By Lina Martinez

If you’ve been the owner of a small business for a long time, then it’s likely you’ll have been operating very traditionally. Most small businesses operate locally and tend to shy away from a lot of modern or digital practices.

But, has the time come for your small business to go digital? Essentially, the answer to this question boils down to another simple question; who is your target audience?

Now, this is where things get incredibly easy, as there is only really one answer that determines if you shouldn’t go digital. If your target audience is for elderly people, say 65-70+, then you might not need to go digital. Any other age range and you’ll have to, purely because the majority of modern consumers are now using digital devices throughout the day. So, fail to go digital, and your business misses out on all these potential consumers, and so many potential marketing opportunities.

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What Does ‘Going Digital’ Mean?

Of course, it’s important to understand what going digital means before you take the next steps. This is what puts a lot of businesses off, as they don’t understand the concept. They think it means packing up their store and opening an online business. However, this is only part of going digital. The idea is that you bring your business to the digital world, and take it online. Yes, this can involve opening an online store, but that doesn’t mean you have to close your physical shop. It can be something as simple as setting up a website or creating social media accounts for your business. All it means is that you give your company a digital presence to tap into all the digital consumers out there.

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Tips For Going Digital

If you’ve finally decided that the time is now, and you want to go digital, then take a look at these tips to help you out:

To start, create a website through any CMS (my personal recommendation is Wordpress, since it is so easy to find cheap hosting for this CMS) and start generating web traffic. This is the best way to go digital and start reeling in online consumers. You could find a digital strategy agency to help get things started and assist you in the generation of web traffic. If you want, you could even set your site up so that people can purchases your products/services directly from it.

Next, create social media accounts to spread your web presence. This allows you to tap into the social media market and interact with so many consumers. It also grows your business presence, making more and more people aware that you exist.

Finally, start creating digital adverts to grow your presence even more. Digital ads give you great exposure and help reel in even more new customers.

As mentioned at the start of this piece, there’s really only one reason your business shouldn’t go digital, and it only applies to a very niche type of company. Everyone else should get online and start taking advantage of all the great digital tools for businesses. By doing this, you’ll surely see an increase in growth and gain new customers while boosting sales.