Life in the land of digital during lockdown

With COVID-19 doing the rounds resulting in a nationwide, and semi-worldwide, lockdown you may have missed a few happenings in the land of digital and more specifically the importance of living in the land of digital. This lockdown has also highlighted a number of failures on the part of certain B2C companies who have not yet ventured into the digital space, who insist on sticking with brick and mortar offerings to clients.

The truth is if your customer-facing retail outlet was geared towards online sales and focused on building a brand and footprint in the digital world, you are far better off than those who decided to do things "the way it has always been done". In the service industry, both B2B and B2C, there has been a move to a "work from home" model with some companies finding that their staff are able to deliver the same service to their clients but from a remote location instead of from an 8 to 5 office. In many instances productivity has actually increased as staff find it easier to work from home in a comfortable environment. This does not apply to everyone obviously, especially for the more hands-on service providers who require physical interaction. These service providers should, however, take this opportunity to become a household name so that when the lockdown is lifted and services can be rendered, they will have enough booked out time to make up for the time lost during the lockdown.

The only way to survive the lockdown when it eventually ends, is to take your business online through e-commerce and digital marketing. Doing nothing until the lockdown is lifted and hoping that things return to normal afterwards is not the way to keep your company alive. Proactively marketing your company in the digital space and using the many tools available to link your sales team to their potential and existing customer base is how you open the door to success during this period.

If you are not being innovative in the digital space you are simply setting yourself up for failure.

Now onto what have you missed while focusing on COVID-19 case numbers and not on the digital space. First off, DO YOUR PART! In case you were not aware, if you own a domain that ends in .za and has an active website the minister of communications has made it a requirement that you place a link to https://sacoronavirus.co.za/ on your website front page. This is in order to help prevent the spread of disinformation and keep everyone up to date on the country's COVID-19 news and case statistics. If you have not done this yet, do your part to #flatternthecurve and contact your webmaster or a web service provider, who are all working from home, and request assistance in getting this link up there. I would suggest that if you have a South African company and/or website servicing the local market, that you place this link on your website no matter the TLD (Top Level Domain / Domain Extension).

Second, on our list is our friend POPIA (Protection Of Personal Information Act) which came into effect in April 2020. This is South Africa's version of GDPR, from our friends in Europe, which governs the way personal data should be handled by those collecting it. If you are not sure if this applies to you it is rather simple to determine, is there a method which a customer/client/user can make use of to provide you with their personal information - be it online or on-premises? If the answer is yes then this applies to you and I suggest you consult with a POPIA informed attorney to ensure compliance. In the land of digital, if your website does not have a privacy policy and a cookie notice, assuming your site makes use of cookies - i.e do you use something like WordPress, then I suggest you contact your webmaster or a web service provider to get those up. There are a number of other requirements in the digital space so I suggest you consult with a professional to ensure that your digital assets comply.

COVID-19 has forced on us a digital evolution, much like ADSL did in the 2000's, and if you are not ahead then you are behind. Stay safe fellow digital nomads!

TL:DR

You need to be in the digital space in order to survive. Also, remember that your website needs to have a COVID-19 notice and link, and needs to comply with POPIA. Contact the digital experts at Creative Touch to get you there.