It’s easy when you’re used to doing business face to face, in the ‘real’ world to think that doing business online is an entirely new and completely separate way of doing things. It can be but it certainly doesn’t have to be.
The thing to remember is this: Online is just another channel – for marketing, selling, delivering, providing customer service and more.
The best kind of mindset to approach doing business online is this: It doesn’t replace what you already do, but enhances and improves it.
When working through this process with clients, I like to use two key words: Integration and Interplay. It’s useful to remember the following…
You don’t need to build and grow a new, separate online audience; you can encourage interplay between your existing audience and your new online channels. {This is far smarter and much simpler than attempting to build an all-new audience online from scratch}.
You don’t have to create an all-new, all-digital line-up of products & services; you can integrate and supplement what you already have to offer a more complete and rounded proposition which covers all the bases. {This reduces the possibility of confusing or overwhelming your audience with too much choice, and complicating your own life}.
You don’t have to create new processes to accommodate the online channel you now have; you can integrate the online channel into the current processes of your existing business. {This enables you to streamline, enhance and re-engineer what you already have with maximum benefit to you, your business and your customers}.
Your online marketing doesn’t have to replace your existing offline efforts; you can integrate both to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of each. {This can lead to more business, faster growth and a more engaged and active audience both online and off}.
I like to think of it this way…
It is not online or offline, nor is it online and offline; it is online with offline.