You may never work again. At least not how you used to.
With new regulations for work, play, and in-between, Coronavirus’ impact has severely affected our day-to-day. Whether you’re a CEO, small-business owner, employee or freelancer, almost all of our relationships have changed.
Remote working has become the staple of technologists, marketers, and product owners. Fortune 500 companies and small businesses have reconsidered expanding their physical presence. With exposure to pathogens top-of-mind, demand for co-working spaces has plummeted. Though many businesses have suffered during COVID-19, the digital workplace revolution is occurring right now.
Despite the very real tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some new developments that have transformed work. No matter your role in the workplace, making a game-plan for moving forward will help you plan your future and adapt to the ever-present change.
Physical Presence
Forced to adapt almost overnight, businesses have faced distinct challenges. How does a gym retain its clients with mandatory lockdown in place? What about software conferences or product trade shows? Concerts? Clubs? The list goes on and on.
There’s no set formula for how to detach a company from a physical location, but realizing that skyscrapers, huge campuses, and massive offices are no longer a marker of success in the post-COVID era is a great first step. Corporations like Alphabet, Apple, and Amazon are completely rethinking how they operate physically to offset profit losses from global coronavirus-related changes.
For example, offices were once the central hub for a businesses’ productivity. Is this still the case? Consider leaders like Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, who recently announced that his employees could work from home indefinitely. Dorsey’s revelation, while striking, accelerated the growing status quo: that one’s physical presence in certain industries is not an essential part of the job.
Marketing Strategies
As businesses close down their physical locations, demand shifts to online stores. Regardless of the impact of a pandemic, trends indicate that one-third of global buyers shop online weekly since March 2020, resulting in a year-over-year rise of 28 percent. Evolving with the stay-at-home regulations, many companies are using their marketing to gain a competitive edge online.
Digital marketing trends like social media, ad-targeting, and even messaging have all been altered by COVID-19. These are all important pieces of any business owners’ toolkit; however, with potential buyers taking more trips to their laptop than down the expressway, the impact of digital is all the more effective.
Social media has emerged as a way for connecting people to communities, and communities to businesses. We’ve seen companies and communities of consumers grow weary of messaging that’s too on-the-nose. This isn’t to say disregard the pandemic in your marketing collateral, but rather make sure that you are still creating evergreen content that looks beyond our current landscape.
Take advantage of the time you have now to see how digital marketing could work for your online business or independent freelance work.
Remote Work
For companies in technology, marketing, and development, the shift to remote work has been somewhat seamless. Businesses’ legal and physical burdens like office space costs, at-work social distancing regulations, masks, and cramped office environments are relieved by remote work.
Tools like Zoom, Trello, and Slack have actually empowered teams to increase productivity and communication. On the whole, teams and employees are happier when they can work in a distributed capacity. There are even reports that remote workers are more productive!.
If you’re a business looking to shift to remote work, or an employee recently made into a remote-worker, we understand the pain you’re going through and you don’t have to push forward alone. Consider reaching out to your other team members for some fun conversation or de-stressing. Even a Zoom call with a friendly coworker can help stimulate creativity, increase productivity, and create camaraderie while you’re working alone.
New Gigs, Jobs, and Roles
If the pandemic hasn’t shifted the way your job functions, it may have done the opposite. Chances are you might be out of work. The statistics are mind-blowing: over 80% of the global workforce has had their workplace fully or partially closed.
At Jumpseller, we have seen the first-hand impact that COVID19 has had on our customers’ lives, both positive and negative. Online stores have pivoted to sell sanitizer, masks, and other coronavirus-related products/services. Some companies have offered discounts for essential workers. Some have had to adjust their delivery times or changed their inventory according to fluctuations in demand.
An online store is a powerful, fun, and potentially lucrative option for boosting your income. Due to the current state of affairs, there’s never a better time to learn about the fundamentals of selling online. If done correctly, your new business could be set up to be contactless, fully-digital, and completely remote. Interested in selling online? Here are a few resources to help you get started:
- How to Start Selling with an Online Store
- Pros and Cons of a Home-Based Business
- How to Achieve Great SEO for Your Store
- E-commerce Tools to Boost Your Sales
- Common Mistakes Made When Selling Online
- The Best Platform for Your Online Store
It’s not particularly new to say that businesses need to adapt. With every great revolution, there are countless articles, market shifts, and economic downturns. COVID, though serious, is still forecasted to end at a certain point in time–just not now. As 2020 draws to a close, experts predict that coronavirus-related challenges will be present until at least 2025. The post-pandemic world is only just arriving.
Those who fail to adapt will find themselves trying to catch up, with disastrous results. By investing some time and energy into understanding your physical presence, marketing strategies, relationship to remote work, and new opportunities, you can use this time to transform your entire relationship to work. It’s not without difficulty, however, and that’s why we’re here to help you as you explore selling online.
