Whether you already have a considerable amount of digital marketing knowledge or if you're a newcomer to the world of online business and marketing, starting your own company is a big challenge. However, compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar company, an online business is often easier to launch and simpler to grow -- with the right set of skills and tips.
We've put together this sixsteps checklist to help you move forward and succeed with your online business:
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Create your online business plan.
The advantage of an online business compared to traditional companies is the start-up costs are lower. You aren't spending money on securing a location - your only real estate is a site on the World Wide Web. These lower costs will be reflected in your business plan. Like any other business, you should start with an outline that serves as a roadmap to your success.
After figuring the foundation of your business, such as your mission and goals for revenue, hiring and more, you will be on your way to growing your business. -
Pinpoint your market and target audience.
The next step is to research whether there is a market for your company, either in domestic or international markets, or in both. While it's easy to want to jump into markets where there is a ton of demand, such as tech or food, be aware of barriers to entry for certain markets. These may include business regulations and taxes, start-up costs or resource scarcity.
It is essential to pinpoint your target audience. Consider breaking down your audience by:
- Age (e.g. baby boomers, Generation X, millennials)
- Gender
- Location
- Interests
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Determine the right products or services to sell and find suppliers.
As part of this plan, figure out the products or services that are in demand, but may not have too much competition in the market. You may want to avoid going in the deep end of an already saturated market unless you are sure your product or service is innovative and fills a niche market that will likely grow in the future.
To succeed in this market, find the appropriate suppliers or people who will develop a product that will appeal to your target customers, but also keep costs low as you will likely stay in the red for a period of time before making solid profits. -
Design a user-friendly website.
A great website that is easy to find via search engines or navigate to locate information about products or services is crucial as an online business. Besides buying the domain and taking care of hosting costs for your website, take into account the expenses for designing the website and maintaining it.
Additionally, consider the costs of hiring freelancers or even in-house staff to create content for your website, such as landing pages and blogs.
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Spread the word through inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is the lifeblood of online businesses. If your target audience cannot find you on search engines or social media, your business will not grow as quickly.
An integral part of inbound marketing is growing organic search traffic through search engine optimization. When creating your website, make sure all aspects of the website, from page titles to keywords to meta descriptions properly describe what your business is and which products or services you sell.
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Analyze your results (or lack there of).
As the owner of an online business, you rely on data to drive revenue and increase your target audience. Use Google Analytics and other analytics platforms to measure the amount of traffic on your site, which pages experience high conversion rates and other metrics.
You can escape all the "headache" associated with these steps - with finding and implementing the right solution for each of them - by using WSI's help and taking advantage of the proven business model. The business model has stood the test of time (20 years and counting!), but we are still constantly testing and improving it.
WSI will help you organize your business processes, find the right suppliers within our own network, will provide marketing materials and guidance as to how to use them, give you an online education platform where you can hone and widen your digital marketing skills, and much more!
To learn more about WSI download our Franchise Report and find out how to become a Digital Marketing consultant.
