3 Common eCommerce Mistakes to Avoid

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |eCommerce Mistakes|3 Common eCommerce Mistakes to AvoidBeing an eCommerce store owner is no easy ride. There are many things you need to consider; the customer journey, the user experience, technical issues, minimizing cart abandonment, and many more. But there are also a plethora of opportunities to sell to customers all over the world. With the right strategies in place, you can skyrocket your eCommerce business for success.

Whether you own an established eCommerce store or just starting out, here are some of the most common eCommerce mistakes you should avoid if you want to grow your business to new heights.

#1 Not identifying your ideal clients

While it is ambitious to want to serve everyone, it, unfortunately, will not serve your business any good. This results in a strategy that is not very clear or focused and will waste a lot of time, energy, and resources as you drive the wrong traffic to your store, which will also increase cart abandonment rates and bounce rates. No matter how good or well-priced you think your product may be, you are selling to the wrong people.

It may seem like you are limiting your business, by narrowing down and specific on who you are serving, but it will mean you can talk to them directly in your marketing, find them quicker, and drive more intentional traffic to your eCommerce store. Make sure you create a brand persona, whereby you outline who your target market is, and include specific information such as their age, location, income, marital status, hobbies, interests, needs, how they make purchasing decisions, and their preferred platforms.

#2 Using the wrong technology

There is a lot of technology, applications, services, software, and platforms that you can use for your eCommerce store, and often, it’s not the most expensive, or how many that you have that means it will be successful. It is the opposite. If you use too many platforms or the wrong platforms, your data is likely to be all over the place and you risk a business that is disorganized and unaligned. This then means that data cannot be analyzed correctly, and you have a huge gap within your business to excel and make sales. Make sure you research the correct platforms right from the start, one that is right for your product and your internal working, to ensure all your departments are aligned and able to excel in reaching business goals and objectives. If you already have an eCommerce store, you can read more about integrating your current tools.

#3 Not optimizing your eCommerce store

Many eCommerce businesses opt for paid marketing, such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is also vital that you are incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) into your marketing strategies. Without SEO, as soon as you turn the paid ads off, you will unlikely have visibility anywhere on the internet.

SEO is a long-term game, which is why it is not easy to measure an ROI at the beginning. However, implementing SEO strategies will enable you to build authority, rank, and visibility within the search engines, and start driving intentional, and sustainable organic traffic to your store.

For an eCommerce business to be successful, the right strategies are vital.

5 Key Strategies To Improve Product Quality Today

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article |Improve Product Quality|5 Key Strategies To Improve Product Quality TodayWithout a quality product, your brand will fall short of its true potential. Customers are quick to recommend a quality product when they find one, but they are also quick to leave bad reviews unless they are satisfied. To help to improve the quality of your products and services, focus on these five areas.

1 . Create a winning product strategy

The first step to boosting product quality is to create a winning product strategy. One of the key elements of a product strategy is determining the product market and the needs that the product will meet. You’ll need to establish the key differentiators and the selling proposition. Entrepreneurs need to consider the business goals of this new product.

A product strategy should also include the vision for your product. It’s useful to think about the vision as the purpose of your product, what do you want it to achieve? Product goals could relate to various areas, from revenue to customer ratings.

2. Use a QMS

With the help of a Quality Management System businesses can determine how to develop services and products. The standard QMS used by companies is the ISO 9001. It’s basically a set of guides which outline product creation and distribution. Using a QMS business can audit their procedures, backed by a certification body.

A QMS is based on 7 quality principles. These 7 principles include customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making, and relationship management, (Bestpractice, 2021).

3. Work with the best equipment

To ensure product quality you’ll need to make sure that you’re working with the best materials and equipment that you can find. To find the best equipment you’ll need to work with top suppliers, perform research, and check reviews where appropriate. You’ll need to communicate your needs to everyone you work with, to ensure quality standards are upheld.
Whether you need the best 8-inch jointer for your woodwork applications, or quality automotive parts, businesses across all industries must pay close attention to quality control.

4. Obtain feedback

Maintaining quality standards relies on collecting customer feedback. Once you’ve obtained customer feedback you’ll need to use these insights to your advantage. Some businesses like to involve their customers in the product development process. Taking consumer ideas on board can be a great way to secure the success of a new product.

5. Test your products

Your products may not be perfect right away, there could be a few adjustments you need to make or errors you need to correct. Testing your products is a fantastic way to gauge consumer reaction, make improvements, and check performance. Brands should test their products to ensure usability, and measure customer satisfaction. Think back to the vision of your product. Is your product currently meeting your vision? If so, what steps can you take to correct this?

Focusing on these five strategies will help you to boost product quality and meet your product goals. Evaluating your performance is a key step to ensuring quality. Look for areas to improve, and make the best use of your customer insights. Launching your business relies on paying close attention to the desires of your consumers.

How Different Marketing Strategies Can Boost Your Business Profile

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Marketing Strategies|How Different Marketing Strategies Can Boost Your Business ProfileRunning a business requires a lot of energy and time, so ensuring you try and keep on top of everything will be important as a business owner. Marketing strategies form a significant part of this so utilizing this to your advantage will be necessary if you want to remain on top of all of your business needs.

Which Strategies To Choose?

There are a variety of business marketing strategies that you can use if you want to be business savvy and really boost your business profile. Examples would be:

  • Online social media content, such as posting on social media platforms.
  • Providing short video tutorials.
  • SEO (search engine optimization)
  • Email marketing
  • Printed advertorial content in magazines, newspapers, brochures and billboards.

Allows You To Expand as a Business

The primary reason to use marketing as a business strategy is that it enables you to expand your business. Ultimately the more successful you can be and the more revenue you have coming in, enables you to develop and expand your business. This is what is going to enable you to succeed. Without a marketing strategy you will not be able to attract new consumers who will then be spending money on your products or services.

Enables You To Reach Out To a New Audience

When you need ways to boost your business profile and accessibility then you can find influencers to help you draw in more revenue. The positive about influencers on social media nowadays is that they have the ability to reach out to an extensive worldwide audience. Within minutes a post that they have shared could accumulate hundreds of thousands if not millions of views and likes. As a result they could advertise your business brand within a very short time period, bringing you plenty more customers.

Provides a Platform To Advertise Your Products and Services

Utilizing different marketing strategies such as social media, online video content, or building a website are all ways in which you are able to demonstrate what you are as a business and how you are able to provide a product or service to your consumers. Without these forms of platforms it would be pretty impossible to expand as a business if you did not have a marketing strategy in place.

Encourages a Purchase

Once you have drawn in your potential consumers you then have the opportunity to sell your products or services, which ultimately is the main aim. The more times you can do this the more likely you are to make a profit from the sales, which in essence is what you want as a successful business owner.

So to really make the most of the business you certainly want to utilize as many marketing strategies as possible so that you can thrive as a business owner.

Attracts people’s interest

Marketing is all about attracting people’s interest. It is a way to get people to learn more about your product or service and hopefully, convert into a customer. There are many different ways to market your business, but one of the most effective methods is outdoor advertising. Outdoor advertising is seen by a large number of people every day, and it can be very effective in getting your message across.

Reducing Your Small Business Costs in 3 Steps

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Reducing Your Small Business Costs in 3 Steps | Reduce Costs | Entrepreneurship | Managing Your BusinessTo take your small business to the lofty heights of being a market leader in the foreseeable future, you’re going to have to start turning over a major profit sooner rather than later. To do this, you have to treat solidifying the money that you do make just as seriously as actually making it. It’s quite simple – if you continue to waste your profit, you won’t be able to invest it into further growth going forward.

One way you can solidify the revenue that you earn is to cut down on your overall expenditure. To find out how you can reduce your small business costs in only three steps, be sure to read on.

Rent equipment for short-term projects… don’t buy it

If you have a short-term project on the horizon, don’t squander the potential profit that you stand to make from it by buying tools specifically for it. It may be tempting to invest in a shiny piece of brand new equipment, but buying something that you aren’t realistically going to use going forward isn’t good business practice whatsoever – it’ll just be a waste of money. Instead, what you should do is rent the equipment that is essential to your work for the duration of the project only. Doing so will see you spend far less in the long run without having to sacrifice the tools that you need to do a good job.

There are plenty of ways for you to rent the equipment that you need to optimize your next project, not just complete it. If you’re in need of I.T. tools, for instance, you could turn to Smart. As stated at Smart.uk.com, this leasing company can offer your business everything, from short-term laptop rental to website hosting to a complete I.T. infrastructure that can be loaned for 12 months plus. Whatever tech you need to complete your next job, this rental service will be able to provide you with it.

Ditch your traditional landline

The days of the landline being the be-all-and-end-all of business communication are well and truly over. Today, using this kind of communicative tool will do nothing but see you pay out unnecessarily expensive annual costs. If you do anything to cut your business expenses, then, let it be to ditch your office’s traditional landline.

There are plenty of alternative ways to keep communication alive within your business, some of which include:

Switching to the VoIP phone service is a wise move. Its functionality will help you to reduce the phone bills and to improve your interaction with customers. You just need to find your VoIP provider match in terms of a plan and options and Nextiva reviews will be helpful in while making your choice.

Go paperless

The amount of money that you spend on paper, ink, toner, and all of your other printer accessories may seem minimal at the time, but it will soon add up. Before you know it, you’re spending way more than you should be spending on printing… and way more than you need to be spending, as well. There is something that you can do to cut this kind of cost right down, and that is to go paperless. Whether you decide to get rid of your printer completely, or whether you resolve to only print when necessary, transitioning to, say, a digital invoice service will no doubt see you save a lot of money going forward.

Don’t Overlook These Valuable Details Before Launching Your Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Launching your Business|Don’t Overlook These Valuable Details Before Launching Your BusinessThere is no getting away from the fact that starting an entrepreneurial journey is exceptionally challenging. Provided the modern-day cutthroat competition, you are likely to keep up with several trials and turbulences along the way. Nonetheless, it could also prove to be a lucrative path. Setting up a business venture has proven to be life-changing for many entrepreneurs and not only in terms of monetary gains.

To become a successful businessperson, you have to get many things straight even before launching the company. And this is precisely where a vast majority of people go wrong and bring doom upon themselves. If you want to avoid making the same blunder, ensure to pay attention to the following factors before commencing your business:

Define your marketing strategy

Marketing is the lifeblood of a business. In today’s competitive environment, companies cannot survive, let alone thrive without it. Therefore, we recommend you sketch out a comprehensive picture of how you will promote your business even before commencing operations. Here are some of the most remarkable marketing strategies that are worth the shot:

  • Email Marketing: Email marketing is undeniably the foundation of digital marketing. Even after the inception of various digital marketing platforms, email remains the most effective channel to attract leads and eventually convince them to buy your products and services. Nonetheless, don’t make the mistake of using an old or reserved email address. Instead, create a new email address that professionally represents your business.
  • Leverage social media: Social media allows you to effectively convey your messages to a massive chunk of the target audience. Likewise, it also enables you to build a loyal community around your brand. Social media is beneficial for generating feedback, developing unique user-generated content, and addressing customer service issues.
  • Webinars: A webinar, as the term explains, is an online seminar. Lately, webinars are being arranged to drive new subscribers to your email list. You can also exploit it to establish credibility with existing subscribers. Even though they are presented in the same manner, webinars are more engaging than videos. The reason being, viewers feel that they are getting more value from a webinar because of the live Q&A sessions.
  • SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices increase website traffic by ensuring it ranks among the top search results on leading search engines. Talking about the standout features, SEO is budget-friendly and guarantees long-term marketing success.

Figure out start-up costs

A vast proportion of businesses wind up every year just because they run out of cash reserves. So, you must determine the costs to start and maintain your business right from the get-go. For example, depending on the nature of your business, you might want to invest in a manufacturing plant. Consider the costs of acquiring the land, purchasing the equipment, machinery, and so on. Likewise, suppose you are starting a retail store. In that case, you will need to consider the cost of the store and the required furniture to decorate it.

Whether initiating a small-scale company or a giant corporation, you must have clarity about the start-up costs. Once your business commences, it won’t start churning out money immediately. It will take some time until the organization gets some recognition and becomes profitable. During this phase, you will have to bear employee salaries, utility bills, marketing expenditures, miscellaneous expenses, etc. Mapping out the start-up costs beforehand will prove viable for the sustainability of your business model.

Spend some time researching your competition

Regardless of the industry, you will not survive long in the market if you do not know about your rivals. Analyzing the competition involves getting to know your competitors, identifying their position, and assessing their pricing and marketing strategies. Alongside this, you can also pull out some case studies about your competitors from the internet to determine their strengths and weaknesses. You can evaluate their critical success factors and gray areas to exploit the market to your advantage.

Once you gather and utilize this information, you can devise and communicate your Unique Selling Point (USP) with your target audience. This way, you will not only survive but also thrive over time.

Select the right business partners

Although having business partners can be beneficial, you must first ensure they fit your venture and business scope. Getting hooked up with the wrong partners could dent your business to a great degree, or worse, the company might come to a halt permanently. To be on the safe side, you must delve into legal documentation. It will safeguard your interest in case a dispute surfaces.

Similarly, mention all the critical points in the documents, such as: Who will play what role? Do not assume everyone who forms the company has the same goals and intentions. Before agreeing to a partnership, ensure that each potential partner has written out their visions and objectives.

Likewise, you may also address in the documents how the profits and losses will be distributed? Partners usually invest money and assets into a new venture. So, before you rush to form a partnership, everyone must agree on how profits will be divided.

Create a separate business account

Undoubtedly, it seems convenient to keep both personal and business money in the same account. But it’s viable to have a separate business account considering its numerous benefits. For instance, it can be easier to monitor the cash flow by separating your personal and business finances. As a result, you can better evaluate your business’s financial situation and forecast your cash flow in the future.

On the other hand, if you make business and personal transactions from the same account, you will not get a clear picture of your finances. In all likelihood, it could make you less efficient as far as decision-making is concerned.

Conclusion

Establishing a business in today’s unpredictable and merciless environment is no cakewalk. Many factors, controllable and uncontrollable, can make or break your entire business machinery. So, being vigilant about your efforts and thoroughly studying the market before entering it is highly critical. Likewise, you must determine your marketing strategy, analyze competitors, assess costs, and tackle all the legalities before launching your business.