How to Grow Your Business Online During COVID-19

The coronavirus outbreak has hit many people hard, forcing them to close the doors of their businesses in order to protect their employees and customers. While this may be considered a setback, you still have to push forward, and you can still make sure your business remains successful. While most people are stuck in their homes, it's time to focus on the online side of your business! Here are some ways you can keep your business moving digitally.

Bring Your Business Online

With everyone staying at home to flatten the curve, many brick-and-mortar stores will see their revenue drop. Now is the best time to bring your business online. Many retailers have thought about doing this before and setting up an e-commerce store, but a lot of them are unsure of where to start.

At AnoLogix, we're experts at building e-commerce sites for our customers. We recommend using Shopify or Woocommerce.

WooCommerce

• WooCommerce is the top used e-commerce platform in the world. It is but on WordPress, which is the software powering more than 1/3 of the internet.
• With WooCommerce, you can create a beautiful store with a plethora of themes, unrestricted customization, and built-in blogging. You can also embed products, create categories and tags, show customer feedback directly on product pages, and so much more.
• Merchants are also able to sell both physical and digital products, show affiliate products, offer unlimited product variations, and set shipping rates and options.
• You can extend WooCommerce with extensions. WooCommerce has hundreds of free and paid extensions, so you're sure to find something that meets your needs.

Shopify

• Shopify is the second largest e-commerce platform in the world and has more users than other platforms such as Magento and BigCommerce. More than 1 million merchants use the Shopify platform worldwide.
• Independent merchants have a ton of services at their disposal with Shopify, such as hosting, marketing, storefront, shipping, inventory management, customer service, and much more. Using Shopify starts at $29/month, with their Basic plan. Due to the impact of coronavirus, Shopify is offering an extended 90-day free trial to new customers. If you're already on a 14-day trial, you can extend it to 90 days. Read more about how Shopify is helping during the COVID-19 outbreak here.
• Shopify also has other products such as Shopify POS, a simple and intuitive point of sale in an easy-to-use app, and Shopify Plus, an enterprise-level plan that comes with more features and customization options.

Grow Your Email List

Growing your email list is a critical part of building your business up online. Here are some of the main reasons you should focus on growing your list:

1. Email marketing offers a high ROI: Did you know that for every $1 marketers spend on email marketing campaigns, they generate about $42 in return?
2. More people are using and checking their emails: By the end of the year, more than 4 billion people will be using email, and that's before accounting for mandatory isolation due to COVID-19. Because of the stay-at-home orders that are becoming mandatory across the U.S., more communications are turning to emails.
3. You can segment your email list and personalize your emails: Many mail service providers allow you to segment your email list, as well as customize your emails. Features such as these make it easier to make your targeting messages more relevant to your audience.
4. You'll have connections and control: With an email list, you have a direct relationship with your customers and audience. Even if you decide to change email providers, you can export your email list, which is a great asset. On most social media sites, however, you have little or no control over your followers.

If you're looking for some of the best ways to grow your email list, check out these 16 tips.

Reach Prospective Clients and Customers with Emails

During quarantine and social distancing efforts, more and more people are turning to emails as a way of communication. There are no more meetings over coffee or store walk-ins right now. Now is the time to use email to:

• Reach out to your prospective customers to book product demonstrations and close sales.
• Connect with influencers to promote your content, products, and marketing campaigns.
• Build relationships and partnerships with industry leaders and experts.

Create an Online Course

As coronavirus pushes us to isolate ourselves, there will most likely be more of a demand for online learning (especially for small businesses). Here are a few ways you can implement online courses into your business:

• Educate people about your products. By showing your audience how they can get the most out of your products, you can increase retention rates, and members of your audience are more likely to become advocates.
• Generate leads. Drive more leads to your business with an online course. This is best for service-based businesses.
• Sell your knowledge about things related to your industry. If you know something that other people want to know, you might be able to pack it into an online course and sell it.

Invest in Digital Marketing

Content marketing has become more critical since the COVID-19 outbreak, as more people are searching for what they want to buy online. While you don't need to make content centered around the pandemic, you can create content that helps your audience solve a problem they're currently facing or connect your products or services to the solution they've been searching for.

There are three cornerstones to writing great blog content. You'll want to make sure the content is helpful, entertaining, and that it ranks.

If you need more information on blogging, check out our guide on how to write epic content that makes you stand out! Done writing your blog? Here's a guide for promoting it on social media.

Continue Growing Your Business

Despite everything that's happening and the fact that we have no control over it, what we work on now will ultimately affect our outcome when this has all passed. It might be a challenging prospect, but we hope that this article has helped. If you decide to continue growing your business online, we have the tools to help.

Check out our blogs for guides and tips on how to grow and optimize your business, create excellent content, reach more people through social media and email marketing campaigns, and so much more! Or check out our services to see what we can do to help your business.

We know this time has been tough on everyone. We want to help your small business remain successful!