevent others from stealing your customers.

Here are a few tips when choosing a domain name:

• Always choose .com as your default domain extension because it is great with search engines and easy to remember
• Eliminate the use of numbers and hyphens
• You could use local extensions if you want to localize your business (such as .au if you only sell in Australia)
• Don’t use trademarked domains because they can lead to liability issues

Website Design – Discussing the Six Major Website Builders

Website design can significantly impact your search engine performance across Google and Bing. In the hyper-competitive digital space, website design could be the defining factor when it comes to capturing attention and creating engaging CTAs.

Most complex web design projects require several teams of designers and developers who painstakingly piece together every aspect of a website. This can represent a slew of problems, often stemming from different technological standards and processes over the course of a project. These factors can be challenging to create a consistent user experience.

You could hire a website developer to manage all aspects of design or take the longer (but affordable) DIY route. The good news is that you don’t need coding skills to develop your own website. Thanks to the use of numerous third-party tools and drag-and-drop builders, you can start developing your own website today.

Beginners are recommended to try a website builder like WordPress because of its near-infinite combination of plugins and themes. WordPress comes with thousands of free and paid templates called ‘themes’ that you can start using right away with minimal modifications. In most cases, the only changes you might ever have to make are textual.

Here are a few things you should do before choosing the right website builder:

• Take note of the needs of your business
• Identify the most important functionalities that you would like to provide to buyers
• Find website builders that offer those functions
• Compare the website builders using a comparison table
• Calculate the resources (in terms of skill, time, and money) that you will need to spend in using the website builder
• Use the free trial of the website builder to test its viability

The right website builder should be compatible with your payment gateways, allow you to upload your main assets in digital form (including products and services), and enable maximum security without sacrificing performance.

Let’s discuss some of the most beginner-friendly website builders.

Using Elementor

If you insist on using WordPress to develop your website, then it might be prudent to use Elementor to give you access to essential design elements. Elementor is a free plugin that equips you with various web design elements at your fingertips. The best part is that it allows you to apply the same visual aesthetics to create a cohesive and uniform result.

Elementor can be configured to apply different aesthetics for various landing pages. This is useful if you want to introduce new products or services with a brand new theme. Elementor lets you select styles for different form elements such as checkboxes and radio buttons.

Wix

Wix is aimed at beginners who want to start their website without any experience. The best part about Wix is that it gives you complete creative control over your website. Just like Elementor, it provides you with access to a powerful yet simple drag and drop tool with a wide range of features.

It is worth noting that Wix is centered around blogging with less emphasis on ecommerce. It has a free plan that lets you play around with various features. However, premium plans start at about $14 per month. You will get access to over 1000 templates to choose from. Just make sure to do your research before choosing each template because you won’t be able to switch it after going live.

Squarespace

Squarespace is aimed at the ecommerce market and is ideal for entrepreneurs who want to start selling products and services immediately. It may not be the easiest builder to use, but the learning curve is relatively easy. You just need more time to get used to Squarespace than builders like Elementor and Wix.

Just like Wix and WordPress, Elementor also comes with various template designs. As mentioned earlier, they are aimed at entrepreneurs who want to start selling right away. These templates are aesthetically impressive and look professionally designed. At the time of writing, nearly 2.9 billion websites on the internet are using Squarespace.

But there’s more to Squarespace than visuals and aesthetics. It offers a massive range of features your website will need. Squarespace also offers a useful knowledge center where you will find information on using it. You can start with a free 14-day trial, and if you like, you could buy the premium plans starting at $12 per month.

Weebly

Weebly is yet another simplistic website builder that makes the design process easy for the busy entrepreneur with a self-explanatory user interface. Weebly is better than Wix because it combines the best of blogging and ecommerce. However, Weebly can feel a little restrictive when it comes to design features.

With that said, Weebly has a free plan with no strings attached. And if you want to use their premium features, you can sign up for affordable plans starting at just $6 per month (billed annually) or $9 month-to-month. Simply connect your domain to get started.

We would like to mention that Weebly may not be the best in terms of growth and expansion. If you want to look for a more long-term solution, then you’re better off looking at other options on this list. The combination of WordPress with Elementor is a good option for most beginners.

WordPress

We’ve already introduced WordPress earlier. WordPress on its own is not the easiest website builder to use and requires coding knowledge. But what makes it superior to other website builders is the fact that it has been around for many years. This means that it has access to some of the highest number of plugins and themes out there.

In order to take advantage of WordPress and get the most bang for your buck, you will need to learn to code. Don’t have time for that? You can start using plugins like Elementor (also mentioned earlier), Oxygen, Divi, and Beaver Builder.

In fact, if you purchase a hosting solution from GoDaddy, you may already have seen Beaver Builder.

Did you know that WordPress powers 43% of all websites on the internet? The top one  million websites in the world with the most traffic use WordPress to power their features; these include the New York Times, the Walt Disney Company, the Rolling Stones, and BBC America, among others. You know it’s doing something right when it has the attention of deep-pocketed businesses like the Walt Disney Company.

Combining SEO with Content

Content marketing and SEO go hand in hand when powering your brand’s digital transformation. SEO, short for search engine optimization, plays an absolutely crucial role in maximizing the accessibility of your websites on search engines like Google and Bing. Content marketing helps you connect with your audience by curating blogs that address their pain points.

Before developing a content marketing strategy, you will have to research your audience, develop a content calendar, and monitor the content’s performance. SEO works best when it is paired with content marketing – but it won’t produce overnight results.

You can apply your SEO and content marketing strategy using the following steps.

Create Audience Personas

It is hard to create a story if you don’t know who your reader is. This is why your first step is to identify your target audience. There are several ways of doing this including:

• Surveys of existing customers
• Researching your competitors

Once you have enough data, you can create various profiles known as ‘audience personas.’ Each persona will require a different content marketing strategy.

You will need the following data points.

• Their professional goals
• Personal ambitions
• Their fears
• Their personalities
• Items they cannot live without

Try to ask as many relevant questions in your surveys as possible. Your goal is to dive deep into your audience’s psyche and unravel the thought process that goes into the buying process. Start by asking them about their typical day, how they start their day, their favorite meals, what time they go to work when they reach home, and what they like doing during their free time.Ask them how they solve problems that your product is solving.

You can use data sets that you already have on your customers from your brick-and-mortar operation.

If you do this step right, you should have access to audience personas and relevant buyer journeys. The buyer’s journey is subsequently divided into three primary stages

Awareness stage: The buyer has a problem and wants to solve it

Consideration stage: The buyer is researching various solutions to solve their problem.

Decision stage: The buyer decides on a provider who can solve their problem.

Each stage in the buyer’s journey requires a different content marketing strategy.

Let’s discuss an example.

Stage 1: The buyer is experiencing that their computer is rapidly shutting down after overheating. In this phase, they are actively researching information to understand the circumstances that their computer is going through.

Solution: Your content strategy is focused on troubleshooting why computers shut down rapidly. You identify various culprits, such as overheating, lack of airflow, or bad thermal conductivity. Your website features in-depth articles that cover all problems associated with computer shutdowns. This allows you to reach the audience in Stage 1 of the buyer’s journey.

Stage 2: In this stage, the buyer knows that their computer is shutting down because of a lack of airflow to the processor. They are now committed to solving this problem and are now researching ways of improving airflow to the processor.

Solution: Your content strategy is focused on improving airflow to a computer’s processor. You discuss various ideas, including tried-and-tested solutions and novelties that aren’t mainstream.

Stage 3: The buyer has decided that the solution is to buy a supplemental fan for their processor. Their objective now is to find a list of providers with relevant offerings.

Solution: You position yourself as a solution to the problem of airflow to the processor. Your goal is to discuss how your product or service is able to permanently (and affordably) alleviate the problem in a short period of time – and in a manner that is unique to your competitors. You will discuss your unique value proposition here (such as 24/7 services, 2-year guarantees, etc.)

If you don’t have a good understanding of your buyer’s problem, it may be difficult to map the buyer journey and create content. In this case, conduct relevant surveys and interviews with prospects, and major influencers in your industry to learn more about the buyer’s journey.

Finding the Right Keywords for SEO

Although you have identified the most appropriate content marketing strategy for your customers, it is just as important to make your website content accessible to search engine crawlers.

This is where meta tags and meta descriptions come in. More specifically, you want to hone in on the right keywords that will help your web pages dominate search engine rankings.

A great way of uncovering the right keywords is to use tools like SEMrush or Moz.For this purpose, we will be discussing SEMrush. Click here to register for a SEMrush account (their trial version will suffice for now).

To find a list of keywords relevant to your niche, simply enter a primary keyword into the search bar at the top.

If we enter the search term “processor heat” (relevant to the buyer’s journey discussed above), we will get the following keyword variations:

• Processor heating problem
• Processor heat sink
• Hairdressing heat processor
• Heat lamp hair processor

Note: SEMrush will provide different keywords depending on changing trends.

You will notice that not all keyword variations are relevant to your niche. For example, the keyword variations “hairdressing heat processor” may not be relevant for vendors specializing in CPU fans. Strike this keyword from your list of potential keyword variations.

Pro tip: The easiest keywords have a relatively low keyword difficulty (usually under 70%) with a modest volume (less than 1000). Ranking for these keywords is easier because of low competition. They help you build up domain authority over time and allow you to capture more voluminous keywords that are usually more difficult to rank for.

Content Calendar

Now that you have a list of appropriate industry-relevant keywords, it’s time to start your content production journey. It is highly recommended to create an editorial calendar that you and your team can follow easily.

Some of the best content calendars include Loomly, Trello, and Evernote.

Make sure to stick to the content calendar’s objectives you and your team have agreed on. Create a long-term plan that allocates resources effectively across different objectives and challenges. The plan should be aligned with your digital transformation goals.

Long-Form Posts

Take a look at any webpage that leads search results and you’ll notice that the word count is higher than 2,000 and could well exceed 10,000 in some cases.

The reason why long-form posts do so well with SEO is that they manage to take care of the entire buyer’s journey on a single page. This improves the user experience and reduces the page’s bounce rate. Google and other search engines know this and reward web pages with a higher word count.

A long-form post allows the reader to complete their buyer’s journey in one web page instead of having to go through dozens upon dozens of sources.

It is important to make sure that the long-form post is well-researched and in-depth. This will build more brand authority because it offers insightful content to readers. Impressionable readers will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter and turn to you for more topics in this niche.

This will, in turn, boost your reputation as an authoritative figure in the niche, and more people will seek to do business with you. The organic traffic (free leads) that you can generate will drive up your revenue and help you achieve your digital transformation journey.

It also means that users will be more likely to share your blog through social media or on their web pages. This will create several do-follow backlinks for you that will further accelerate your digital growth.

Here’s an interesting fact: This BuzzSumo study found that the most popular articles had a word count ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 words, with an average word count of nearly 8,900.

Important Web Pages

The most important web pages, besides the blog page, that contribute to SEO include the following.

• About us page
• Home page
• Landing pages for products and services
• Privacy policy
• Returns and refunds page
• Contact us page

Let’s briefly discuss why each page is crucial to your brand’s digital transformation.

About Us page: This page gives a human face to your corporation. It shares the story of your origins, your employees, and the founders. It also discusses key details such as contact numbers, email addresses, physical location, and other aspects that indicate that a real person is running the company.

Landing pages: These pages are designed to sell products and services. They feature sales-y copywriting that highlights a product’s or service’s unique value proposition. Landing pages are not like blogs and tend to be more digestible and short.

They feature more visuals, bullets, and subheadings. They also feature many CTAs to redirect more leads into your sales funnel. We highly recommend hiring a photographer to take high-definition shots of your products. A smartphone may not be able to do justice to your product quality!

Home page: It features a quick snapshot of what your business does, accompanied with captivating visuals that show off your products and services, including testimonials from customers who liked your products. The home page should be connected with your social media pages.

Privacy Policy page: This page serves as a legal document that outlines how you collect, handle, and process data belonging to customers and visitors. It clearly describes how you deal with the information, including whether you sell the data to third parties to discard it. A privacy policy page is absolutely necessary if you want to sell in Europe because of GDPR. It should be prominently visible on your website and should be easy to read.

Returns and refunds page: This page helps your customers manage their expectations when it comes to returns and refunds. Use intelligible language about how products can be returned (if they can be returned). The link to your returns and refunds page should be easily accessible.

Contact us page: This page includes relevant details related to your business such as a physical address, phone number, email address, and social media pages. You can also place a contact form on the page for interested users to reach out or send feedback.

Use Videos to Boost Your Digital Transformation

You will be surprised to learn that video is one of the most efficient mediums for facilitating digital transformations. This makes sense when you think about it: in 2022, more employees than ever before will be working online in a remote environment and using video tools like Zoom to connect and interact with their coworkers and clients.

But there is more to videos than conferencing and chatting. For example, videos can be used to help with employee training, customer training, internal communications, and sharing knowledge across business units. It encourages continuous learning and increases employee productivity.

Videos can be used to expand your digital transformation in different ways including the following.

• In-depth product demonstrations that your sales team can use to convince customers
• Sales presentations
• Videos to expand your knowledge base that solve common pain points and problems

For video to become a part of your digital transformation strategy, you should use a platform that can integrate with your technology stack. Some of the features you should look for include:

Security: Videos for internal communication will likely involve the use of personal information, so your digital transformation strategy should utilize the latest security protocols to keep the communication from being leaked.

Access control: Some videos should only be viewed by certain team members and groups. Access control can help you define access to relevant users.

Mobile-friendly: The videos should be readily available to your employees anywhere using all devices, including mobile phones.

Analytics: Your managers should have access to an analytics suite to gain more insights on who is watching and when. These data points can help you learn how engaged users are with your videos and help you track the overall impact of your digital transformation.

Social Media Presence

No digital transformation strategy would be complete without a social media presence. Despite the importance of social media presence, very few brands are thriving.

A major mistake that brands make with their social media strategy is posting random links and calling it a day. That simply doesn’t cut it in 2022 anymore. For example, you can’t emulate the success of a brand like G-Fuel without having a social media presence.

Success on social media mostly depends on how relevant you are to your customer base. And while G-Fuel may have a multi-million dollar budget, the principles they use to stay relevant can be used by businesses of all sizes.

The best way to get started is with a realistic smart goal. An example of a realistic goal for social media is to increase your response rate on Instagram by 20% in the first six months. These are smart numbers that you can achieve in the span of a few months.

Don’t Write Just for the Algorithm

A major mistake brands make on social media is tailoring their posts to algorithms instead of humans. As a result, their posts come across as too bland and without any personality.

Social media has changed the face of advertisement – with a more human component. Give your brand a human face.

For example, can your brand crack jokes in the form of memes and talk to your followers like you would your friends? If your brand comes across as too ‘robot-like’, its message will not resonate with the target audience.

Instead, try to give a human face to your brand. This means showing off the people behind the scenes, including photos of employees at the office or snapshots of your team at corporate getaways.

The above ‘recipe’ for social media is true for all platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hashtags are not the secret to going viral – because nothing beats relevancy.

Automate Your Social Media Posts with SocialSprout

Use a tool like SocialSprout to automate your social media posts across different platforms. SocialSprout lets you improve your efficiency with social media, so your team has more time to develop great content and meaningful interactions with your fans in real-time. You can start a free trial with SocialSprout and simultaneously publish content across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Sprout also makes it easy to analyze hashtags to improve your content. It’s a great way to offer content that taps into the latest up-and-coming trends. But there’s more to Sprout than scheduling content, you can also use the tool to maximize ROI from paid content. Sprout gives you complete control over your publishing strategy and hone in on your audience’s pain points.

It takes the guesswork out of social media strategies by giving you access to well-informed choices that boost engagement. Alternatives to Sprout include Airtable, Feedly, Tweetdeck, and Planable.

Pro tip: Make sure your brand maintains a presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to engage with as many followers as possible.

Social Media Platforms to Complete Your Digital Transformation Journey

Did you know that a brand’s social media presence is a powerful SEO signal that can boost your website’s rank on search engines? Besides being highly effective at building brand awareness, social media sends positive ‘trust’ signals to search engines like Google that can greatly improve your ranking.

A major advantage of using social media is that it will increase the likelihood of converting traffic into leads – which can greatly boost your bottom line.

So which social media platforms are the best for your business? Here is our round-up of the most prominent social media platforms.

Facebook

With nearly 2.93 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the bread and butter for many mom-and-pop stores around the world. It is one of the best ways to build your target audience, grow your email list, and get new customers. It also facilitates interaction with users once you have engaged with them.

It is not uncommon for brands to create private groups on Facebook where paying customers can join to post questions, interact with employees, and receive major discounts. You can also use Facebook’s paid ads feature to reach leads. Note that Facebook ads can be somewhat expensive – but they may be worth your resources and greatly improve your digital transformation results.

Instagram

Instagram has over 1.21 billion monthly users – making it one of the most popular social media platforms. It started out as a platform for sharing pictures and has since expanded to video content. Instagram allows brands to show off their products using rich visuals and pictures. It is particularly useful for businesses that sell physical products such as clothes and shoes.

A major bonus point of Instagram is that it doubles as a fully-fledged ecommerce store thanks to its “Checkout” feature. This means interested users can look at product images and purchase directly from their accounts.

Twitter

Twitter popularized the use of hashtags so that users can fine-tune their reach with audiences. Hashtags are very similar to SEO and can be a great way of going ‘viral’. It is worth noting that Tweets featuring hashtags usually receive more engagement than those that don’t contain them.

Using a few hashtags on Twitter is a great way of boosting your followers. And it only takes a matter of seconds to find relevant hashtags. Make sure to get the most out of Twitter by tagging, replying, and retweeting other users.

Try to regularly engage with others and reply immediately to queries. This will signal to others that you are human and help you achieve more exposure on the platform.

LinkedIn

Marketing strategies on LinkedIn are slightly more refined. The platform leverages both your personal and professional social networks. Thus, marketing on LinkedIn requires a slightly different strategy. Company pages on LinkedIn can play an important role in your digital transformation.

Like other social media platforms, LinkedIn isn’t just about self-promotion, it’s about helping other people and solving problems. It’s important to put a human face on your company page by connecting it to your personal pages. Confide in your employees and ask them to promote your company on their LinkedIn profiles. Finally, you can use paid LinkedIn ads to bolster your marketing efforts and hone in on your audience.

Getting More Followers on Social Media

In this section, we’ll break down exactly how you can increase your social media followers whether you are struggling to grow or are starting your accounts from zero.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Publish content on social media regularly
• Provide rich media with text
• Use hashtags where relevant
• Mention different accounts and groups
• Engage with your followers by responding to their messages and sending them DMs
• Create a welcoming profile by giving your business a human face
• Take part in chats
• Schedule your social media post timing based on when leads are most active (this can be done with analytical tools such as Sprout)

Social media algorithms thrive on meaningful interactions. You can tap into the rich resource by inviting your team to contribute to your marketing efforts. This can make a major difference in your overall reach and brand growth. Encourage your staff to share their experiences with your company and work on their personal accounts. This will create a conversation that will spark more interest in your brand.

You can also ask your employees to interact with each other. Post your struggles, victories, and losses because people love a good story.

Try to experiment with different types of posts, including text-only posts and infographics. Leverage multimedia in the form of images and videos to grab users’ attention as they scroll through their feeds. People are more likely to pay attention if your posts feature relevant multimedia. This doesn’t mean that text-only posts are not relevant – every format has its place.

Payment Gateways

Payment gateways are arguably the most important element of your website. They should allow you to securely process customer payments without compromising their safety. This is easier said than done when cyber attacks are on the rise. Data breaches are incredibly common in 2022 and payment processors are a prime target of cyber attacks.

It is important to do your research before choosing a payment processor. The best payment gateway has the following features:

• DCI-PSS compliance
• GDPR compliance (to help you sell across Europe)
• HTTPS connection to facilitate online payments in a secure environment
• Anti-fraud protection with advanced security features

It is important for the payment gateway to be easy to use by the end-user with a self-explanatory user interface. All customers have to do is enter their credit card details (or e-wallet such as PayPal) into the payment gateway page and make their purchase. The payment gateway will then deduct the appropriate amount from the customer’s credit card and send it to your bank account (after deducting its fees). You can choose to transfer the payment directly into your account.

The bottom line is that payment gateways make ecommerce easy for businesses and are a crucial element of your digital transformation journey.

Here are a few factors that you should consider before choosing a payment gateway.

Factor 1: Ease of Use

The best payment gateways are easy to use – by both you and your customers. A payment gateway that is difficult to use will result in a higher bounce rate and increase the rate of cart abandonment. As a result, you will notice reduced sales. This defeats the purpose of starting your digital transformation in the first place!

As a rule, the payment gateway should be straightforward to use with easy steps that the average online user can understand. We recommend conducting website usability testing to evaluate the user experience. You can use various tools that let you collect insights based with the help of high-quality testers – for a fee.

You could test website usability yourself, but the process is prone to errors because of your own biases.

Factor 2: Payout Time

Once your payment gateway collects a transaction, it will freeze the amount for a few hours or days – depending on your arrangement and the provider’s policies. Make sure to research the payout times before you integrate a payment gateway.

Payout time for Stripe is about seven days, or 14 days for high-risk businesses. PayPal’s payout time is 1 to 2 days.

Note that the payout time for Stripe is higher if you just registered. Payment gateways have their own policies to determine high-risk businesses and industries. In most cases, excessive chargebacks and fraudulent transactions would increase your risk to the payment gateway. In most cases, it is better to simply refund the payment if your customer insists on it.

Most chargebacks are not worth fighting because they are a waste of time and resources, and could be a source of great stress to your employees (and reputation).

Factor 3: Pricing Models

Every payment gateway will charge you for using its services. This cost is usually a small fraction of what you are charging. Some payment gateways charge a monthly fee and others charge a fee for each transaction. You can compare the fee structure for different payment gateways before selecting them for your business.

Factor 4: Compatibility with Different Currencies

Collecting payments in different currencies will become relevant if your user base is spread out across the world. Asking your clients to pay in a specific currency may increase the transaction’s difficulty, reducing your sales.

A good payment gateway should accept payments in all major currencies, including the US dollar, Euro, and pound sterling.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular payment gateways.

PayPal

PayPal is the defacto payment gateway that is preferred by most online businesses. It is accepted in more than 203 countries around the world and supports all major credit cards including Visa, Citibank, American Express, MasterCard, and others. Make sure to start a business PayPal account for liability reasons.

It is worth noting that PayPal isn’t supported in all countries. You can check out their eligible countries list to see if it is available in your country or not. The great thing about PayPal is that it is incredibly easy to set up and use. It is PCI-compliant and lets you track your inventory.

A defining feature of PayPal is letting your customers pay in cryptocurrency. PayPal’s processing fees are 3.49% with a fixed $0.49 for each transaction. This makes them a bit expensive for bigger transactions.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net is a popular payment gateway that is available in more than 33 countries. It has been around for a long time and is one of the most reputable gateway payment providers. It is easy to use and set up thanks to multiple plugins and extensions for easy integration with websites.

It is also worth noting that Authorize.net has one of the lowest transaction fees of 2.9% + $0.30 for ecommerce stores. The easy checkout feature, digital invoicing, and advanced fraud protection are a major reason why it continues to be a popular payment gateway. Authorize.net also has a mobile app that allows you to accept mobile payments – a useful feature given that so many users are pivoting to smartphones when buying products.

The company integrates with QuickBooks to help you keep your books in order – a useful feature that will come in handy during the stressful tax season. Authorize.net also lets you accept payments over the phone using their Virtual Terminal. Their automatic Fraud Detector suite comes with various filters to help you block fraudulent transactions and lowers your overall liability.

2Checkout

2Checkout is more versatile than PayPal because it facilitates virtually every form of payment you can think of – including PayPal itself. Once you set up 2Checkout, you will gain access to over 45 payment methods. This allows you to set up shop virtually anywhere in the world and help you maximize sales.

It was acquired in 2020 by VeriFone and there are rumors of even more mergers in the future. A major reason for 2Checkout’s success is the dashboard that is easy to navigate with a straightforward installation process. You can gain access to 24/7 technical support through live chat and email. For more serious issues, you can reach their customer support via phone.

You can sign up for their advanced 2Monetize plan to access features like regulatory compliance, tools to boost conversion rates, and invoice management. The only disadvantage of 2Checkout is that it doesn’t support in-store payments – but this could change in the future if VeriFone decides to expand the product offering.

With that said, 2Checkout remains one of the best payment processors for any business that wants to sell their products online.

For sales of over $500,000, we recommend signing up with their enterprise plan to make each transaction more affordable.

Skrill

Skrill is emerging as a major payment provider and supports over 50 countries. It primarily supported the gambling sector in the UK and always played second fiddle to PayPal until regulatory changes in the industry forced PayPal to abandon the gambling sector. This allowed Skrill to build its reputation as an alternative to PayPal. The payment processor underwent a rebranding process in 2013 and went on a path to merge with other payment systems.

Ever since its rebranding, Skill has positioned itself as a major payment provider in the world.

Skrill has also embraced cryptocurrencies and has opened up different ways of accepting payments. The fee charges for Skrill depend on the payment method that has been used – ranging from 0.00% to 5.00%. Customers can pay via credit cards and e-wallets.

Skrill also offers an official extension for WooCommerce stores and WordPress.

Google Pay

It was only a matter of time before Google entered the world of payment gateways. Like most Google products, Google Pay is intuitively designed with versatile payment options. It allows you to collect payment in-store, online, and even person-to-person. A major benefit of using Google Pay is the ability to collect payments from mobile users on Android and iOS devices.

Google Pay also offers NFC payment at major venues around the world. The bottom line is that you simply can’t go wrong with Google Pay.

WePay

WePay is a great alternative to PayPal and Stripe. It was launched in 2008 with a specific focus on ecommerce stores. It supports just about all content management systems including WordPress and WooCommerce. It facilitates the collection of payments through credit cards and ACH transfers. There are no setup fees and it is straightforward to use.

WePay is compatible with most devices, including Android and iOS phones. It comes with high-level PCI compliance and a custom UX for branding purposes. Like most payment gateways, WePay lets you accept payments rapidly from customers in a secure environment.

Transaction authorization rates for WePay are over 98.5%, which means you can get paid in a relatively short period without running into any security issues.

Send out Announcements

Complete your digital transformation journey by alerting your existing customers. Once you have moved from offline to online, you will have to leverage all media channels you have at your disposal to announce your transition.

Here are a few channels you can start using.

Email

Send an email to your customers informing them about the move. It is recommended to keep the information concise and to the point. A single email should do the job. Don’t spam your subscribers because it could violate the rules of engagement.

Social Media

Use all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to make an announcement about your digital transformation. Ensure to include a link to your website (this will generate some traffic to your website). Make sure to tailor the content to each platform.

Hire Influencers

Partner with various influencers in your niche and ask them to spread the word about your business. Consider hiring smaller influencers because they may be more willing to work with a smaller budget.

Wrapping Up

So there you have it. An in-depth guide on successfully leading your digital transformation. There are a few things that you will need to get right, including:

• The ecommerce platform
• The domain name
• Payment gateway
• SEO and content strategy
• Social media presence

Depending on your industry, you can add more tools to your tech stack to stay ahead of your competition. Don’t hesitate to phase out products that aren’t compatible with your new goals.

For feedback, feel free to send us a message and let us know about tools we may have missed.