Let's Get Digital

Don't know the first thing about doing digital business? The find yourself an expert. In this day and age digital is just a given part of doing business. Whether you are fresh faced and just setting up or an age old veteran, you need to consider your business in a digital way..

The guys at Frontier Digital will be able to help you take your business into the digital space. Whether its just getting your online presence up to date, streamlining and securing your online sales or working on online marketing - see how they can help you.

It doesn't matter what kind of business you are running - you need to make sure your data - and any client data you keep - is secure. The best way to do this is to have multiple backups and off site storage for all of your data. That way if your computer or laptop gets stolen or broken, you still have access to all of that information and can keep your business going.

Most people use one of 2 methods for this - they either rent some cloud space from a provider like Amazon or Google, or they rent a small rack within a data centre. Personally for the security and added safety, I would opt for a data centre. This way your data is held within a state of the art system, in a high security building that is guaranteed power and emergency 24/7 support. Take a look at the data centres in your area and choose one that can accommodate you. Have a look at the ink above for a few suggestions of things you should ask your data centre candidates.

When making the move into the digital space, one of the key things to realise is that the way you market your business will change. Instead of putting up posters or sending out leaflets, you need a strong website, some online videos and email send outs. A good digital design agency can help you to make the transition from physical to digital marketing - and make it as painless as possible. They can completely re brand you for the digital age, or modify and update your existing branding to compliment your new digital look.

Social media is something everyone feels that they need to be on. in order to succeed in doing digital business. Well here's a breath of fresh air for you - while social media is great and it can be incredibly rewarding as a business tool - but it's not for everyone! You should only be on social media if it's the right place for you and your business to be. To figure that out ask yourself this: are your customers there? If so, then it might be worth investigating. If not - then don't worry!

Check out page 13 to read more about social media and why you don't need to be there.

Now that you've set up all these fantastic new ways to make money and push your business forward- how are you going to know which of them work for you, and how well? It's one thing understanding what might work for you - but every business is different, every market is different and what works for one business model might not work for yours. Make sure you find a way to measure how successful each endeavour is. This could be through statistics, surveys, sales numbers at certain times - there are loads of ways to do it. Making sure you have these measures in place is crucial if you want your digital business to keep growing.