Build (or improve) your organization portal, adapting it to the latest trends and getting it to appear in a relevant position.
Your organization must have a portal where information about products and services is displayed, where your potential users can consult everything they need.
If you already have one, you can try to improve it, make it more attractive and more useful for your customers, taking into account the latest technological advances, like allowing your members to organize in social private areas or a forum to share their ideas and concerns.
You should also ensure that it appears in the first places of the searches, that it is well positioned. For this you can use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, thanks to which your portal will appear in the best positions when your target audiences carry out a search.
Besides you can transform your portal into a marketplace where multiple supliers can sell their products and services, or implant suscriptions and memberships asociated to products and services and even a system of auctions completely configurable and with an easy administration.
Add an online store.
If you add an online sales channel, you are multiplying your options. But doing it is not easy, things on the internet work differently. It may be a good idea to seek help from an expert to advise you with the client management, the creation of a catologue…
For example, it is very important that the “on-line” channel is integrated with the rest of your systems, that it works in coordination with the rest of the organization, it cannot be that the availability of your products and services is different depending on the channel through which that the client accesses or the inside information being available in different places. A good example of it is the use of a CRM solution.
Another thing to have in mind in said integration is the posibility for the clients to reserve products (os book apointments in case of some services like events) and, for you, have the opcion to manage various aspects from the physical stores like the cashiers, orders and receipts, stock management or the every other aspect of the administration.
The next step is to make the online store accessible from a mobile device, which is currently the preferred option for users. This step is not easy either, and external help from someone who has experience in this field is useful.
Include a section for your users to add comments.
Today, one of the first things that a potential new user wants to know is what those who have already bought say, how has their experience been, what is their degree of satisfaction, whether or not they recommend the purchase, etc.
That is why it is essential to incorporate a section on your portal where your members can tell their experience, especially if you have confidence in your company and your products and services. For that the use of forums or walls it’s very common, as well as review areas for every product/service.
This section should be reviewed quite frequently to confirm that the comments are positive. If you find any negative, you should try to find out and solve as soon as possible what the problem has been and take the appropriate measures so that it does not occur again, thus improving your quality levels.
It’s also important to add a one stop shop system, this is an area where all the doubts that users may have are clasified by the type of incidence to make them easier to access and manage and allowing the comunication between users and technycal support in both ways.
Join Social Networks.
One of the fundamental steps to appear on the Internet is in the incorporation to Social Networks, something that is totally mandatory in these times, but which requires a certain strategy and minimal planning.
To do this, you must start by knowing these networks: who are their users, what is their scope of collaboration, etc., so that you can decide which of them to start with. This is another point where you can use some external help, although you could also, by way of illustration, start by investigating which Social Networks the main companies in your sector are connected to.
Once you have decided which Network to connect with in the first place, the following steps are simple: You must connect your portal with the chosen social network, inserting some specific publications that are of special relevance to your organization. You should also make it easier for your potential new users to register on your page through a network user they already have, instead of having to generate a new and specific user.
Join the most relevant forums in your sector.
Equally or more important than joining social networks is the link to the most important web pages in your business sector: specialized web portals, sector magazines, Newsletters, etc.
This connection can occur in both directions, that is, you can incorporate a section of links to the most interesting sites in the sector on your portal and you can also place a link to your website in them. For the latter it may be necessary to pay a certain amount.
One of the best options would be to join one of those forums and try to add value, that is, to collaborate with your own content, articles, for example. At the end of each of these contributions you could add a link to your portal to your signature.
Another example would be to interview a person of recognized prestige within your sector of activity and publish the interview on your portal. In this way you would get your page to grow in visibility and, therefore, that you receive many more visits from new users.
Make your organization available from any device.
The last step to place yourself in the internet world is to make your portal, including your online store, available on all mobile devices.
This is today the main demand of consumers, to be able to access the entire Internet world with their mobile phone, especially online stores.
Achieving this availability and, above all, doing it well, is not an easy step and it is recommended to seek the help of someone with experience in these tasks.
One of the most important elements is the online payments that will be made on your portal, with the high level of security that is necessary.
