How to Save Money on Your Company’s Digital Transformation During COVID-19

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we work, making us more reliant on digital tools. For a lot of companies which operated strictly from physical locations pre-pandemic, the urgent need for digitalization has become necessary for the survival of the business.

Before COVID-19, most companies never saw the need for a fully-functional website. Now they’re all looking at how they can get into the digital game and maintain or increase their profitability while eliminating the risk of shutting down or being replaced. This article is a simple guide for businesses looking to know and understand how to implement a digital transformation without digging too deep into the company coffers.

What You Need To Know About Taking Your Business Online

Contrary to popular belief, taking your business online isn’t just building a website on the cheapest domain you can find, posting your products there, and then hoping for the best. There’s a lot involved and even more at stake, but if you do it right, the move will be the best thing you’ve done for your business. Plus, with our help, you can do it without breaking a sweat or the bank through the coupon codes we offer. A few things you need to know about taking your business online are outlined below.

It’s More Than Social Media

A lot of companies actually don’t even see the need for a website for a business and delegate their online presence to a couple of social media accounts. While social media can aid in digital marketing and helping a company reach a bigger audience, it’s like having your company in a rented space where the owners can change the rules or kick you out anytime.

That’s where websites come in. With a website, you have full control over what you post and how you interact with your clients. Even though there are some expenses involved in building and maintaining a website, you can cut those down with coupons and discount codes from Promocodes.com.

If you can’t afford a website, you can save by getting a blog instead. It’s cheaper and gives you the creative room to market your business the way you want. Having all three (website, blog, and social media presence) is ideal and more effective as these tools all compliment each other.

You Need To Plan For It

While a lot of domain providers advertise website building as a quick, easy process, they don’t provide full details on all the legwork involved before you get to that stage. You need to have a clear eCommerce plan and an understanding of the best digital marketing practices so you’ll know how to put your business out there while saving money.

Put The Customer First

One of the primary reasons why companies feel the need to digitalize their business is because a lot of customers are now available online. The COVID-19 pandemic actually increased the number and frequency of people logging onto social media, reading content online, and shopping from eCommerce platforms.

As such, this is the best time for your business to interact with customers. For better interaction, you need to make sure your website loads quickly, you have a responsive customer service line, and your graphics and content are eye-catching so they’ll attract visitors and keep them engaged. Throughout all this, you need to keep the expenses down. You can do that with the coupons and promo codes we offer for the best deals on eCommerce solutions and website builders.

Tools For Moving Your Business Online

In this section of the article, we’ll discuss the tools you need to make that move effective while also saving money. The two most important tools needed for a digital transformation are a reliable website builder and an eCommerce platform.

Free Website Builder

There are quite a number of options when it comes to website builders. A few of the ones featured on our website are given below along with some pros and cons for each to help you decide which one is best for your business and offers the best deal.

Godaddy

If you want your website up and running fast, and you don’t have a lot to spend on it, Godaddy is your best option. Godaddy helps you build a beautiful website with built-in tools to increase your visibility on platforms like Google and Facebook. You can also manage your website, online store, social media accounts, email, and your marketing in one place on Godaddy’s dashboard. The affordable pricing plans are definitely worth considering and you can get GoDaddy coupon codes and promo codes from our site for discounts up to 50% on hosting plans.

Pros

● Easy-to-use website builder ● Good customer service and support ● You can make edits to your website quickly and easily

Cons

● Limitations on customization tools for templates, such as colors, fonts, and layouts. ● No full backend access ● Pricey add-ons

Wix

Wix is one of the best overall website builders. It’s fully customizable so you can design your website to your liking, plus it’s easy to use so you can build a basic website in a few minutes. Thanks to the Wix coupons on our site, you’ll get a freebie offer to build a simple website for free. You’re also free to take time to build one that’s highly customized and professional-looking after paying for a premium plan. The paid plans give you access to more features and greater flexibility on your website design.

Pros

● Has a free plan with adequate, but limited, features and design templates. ● Simple to use, especially for small businesses with a low budget for digitalization. ● Affordable premium plans you can get at a discount, thanks to Wix deals. ● Since Wix websites are hosted on Wix servers, your site will always stay fast.

Cons

● The free website you build from the complimentary plan will have ads. ● There are quite a number of limitations on the free plan such as limited bandwidth ● Most paid plans are more expensive than competitors

Weebly

As a website builder, Weebly is right up there with Wix. In addition to the drag and drop design, it has a set of tools that make website building easy and allows you to publish the site for free, with a few limitations. It works best for small business sites, with features ranging from SEO to eCommerce. There are 40+ mobile-friendly themes too, making Weebly a great choice for any business primarily interested in a mobile-first design. If you want to upgrade to a paid plan, you can use our Weebly promo code for a discount on your subscription.

Pros

● Good site speeds ● Templates available to use as a basis for building your website. ● You can export your site if you decide to move to another service provider for better deals or website features.

Cons

● There are limited blogging tools. ● If you use the free plan, you can only use the Weebly subdomain, even if you have a domain name of your own. ● Very few on-site image editing features. ● If you need help or support that goes beyond the basics available on the site, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan. Free plan users can’t access phone or priority support.

Squarespace

Squarespace surpasses its competitors by offering a better blogging tool and over 100 flexible mobile-friendly templates. It’s a good website builder for online stores, blogs, and portfolio sites, with several pricing plans to choose from according to your specific website building needs. With our Squarespace coupons, you can get up to 30% off on your plans by paying annually upfront.

Pros

● Plenty of templates and designs, fully optimized for tablets and phones and highly customizable. ● A great blogging feature is also included, giving businesses that use blogs to connect with their customers a simple, effective way to do it and improve their SEO. ● Highly responsive support team through live chat on the website ● Different mobile apps are available to help with editing your website.

Cons

● Low rated page speed, which translates to poor user experience and may even negatively impact search engine rankings ● Poor website editor usability features, for example, you’re required to manually save all changes you make due to lack of an autosave function. ● Doesn’t work well for larger websites requiring complex menus and multiple languages.

Fiverr

While Fiverr is not like the other website builders on this list, it’s certainly one site you can turn to when you need help building a website. There are plenty of freelancers available on the site with the expertise needed to build a functioning website. You can choose them according to their skills, price, or rankings from previous customers. To save on web design services from this platform, make sure you use the Fiverr coupons available on our site for a discount. Alternatively, you can post that you need to have a website built, along with your proposed budget, and freelancers will send in their bids.

Pros

● The global marketplace gives you access to the best website builders available. ● You won’t have to do much work since you can outsource everything to the freelancer you hire. ● Transactions are mostly safe and you can ask for revisions on the work done if you feel you didn’t get your money’s worth.

Cons

● Hiring a freelancer costs more than using free website builders like Wix. ● Evaluating candidates for the gig may take time if you want to be sure you get the best.

Ecommerce Platforms

An eCommerce platform allows a business to sell products and services online. Traditionally, this required complex software and specialized development teams in order to work. At the end of the day, it was costly, time-consuming and difficult to integrate with other parts of the business. Now, thanks to upgrades in business software, there are eCommerce platforms available with an infrastructure that seamlessly connects to the rest of the components of your business. Below is a list of some common eCommerce platforms you can use, along with the great deals they offer to help you save.

Shopify.com

Shopify is one of the most popular online-store building tools available. It enables you to create an online store for your business, using a wide range of themes you can customize to match your brand. Whether you’re selling physical or digital goods, Shopify can help you build the perfect online store for it. Tere are five monthly plans to choose from, starting from $29 for Basic Shopify to $299 for Advanced Shopify. You can get a discount on select plans by using the Shopify coupons and promo codes available on Promocodes.com.

Pros

● Easy to use ● Fully responsive, mobile-friendly templates ● All plans include the abandoned cart saving functionality ● Easily creates and applies product categories ● Has a built-in blog ● Has mobile apps you can use to manage your store on the go. ● Offers a 14-day free trial.

Cons

● Limitations for product options you can display. ● Shopify Payments (the built-in payment processor) only allows selling from select countries. ● You can only send one automated follow-up email for the abandoned cart saver.

Bigcommerce

Bigcommerce is a software as a service (SaaS) product you pay for monthly to set up an online store and sell your products or services online. It has a range of customizable templates you can use to design your store and in-built tools for marketing it too. The simplicity of this software allows even people without good web design skills to create a decent online store. There are four month-to-month pricing plans to choose from, starting from $29.95 for the Standard plan to $299.95 for the Pro plan. Plus, you can get a discount for the Pro and Plus plans or use Bigcommerce coupons from Promocodes.com to save on your plans.

Pros

● No transaction fees charged ● In-built product review feature ● You can use it to easily sell in multiple currencies ● Great SEO features so your store ranks as well as possible and a built-in blog ● Comprehensive abandoned cart saver tool ● Free 15-day trial

Cons

● Monthly plans are quite costly as compared to similar eCommerce platforms ● You may be forced to upgrade to more expensive plans because of limits placed on annual online sales on the cheaper packages

3dcart.com

3dcart provides everything you need to build your online store. That includes mobile-friendly, customizable themes, SEO features, and easy-to-use tools for managing orders, products, and customers. Monthly plans start from as little as $9.99 to $229 for the Pro plan. You can get a better deal on annual plans too with 3dcart coupons from Promocodes.com.

Pros

● Good loading speeds ● No transaction fees ● A lot more features than similar platforms like Shopify ● Unlimited product listings ● Free 15-day trial ● All plans share most of the features so you can stick to the cheapest package and not miss out on too much ● Built-in marketing tools

Cons

● Templates are a little outdated ● It has limitations on sales volume ● The customer service is not so great

Conclusion

Bringing your business into the digital world requires a lot of planning and research to make sure you do it right. The information we’ve provided on this blog will give you a head start with regards to the most essential parts of digitalizing your business. Plus, we’ve provided lots of tools you can use to save on the move such as promo codes and coupons you can use on eCommerce platform and website builder subscriptions.