Local business event review: Enterprise Nation Digital Business 101

Here at Origin Workspace, we are passionate about providing the best resources to help small businesses flourish and grow. We love going to events to keep on top of the very latest thinking and trends. This month, we attended the Enterprise Nation Digital Business 101 local business event as part of their Go and Grow Online campaign.

The session was run by Daniel Plowright from IRUN Bath and was well attended by entrepreneurs and businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Daniel’s talk focused on the 11 steps a small business needs to grow their business online. He kicked off with the essential housekeeping rules you should adhere to if your brand has an online presence.

He highlighted that simple things such as knowing when your domain name is set to expire can sometimes throw even the biggest of businesses. For example, when John Lewis forgot to renew the domain name for their wedding list service, it caused absolute havoc!

Attendees had lots of questions for Daniel as he talked through his steps for online success including things such as: how much should you be spending on a domain and how much can you move or share data without breaking privacy laws?

Ultimately, Daniel stressed that if any business is going to spend time and effort online, setting realistic expectations before is key. The main thing is to really understand your market and invest time in the channels that will help you reach your target audiences.

The event included an interactive panel discussion with Richard Godfrey from Rocketmakersand Joanna Morgan, founder of Radnorpreserves.

There were plenty of questions from the floor but one that really stood out for us was: ‘Can a business owner operate without social media?’ The answer from the panel was a resounding ‘YES’! If your customers are not the easiest to reach on social channels or if the majority of them have a presence elsewhere, why would you spend significant time, energy and money if you’re not going to recoup that investment?

Richard Godfrey came up with two really useful take-aways for us:

1. If you’re starting to build your brand online, do just one or two things, but do them really well. Whether it’s paid for advertising or building a social community.
2. Unless you’re a web designer, don’t do the design yourself.

Daniel wrapped up the event with the important message that it’s vital to have a clear online brand message because if people don’t understand what your all about in the first few seconds, you might lose a potential customer forever.

We’d like to thank Enterprise Nation for hosting a great event, and we can’t wait to see you at the next one!

If you’re looking for more business events to attend, check out our events programme for our full list.

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