Why Online And Not In Store?

If you have been paying keen attention to the 21st century you would have noticed the vast growth of the internet and the evolving roles it plays in our day to day lives. From emails to making posts of all your activities, a day without the internet almost seems detrimental, and though there are many down falls to this great medium the benefits still outweigh the risks. So how can small businesses use the internet to their benefit, you may ask.

The answer is this simple, start your business online.  For many reasons an online presence for small businesses works out better than a physical store. Here’s why:

Global access

According to  (Statista, 2019) approximately 2.77 billion of the population will be on social media in 2019. That sums up to roughly 13% of the world’s population.  Already an online presence opens your company up to far more potential customers than a physical place would. The greatest benefit of running a business online is the wider reach of customers from not only your country but other countries across the globe.

24/7

With online businesses there is generally no opening and closing time which is usually the case with a physical store. This means that your business could be earning money way past the average 9-5 work hours. This is also a great benefit to customers. It gives them accessibility to your store at any time that is convenient to them. Customers would appreciate that fact that there is no hassle to leave the house, office, or hangout spot to get to your store. Instead, the store is right at their finger tips.

Cheaper

Physical stores in most cases may require rent payment, light payment, water payment and just about anything that you may need to keep your store running. These costs may be very heavy for small businesses and   reduce the potential profit that can be made. However, online businesses at most require web development and web maintenance fees that are far less expensive than that of a physical store.

When speaking about the costs of business it is also important to take note of the marketing costs. Physical marketing is very expensive and may cut into most of the costs of a company. Because marketing is so crucial for businesses to build a customer base, it cannot be ignored. However, online marketing has given small business, and even bigger businesses too, an opportunity to cut down on the marketing costs and still reach a wide spread of potential customers. In fact, the marketing world is beginning to shift from the physical advertising and branding such as billboard, newspapers, posters etc., to a more cost efficient method known as digital marketing.

Company-Audience Interaction

A strong online presence allows companies to interact with their customers on a daily basis. Marketing today is not just about selling a product but selling an experience to customers. The internet gives the customers a look into the day to day functioning of the business making it more personable and relatable .This helps with the selling of the experience that customer now look for when aligning them self with a brand.

 

So there you have it, the answer to your question of the importance of having a strong online presence and why it is better to start small businesses online.

Feel free to look at our website for ideas on how to set up your online business.

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Reference

Statista. (2019). Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). Retrieved February 7, 2019, from The Statistics Portal: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/

 

 

February 22, 2019 Bussiness, Uncategorized No comments yet

Effective Graphic Designs

Graphic designs are known for representing the image or identity of a brand and the message one is trying to convey. It is sometimes referred to as visual communication with the aim of delivering a message to its targets.  Many people believe that graphic designs are effective once it is appealing to the eye, however this may not necessarily be true.  Think back to all the posters you have glimpsed, logos you have seen and billboards you’ve driven pass that you still have no idea what its purpose served. There is a strategic process to producing an effective design which first involves conceptualizing then execution.

Conceptualizing Process

  1. Understanding the brand – Before the creative process can begin, the designer must ensure that they understand the brand that the design is being produced for. He/She must familiarize themselves with the purpose of the brand, the brand colours, and the main goals and objectives for the brand. This will help the designer come up with the quality concepts that not only look appealing but also assist in achieving the goals of the brand and creating that buzz that they need.
  2. Understanding the brand’s targets – The next thing that is essential for an effective design is that it must be related to the targets. A designer must understand what the targets like and dislike and use that to his/her advantage. If you know what your targets respond to the most then creating effective designs come easy after that. It helps you in the sense that you can now use elements that grasps your target’s attention in your designs.
  3. Understanding the message – The main purpose for creating designs as stated before is to deliver a certain message to targets. For a design to be effective the designer must understand what the message is and come up with a creative way to deliver that message to the target.

Once you have those main three things down and you’ve discovered a creative way to incorporate these elements then its execution time. However the execution process is not that simple and there are still a few things that a designer must understand when going forth with the design.

Execution Process

  1. Attention Grabber – For your design to be noticed by your target there must be an element that grabs the attention of your audience. Without this key element it is highly likely that your design will go unnoticed. Tied in with understanding what your target responds to your design must include a bold representation that makes your target stop in their tracks and look at your design. This is almost law for effective graphics and designs.
  2. Colour choice – People usually take colour choice for granted but a good designer knows that different colours evoke different feelings in an artwork. Therefore, for an effective design, the designer must understand the feeling that the brand is trying to evoke and incorporate colours that give off that feel in their designs. This is also tied with understanding the message and understanding the brand.
  3. Copy – One thing to always remember with copy when it comes to effective graphics and designs is that less is more. Designs that are overcrowded with words may deter targets from the design. Visual communication is all about imagery, therefore your message should be delivered mostly through the imagery and the text should be used as a brief addition. Keep it simple, legible and to the point.

Essentially, a lot of work is put into an effective design. It’s not just creativity but knowing how each design can work for the brand and getting the right message across to targets.

Take a look at some designs we created using these steps. Portfolio

February 18, 2019 Bussiness, Graphic Designs, Services, Uncategorized No comments yet

Cyber Security Risks in the Social World

We’re all fairly knowledgeable about how to deal with security issues for email. We don’t open emails that come from someone we don’t know, for example, and if we do, we’re certainly wary about clicking on links.

These same malicious tools can be used with social media posts to infect people’s computers and smart devices. But for some reason, people are much more willing to click and trust links on social media than they are elsewhere in the digital world.

In May 2017, the New York Times reported that Russian hackers gained access to the computer of a Pentagon official through a link in a Twitter post that was put out by a robot account for a ‘family friendly summer vacation.’ They also tried ‘spear-phishing’ on 10,000 Twitter accounts for people in the Department of Defense.

Once a single person is successfully targeted, the message can be sent out again to all the contacts in that person’s social network. As links shared by a genuine friend on social media are more likely to be trusted, the malware can spread very quickly.

The cybersecurity firm ZeroFOX recently found that only 30 percent of spear-phishing emails were opened but that more than double (66 percent) of similar social media messages were clicked.

BE AWARE OF CLICKABLE LINKS
One way to protect yourself against social media-based security threats is to subscribe to a service that can check your accounts for malicious content. Even so, the first line of defense is to be aware. If you know that a link clicked on Twitter or Facebook can be as dangerous as a link clicked in an email, make sure you know and trust the link’s source. If the business has a page on Facebook, then it’s likely to be OK.

If a friend sends you a link that seems out of character or that advertises a product they probably wouldn’t recommend, check with them first before clicking.

You should also make sure that you update your passwords for social media. Twitter hacks where compromising pictures of celebrities have made their way online have now become commonplace. The reason is because the victims’ Twitter accounts had simple passwords that were easily hacked. From there, hackers stole information contained in the Twitter accounts and used it to access home computers and smart devices remotely if they had the same login credentials.

USE DIFFERENT PASSWORDS FOR DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS
The threats described above seem scary, but they derive their power mainly from people who use simple passwords on more than one device. Private information should be kept safe. Many websites now ask for a mix of characters and numbers as well as at least one upper- and lower-case character. These are much harder to hack than simple words or combinations.

If you are active on social media, then people can find out an awful lot about you. If you have a favorite pet and you post about them, don’t use their name as any part of a password. That goes for family members, birthdays and anything else that is easy for you to remember but also easy for hackers to find out.

There are also many password managers that can create a randomized password for each of your accounts. With these types of services, you only need to remember one password for your password managing account.

BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR BANKING DETAILS
There are some places that offer a credit card allowing you to change your credit card number with each transaction. This means that even if your information is stolen in a hack (as happened with the PlayStation Network), then you can just change your credit card number, thereby protecting your banking information. Other services like PayPal offer simpler but just as effective protection.

Users also need to look out for something known as “Cat Fishing.” The film and TV show Catfish is based on this phenomenon, which is broadly just another way of saying that someone is pretending to be someone else online. Sometimes, this can be used to sell people things, mislead individuals into sharing too much, or even giving out their personal or banking information online.

Something as simple as posting your location can let criminals know that your house is unattended, for instance.

There are many cyber security issues with social media, but for every new threat, there is a potential solution. Fortunately, common sense works against most of these risks.

About the Author: Simon Parker has over 70 years of shared experience with Minerva Security, dealing with commercial business security and fire alarm systems.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of Tripwire, Inc.

September 29, 2018 Uncategorized No comments yet
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