Preparing Your Business for the New Year

The New Year often prompts businesses to reflect on the past fiscal year. On the other hand, it’s also an opportune time to prepare for the months to come. Use January to realign your marketing, security, and customer service strategies. Below is a general outline of questions to ask yourself in order to succeed in preparing your business for the New Year!

Online Marketing

Online Advertising

What does every business have in common? That’s right, advertising. Consider your online advertising strategy for the previous year. Are you happy with the results? If you aren’t, it may be time to switch up your method.

Where and how did you advertise? Have you met your goals?
Did you overspend or underspend?
Was the outlet you chose to advertise through the best option for your business?

If you’re looking for a new outlet to advertise through, you may want to consider advertising on OldCity.com.

Website Maintenance

Don’t forget, your website is a form of online advertising too; it serves as your online storefront. Your website should be clean, welcoming, and up to date – just like your physical storefront.

Does it need a redesign? Is it responsive and easy to navigate?
Is the content (text, images, videos) up to date and accurate?
How old is your website and its content? Since technology and SEO requirements are always evolving, content and websites should never go longer than two or three years without being tweaked.

Print Materials

Now, review your print materials! This includes business cards, brochures, letterheads, billboards, rack cards, and all printed materials.

Did you rebrand last year? If so, your print materials must be modified to reflect your new brand.
Did your business move locations or expand to an additional location? Do your print materials have accurate business information such as addresses, phone numbers, and emails?
Do you have an overabundance or very few print materials left? If so, perhaps your print materials weren’t persuasive or distributed effectively.

Cyber Security

Backup your Files

Every business should routinely backup their files. If you don’t backup files to an offline outlet, your information is susceptible to hackers, viruses, weather, and even the old age of your device. What better time than the new year to put a plan in motion or reevaluate your current strategy?

Are your business emails backed up?
Is the important information relevant to your business backed up? This can be employee information, client records, tax data, and sensitive files.
Is your website backed up?

The best way to protect your website and email files are by hosting them on a secure server. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to hire a huge corporation to stay secure. Our servers are in a secure facility, have backups, and can survive a category five hurricane.

Phishing Emails

In 2018, we saw a huge leap in the number of phishing emails going out. Currently, 135 million phishing emails are sent per day. It’s important that you and your staff are educated on how to avoid being tricked by a phishing email.

Do both you and your employees know to never click on suspicious URLs?
Are you aware to check for poor grammar and illegitimate email domains?
Do you know what to do if you come across a phishing email?
Are your email files on a secure server?

Send us an email to get started on securing your email and website files.

Customer Service

Listen to Feedback

The best way to grow and nurture your business is by listening to feedback from both potential and repeat customers. Check your online reviews, social media engagements, reread customer emails, and ask your employees if they’ve received feedback from customers.

Overall, is the feedback positive or negative?
Are customers responding to products, prices, or staff?
Have you taken the steps to correct negative feedback and reinforce positive feedback?

Check Your Mission Statement

Businesses often evolve by growing, changing their line of products or services, or in the methods of which they conduct business. Therefore, the beginning of the year is a perfect time to reevaluate your mission statement and make changes that reflect the evolution of your business.

Does your mission reflect your business’ goal? Would your clients agree?
Have you changed the way you conduct business?
Is your client base different?
What is the “why” behind your business? Have your underlying philosophies changed?

To Sum it All Up

In conclusion, consider your business’ successes and failures from the previous year. With the list above in mind, are there any changes you need to make to your business plan? Remember, preparing your business for the New Year can only help you prosper. Don’t worry if you don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered and can help you solve any of the issues presented above.

Take the first step in preparing your business for the New Year and send us an email.

Mission Statement

Our mission at Old City Web Services is to navigate the world of web design, web development, and advertising for our clients so that they can focus on what they do best – running their business! Our business intentions go beyond the metrics of graphics, coding, and SEO. Located on Florida’s First Coast, we run a personable home front service and consider our relationship with our clients as a partnership in their success. If you are looking to increase your business’ visibility give us a call at (904) 829-2772 or contact us today.

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