Here are four practical tips to help your business get ready for 2022

As the year draws to a close business owners look forward to the new year and all the possibilities it might bring. It's tempting to look back at the past twelve months with regret, but what really matters are the events that lie ahead: the challenges, openings, and trials.

This article will share four practical tips that can help you prepare your business for next year. You'll be more likely to grab the next opportunity if your business has invested in modernizing its processes. It is time to step up.

Quick Takeaways

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  AI-powered chatbots improve customer service, qualify leads and define customer journeys.
  
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  Websites must be optimized for voice search.
  
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  Video should be a key part of your marketing strategy.
  
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  Establish quantifiable, measurable business goals for the monthly and quarterly periods.
  

Invest In Chatbots & Voice Technology

Chatbots and voice technology are something you might not have considered before. These techs can help you improve customer service and increase your ROI.

For years, AI has been used by businesses to connect with customers, simplify or improve processes, and in doing so drive sales. AI-powered chatbots that use pre-programmed scripts are certainly one of the most efficient tools. These bots can answer customers' questions, qualify leads, and improve their basket journey.

Voice technology is, however, even more advanced. For example, you can customize your virtual agent to speak in a way that aligns with your company's brand. You would be wrong to think this is just fancy technology. AI-powered customer services meet growing demand: Bright Local's survey suggests that 58% have used voice search to find local businesses within the last year.

Voice search is not a novelty. Emarketer predicts that 66.6 million Americans will use voice or speech recognition technology next year. Optimizing your website content for voice search is something that you should think about.

In recent years, both voice AI and chatbots have been rapidly developed. They can quickly resolve many consumer questions without burdening or bogging us fallible humans. Adding either one or both of these tools to your arsenal will help reduce delays and provide customers with the convenience and peace of mind they desire.

Prioritize Video Content

It seems that video marketing is becoming more important every day. These are some stats to consider:

• Twitter claims that 82% view video content through the app.
• HubSpot found that almost half of respondents (45%) watch more than an hour of video content each week on YouTube and Facebook.

You might be thinking, “Well that's social media. And social media isn’t my game.” However, the trend isn't limited to social channels. Cisco predicts that online videos will account for more than 80% of internet traffic by next year. Let's just think about that for a moment: More than four-fifths internet traffic will go to video.

The expectations we have about what makes browsing enjoyable are changing. You can be a smart business owner and respond to changing consumer expectations by creating professional video content that reinforces and connects with your audience.

This will keep you relevant in an ever-changing world and will help you get your message across better. According to Forbes, viewers retain 95% more information if they see it in video than if they read it in text.

Yes, embedding a well-shot video to your product page or category page can be useful. It will also help you build up your YouTube channel, and share relevant videos on social networks. Live videos are becoming more popular for breaking news and behind-the scenes content.

It's possible to spend hours reading about video marketing statistics. But it would be more productive to address your fear of being in front of the camera, and make video part of your strategy for next year. You might be a natural at video marketing!

Set clearly defined goals

Although this sounds simple, you'd be amazed at how many businesses – even those that are successful – don't clearly define their goals. You can make next year your best year yet by setting meaningful and quantifiable goals for your business. Not just for the year but also on a monthly or quarterly basis.

While it may be possible to move forward without a strategy, it is not likely that you will succeed if you don't have measurable goals or time frames. If you don't have the right tools to measure your progress or performance, how can you measure it?

One pledge you can make for next year is to use purpose in your planning: to take note of milestones, to reflect on successes and failures, and to identify if you are on the right track. This will help you to know when it's time to change things.

Get

These tips can be useful with a little luck. You can grab the needle with new technology, better content, better communication, and a structured goal setting. It will be amazing what you can achieve.