Keeping your customers satisfied with timely and accurate order fulfillment operations is critical for your business, though the future of your enterprise demands that you identify and convert new customers, a need that can not only be met, but enhanced by those who understand and invest in a dynamic social media effort. To do that, however, outsourcing certain functions ancillary to marketing makes good sense. Consider the following as you evaluate your company’s own position to capitalize on a strong sales market.
Looking for a bright spot among stories about the economy? Try looking at the shattered records resulting from retail sales from Cyber Monday this year! Shoppers are buying and they’re doing a lot of that buying on the Internet. With this year’s Cyber Monday figures estimated to have increased by one-third from last year’s 1 billion dollar plus level, paying close attention to your online branding efforts is critical to your bottom line.
Among those encouraging figures was another revelation. Tablets and mobile devices are becoming an increasingly important factor in online sales. The first thing this should trigger is a thought about how tailored your website is to mobile apps. The second thought should be, “for what activities do most people use their mobile devices?” If you came up with the “check social media” at the top of your responses, you’re on the right track. Finally, with a good idea of how important your social media assets are, have you come to any conclusions about other functions in your company that don’t directly support the conversion of potentially new customers?
Acting on what you know
Now may be the time to invoke that part of the serenity prayer in which you accept those things you can’t change now. Focus on what steps you can take to improve this year’s profits with an eye on how you’ll do better next year. As for making changes to accommodate mobile apps on your website and on your social media presence, that’s a pretty quick fix, but it’s critical that fix be given the highest priority.
Setting up a comprehensive social media presence is slightly more difficult than adapting to mobile apps, but it can be done well in a relatively short time yielding both short and long term benefits. For now, Facebook is the most expansive and numerous networks of social media users online. However, Foursquare is another platform from which you can augment your Facebook traffic with specials for those who Check In to any physical location. Despite not being strictly a cyber-customer if converted in an actual store, capturing their attention on a social site is a good way to piggy back on your Facebook pages.
For the long run, more than a few retailers have come to find that supporting functions, such as accounting and payroll and the packing and shipping of goods, is best outsourced and the time saved in directly managing these activities spent increasing traffic and conversion online.
Lessons learned
While there’s no way to know if this current uptick in the economy will be sustained, there’s a consensus on what happens when companies fail to tap into online sales; the competition wins. Understanding that social media and the rise of mobile apps in consumer buying behaviors is a direct means of improving both sales and margins (through the relatively low costs), and one that involves urgency for some tasks and a more steady approach for others. Finding the resources to make these adjustments can often be found by shifting from internal to external sources those tasks that don’t directly impact sales.
Article by harpermac11
Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in technology and social media articles. She writes on behalf of order fulfillment. Lindsey is currently completing work on her graduate degree.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Understanding that social media and the rise of mobile apps in consumer buying behaviors is a direct means of improving both sales and margins..Hope many people will like this..