5 tips for starting your online business in 2018

Finding your niche

Let’s start with your niche. What are you good at? What interests you? What kind of market are you aiming to go into? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself when trying to determine your niche. So, what exactly is a niche? A niche is a specific group of the market in which a product or service is focused. As an example, if you wanted to set up a dog grooming business for Pitbull’s, then your niche would be Pitbull grooming. That is the specific area in which you specialise. Once you have figured your niche out then you’ve already completed a lot of the prep. You have the basis of your business down and you can now set up shop with a clear understanding of who will buy your products or service.

Having a reliable website

If you don’t have a website for your business, then that’s the equivalent of selling straight from the street with no storefront. Don’t get me wrong, it is very doable and there are people out there who’ve done it, however, it’s a lot more beneficial for you and your business if you have a website. Having that digital store-front gives your customers more trust in you and more faith in your business. With that being said, It’s all well and good having a website, however, if that website doesn’t do exactly what you want it to do and/or it is hard for the customer to use then that will do more bad than good. Having a website with good functionality which is also easy for your customers to use will allow you to develop rapport.

Marketing

Marketing your business is – and always will be – vital. How do you get your product out there to people who would be interested? Decades have passed and there have been numerous marketing platform and strategies to go with it. Until now, we’re now in the biggest cultural transition since the TV was invented. The Internet is becoming bigger and better by the day and there are so many platforms to market your services. The biggest ones are social networks. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter etc. However, when it comes to digital marketing it’s a lot more than just social media. SEO is a big player in the digital world and if done properly then you can really drive sales through the roof. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of affecting your websites natural rankings within search engines. When I say natural rankings, I don’t mean the ads that you see at the top of your search page. SEO is a good strategy for getting customers to find you. But, with the use of Social Media ads you can find them without too much effort. Social networks have a lot of data about their users such as Location, Gender, Age, they even know your online behaviors. You can use this to your advantage. If you have a Biker style T-shirt business, you could target Men, aged 25-40 with a behavior of purchasing online. That was a brief overview, but this is some of what you can do. There is so much more versatility.

With the internet, you can now do extensive research into your target market and target them directly. When defining your target audience you can be as specific as you want, and the more specific you are the more relevant people will see your posts.

Digital Marketing is a career that I want to pursue and I am learning so much from the amazing marketing team here at Blue Whale Media. They really know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing a business.

Client Retention

So you’ve found your clients and made some sales. How do you keep them as recurring customers? What is stopping them from going elsewhere? You! You’re stopping them. You have to provide something that they can’t resist. Some companies have loyalty schemes. You have a card and for every £5 you spend you get 10 points. You can then redeem those points later down the line for one of their products. You could do the same, or plan something different. Whatever is relevant for your business. But, if people feel like your products will solve their problems then they’re going to buy from you.

The Long Game (Conclusion)

It takes a long time to build a successful and reputable brand. If you’ve been running a business for 1 year, let’s say, and you aren’t getting the results you want then change something. There must be a reason why you aren’t attracting attention. If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, not the goal.