How Small Businesses Build An Online Advantage

This analytics workshop in Chicago attracted a large number of small business owners who are working to understand and improve their digital presence, so that their business can consequentially improve as well.

It happens at this time of year. Not just taking a breather with the Christmas holidays , or even reviewing financials.   Each new year has become the perfect time for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to tighten the links between their online and real-world operations.

Most SMBs know their digital presence is essential to their success, but many don't understand that once online, their core businesses will have to perform differently than before.

A USA Today article on small business trends back in 2012 offered some suggestions. If you are a regular Business Agility reader, these three points highlighted in the article may sound particularly familiar.

1. Working 24/7: The 9-to-5 workday is a thing of the past. "The Internet, laptops, tablets, smartphones, apps, and software are the main culprits."
2. Video: Don't overlook video on your site. The article notes a Cisco estimate that "online video now makes up 50 percent of all consumer Internet traffic."
3. Mobile: In case you’ve been living under a rock, wireless devices are everywhere, and a heralding the Internet of Things age. This means customers and employees will want to connect at all hours, and your site needs to support that.

Another trend that caught my immediate attention was that small businesses fall into one of three categories: understanding social media, not understanding social media, or not caring about social media.

I think the small business that achieves success with social media is one that is prepared to be bold in deriving value from its operations. That value-creation drive makes it fearless in leveraging social media.

The end result is the ability to enact the steps that close a sale -- follow up by providing sales material, answer customer questions quickly, and offer information about services that anticipate customer concerns.

Gaining that intensity is possible. The starting point is gathering information on operations and making choices that leverage available assets. This can mean some initial isolation to reflect on honest feedback from employees and take in the status of a business.

This reflection does not mean becoming an isolated, brooding manager who goes to the mountaintop and returns holding stone tablets full of ideas. Instead, small businesses can start with two means to assess its capabilities, especially if a starting point is not entirely clear.

First, SMBs can review their web analytics data to learn what is working well online. As I have noted in many posts on this blog and in other sites such as CMS Wire, analytics can indicate site trends that may reflect how customers are finding and evaluating the business. These trends may also show how customer needs can be further served.

Second, a small business can also review its operations and determine what decisions keep cropping up. A recurring decision can probably be made more simply with a strategic, inexpensive purchase. If employees are on the go, what documents on the cloud should be available? And what is the best way to access them?

Using analytics to review online presence and manage business operations effectively can lead to new ways to become agile and provide true value.