Okay, I think we can all agree that 2020 felt like a decade instead of a year. I know it wasn’t what any of us expected this year to be, but we know life is not going to be like this forever. That’s why we need to focus on planning for 2021, right now. We’ve put together a list of things you should be doing to make next year profitable and it starts with preparation.

Nothing is more helpful than having a plan (and a back up plan). Carve out time now to plan your schedule of promotions and events to put your business on the right track to be busy and profitable in 2021. Make sure to also plan time for yourself, which is critical. Look I know you want to stay busy all the time, but it’s also wise to know when you need rest. Burn out can kill your creativity and make your work suffer. As you plan, make sure your life is balanced and don’t take on more than you can chew (or be prepared to grow your team so you can balance it).

As you jump into planning for 2021 and plan your events and specials, you can plan your social media marketing strategy in conjunction with your email marketing campaigns. Each Zibster account comes with Marketing tools for creating email marketing campaigns. You can send up to 2,000 emails each month, and the ability to segment your contact list so that you can target the right customer versus just sending everything to everyone.

Email marketing is a great way to send branded content that can tell a story, drive a promotion, or sell services or products. With Zibster's Contact tools, you can organize your contacts with the help of tags to add contacts to different email segments. For example, if you have a list of sales leads, you can segment your email to send separate information to those leads versus targeting existing clients who you know will be interested in specific aspects of your business.

What’s nice about Zibster’s email marketing is it’s a branded experience that makes you look professional and the included metrics let you see if potential clients opened and clicked through to find out more details. When you see someone who clicks a link but doesn’t make a purchase, you can use that as an opportunity to follow up with a more personalized message and keep the conversation going.

Tagging is key, regardless of your specialty. Tags let you keep track of leads and clients in different categories so that you can send them information of interest. And you can review your tags and update them based on life changes so that your lists and tags change as each customer grows with your business.

Listen, I know at the core we’re a website platform. But really, we are so much more. We want to make sure you look and perform your best online at all times. That’s why our websites come with a whole suite of sales tools like Ecommerce, Forms, and Invoices. Our support team is here to help you with each and everyone of our tools. 

When it comes to your website, we recommend you make sure it is current and up to date at all times. Your website is a reflection of the current state of your business. If you don’t keep it up to date, people are likely to say something like:

“They haven’t blogged since 2017, maybe they are closed.”  

“This website looks old, maybe they product/services are antiquated.” 

Your website may be someone’s first impression of you. People judge books by their covers and all, and in this analogy your website is the cover. Your website is like a pamphlet to sell your services and products, it should look fresh and new at all times.

If you have to pick one part of your website to focus on, I suggest you make sure your homepage and your products or services page are in showcasing your best and most current offerings. 

Sure you might have good content from 2015 you want to keep but you’ve grown as an business too, so let people see that growth. 

If it’s been more than 3 years since you selected your website template, it’s time for a refresh. One of the beautiful things about Zibster is that you can refresh your website template, and style it to match your brand, with just a few clicks. Not all platforms do that. Many make you start from scratch if you want a new template. But not with Zibster.

If you’re getting bookings online, setting up your tools to accept payments is key. Make sure your Ecommerce, Forms or Scheduler tools are set up so you can sell online. This is more important today in 2020 than ever before. Your website never sleeps and can be there to support your clients while you fulfilling orders, talking to a client, or late at night after you’ve gone to bed.

People like to talk about SEO and try to make the perfect metadata to drive their website to page one of search results — people think it’s magical. But there is a really easy ingredient that most overlook when trying to score high on search results and that’s blogging. “A blog!? I can’t write”, you say. Yes, a blog. It’s a very powerful tool and you have one in your Zibster control panel. 

Writing may seem scary but I promise a blog post with a paragraph or two plus a few images goes a long way. Your blog content can help you cast a bigger net. Not everyone stumbles across your well-made homepage, many businesses are found through blog posts. This can be particularly helpful when people search based on location, such as "plumber close to me" or "local lawyer."

If you travel to different locations to sell your products or perform your services, you can blog about different places you go and therefore have location details organically in your blog post as well as in your metadata.

You can plan out your blog posts based on upcoming specials and events, or even to feature customer profiles.

Cancellations happen. Work with your clients to reschedule. And try not to freak out. Flexibility is key and people appreciate and remember when you are there for them, so be that person if they need it. Use the Zibster Scheduler to help your clients find alternate times to work together and grow your relationship.

We are excited to ring in 2021 and we hope these tips can help you get started planning (if you haven’t started already). Make time to plan your year, refresh your website, tell your story through blogs, and before you know it, it’ll be 2023 and you’ll be wondering where the time went.