We are living in a digital age surrounded by technology. If you are not using technology to grow your business in 2021, you are missing out on a lot of things. With technology, you can not only find a whole new customer base but also create a high profile reputation for your business. You can connect with your customers and build trust. You can provide a personalised user experience to your current and potential customers. And, what not! 

So let us dive into this article and understand how to leverage technology to exponentially scale a business in 2021.  

#1 Manage your projects and deadlines with productivity apps 

If you are still using notepads or sticky notes to remember stuff and carry out your ideas, you are wasting a lot of your time and energy. There is no denying that traditional ways of project management are good. I still use whiteboards and notepads but using a productivity app takes your organisational skills to another level. 

One of the best examples of productivity apps is Trello. This app lets you organise your calendar, collaborate on different projects, track your progress, and organise all your projects and ideas in one place. It does not matter if you are managing the content department or SEO, every team can use this app to synchronise their work. Other examples include Basecamp, Monday.com, OneNote, EverNote, Notion, Todoist and Slack.  

#2 Use social media to build your online presence 

Social media is essential for every business to grow. It does not matter if you own a bakery or a tech company, you can create a business page on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and start connecting with your audience. Here are a few ways how social media can benefit your business: 

• You can attract more customers and build customer loyalty
• You can expand your market, reach international markets 
• You can run ads and spread the word about your brand 
• You can keep an eye on your competitors and see how they are doing 
• You can communicate directly with your clients on social media 
• You can showcase your business in attractive ways 
• You can increase your website traffic with social media 

#3 Create a website to generate business

Your website is your identity. Today when the whole world is online, why are you being left behind? So, if you do not own a website for your business yet, start your website today. Here are some of the many reasons why you must have a website. 

• Everyone expects a business to have a website. This is how people can get to know more about your business. 
• People expect that you write about your products, services, mission and vision on your website. 
• Having a website provides social proof for your business.
• A website gives you an edge over your competitors. So if you are waiting for them to come online first, just take the chance and set up your authority first. 

If you are still in doubt, just check out these statistics and you will understand why a website is important for your business. 

#4 Use artificial intelligence for better customer experience 

Conversational AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all over the business landscape today. It can help you increase sales, find new leads, and cope up with a low workforce. Businesses are now using chatbots to fetch the data about their website visitors and making predictions which leads should be tackled first. Chatbots take less than a second to answer questions related to customer support, basic customer queries and so on. 

Today, every customer appreciates attention and handling a hundred customers per day could be a challenge for the sales team. With conversational AI, you can send automatic personalised emails and text messages to your potential leads and turn them into your customers. 

#5 Capturing data and analytics for better business 

Data is an essential element for businesses today. It can help them understand their audience even better. You can collect various data related to your website and analyse it to scale up your business. For example, bounce rates can tell you how many people are not liking your website, demographics can disclose your outreach, page views can identify your most liked and least liked content and so on. 

Data analytics provides a heads up whether your business is moving in the right direction. You can identify market trends and find out which products are doing well and which are not and the reasons behind that. With data analytics you can make better decisions about expanding your market, starting new advertising campaigns, creating better content and so on. Everything is based on solid facts and not just superficial guesswork or ambiguous information. 

#6 Scaling up through mobile marketing 

Mobile phones let you connect with your customers instantly. According to Google data, more than 50% of the people perform a Google search and/or buy the product in a store, directly visit the website to buy the product and send a text about it. Mobile users are increasing at a huge rate so there is an urgent need for businesses to create content suitable for mobile phones. There are several ways to do that. For instance, creating an app, using mobile advertising in games apps, launching ads for Google mobile search, SMS marketing etc are some easy ways to enhance your mobile marketing.

Embrace The Change

This is the time to embrace technology for the better. With most people connected to the online world, a business must also be online so that it can find its ideal customers. As it is said, be where your customers are! In this article, we discussed 6 ways how businesses can leverage technology. This included using:

• productivity apps to manage and organise the projects, 
• social media to create an online presence and increase outreach, 
• website so that everyone can know more about your business, 
• artificial intelligence for generating a better user experience, 
• data and analytics for better decision-making, and   
• mobile marketing for scaling up your business online.  

What do you think? Is it possible to run a successful business in 2021 without using technology? If not, how are you embracing technology for enhancing your business? Share your thoughts with us.