Posts

5 Steps to Start and Grow Your Online Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Grow your online business|5 Steps to Start and Grow Your Online BusinessThe modern business world is becoming increasingly dependent on the digital market. It’s more efficient than the traditional market and allows businesses to connect to the entire world instantly. Large-scale and small-scale organizations invest heavily to create a strong online presence and utilize the internet’s vast potential. No doubt, the future of business lies in e-commerce.

However, when it comes to starting an online business, things can get quite challenging. The main reason behind this is the fierce competition in the digital market. You need to constantly stand out from the crowd and prove your business reliable. To do so, you’ll need to follow some technical digital marketing tactics and strategies, which can be complicated at times. However, if you follow a sequence of effective steps to build and grow your online business, your business will soon flourish. So, to help you with this purpose, here are five steps to start and grow your online business.

1. Make a Business Plan

Regardless of where you’re starting your business, making a business plan is the essential step. It helps you to make clever decisions regarding how to start and grow your business effectively. An effective business plan includes a lucrative business idea, market analysis, and brand development ideas. A lucrative business idea is crucial to start a business online. It will set you apart from millions of other businesses, giving you a competitive advantage. To come up with such an idea, conducting a market and competitor analysis is a good idea. You can develop innovative ideas from your competitors by observing the way they grow their business. A market analysis will also help you find effective strategies and online platforms for your business.

However, an online market analysis is nothing like a traditional analysis. You can use digital marketing tools that help analyze your competitors effectively. Otherwise, you won’t be able to gain much insight. Moreover, it’s crucial to use reliable and effective tools to carry out in-depth research. So, make sure to compare each tool with other available options to find the most suitable one. For this purpose, you can head over to DigitalSupermarket.com to find and compare all different digital tools.

2. Build a Website

A website will act as the main online presence for your business and brand. However, it’s essential to create an appealing and functional website. No matter how unique your business idea is, you won’t gain network traffic with a mediocre website. More importantly, search engines will show your website after the first search engine result page, further reducing the chances of gaining customers.

An essential aspect of modern and popular websites is simplicity. Effective websites only use videos and graphics when they are necessary. For example, it’s good to use graphics to make it easier for people to use the website. Otherwise, it only makes the website unappealing. You can also reduce the processes or clicks needed to buy something from your business to increase simplicity.

Moreover, you can make your website functional, which means building a website with easy navigation and zero errors. People don’t like to visit websites that make it hard for them to find what they’re looking for, nor do they like pages that give errors. More importantly, you can increase your website’s loading speed for faster accessibility.

3. Identify and Focus on Your Target Audience

To become a successful entrepreneur in the digital market, you must know your audience well and target them specifically. After all, not all types of people will be interested in your business. You don’t want to waste your time, money, and efforts on attracting such people. Moreover, identifying and targeting your specific audience will help you to cater to their needs effectively. You will be able to develop unique and effective digital marketing strategies to grow your business rapidly.

To identify your audience, you’ll first need to collect data on what type of people visit your website and interact with your business. For this purpose, you can request your website visitors to fill out surveys and pop-up quizzes. Moreover, you can also gain information about your customers through customer feedback, emails, and comments on your website. Once you have enough data, you can create buyer personas representing the type of people your business attracts. For example, suppose teenagers mostly visit your website. In that case, you can represent each visitor by a single teenager buyer persona. 90% of companies are known to have gained a deeper understanding of their customers through personas.

4. Utilize Social Media

The digital market is a highly competitive place. You can’t rely only on your website for a robust online presence. You can reinforce your online presence by bringing your business to a social media platform. Social media platforms are used by 57% of the global population, making them perfect to increase your business’s reach and grow rapidly. What’s best is that a social media platform makes your business more accessible to mobile users. More importantly, social media helps businesses to build a better relationship with their customers through social interactions, such as posts, likes, comments, and more.

To build an effective social media presence, you’ll first need to find the most suitable platform. For this purpose, you can carry out research to find what type of platform your target audience uses. Once you’ve created a social media presence, you need to interact with your customers frequently to increase their interest while providing them with quality content. You can even collaborate with other online businesses or influencers to increase the popularity of your business online.

5. Monitor Metrics

If you want to lead successful marketing campaigns and implement effective strategies, it’s essential to watch metrics. Metrics are essential to see where your business is headed and how it has been performing over time. Without the use of metrics, you may lead your business to failure without even realizing it, as you’ll be running your business blindly.
Some essential digital marketing metrics are website visitors, bounce rate, session duration, and interactions per visit.

Each metric gives you the necessary information required to keep your online business on the path to success. You can think of each metric as an indicator of your business’s health. Even if a single metric starts to indicate declining health, you can take immediate action and save your business from failing. Metrics are especially to be monitored when you implement a new strategy, to check whether it works or not. You can use digital marketing tools to analyze metrics.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, e-commerce is the future of business. Therefore, starting an online business is one of the best decisions a modern entrepreneur can make. The online market is indeed becoming increasingly competitive. However, follow the right methods of starting and growing your business. It won’t take long for you to gain a competitive advantage. So, make sure to follow the steps mentioned above for a smooth transition into the online business world.

How to Write Your Business Mission Statement

/in /by

StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Development Article |Mission Statement|How to Write Your Business Mission StatementBefore businesses launch their products and services, they need to think about the mission statement for their company. What type of message do they want to convey to their clients?

Company mission statements are therefore an instrumental part of a company’s business plan or proposed integrations for development and growth. Without a mission statement in place, it’s like trying to paddle upstream without a paddle.

So, how do you write a mission statement? What should be its main focus?

What Is the Reason for Your Business?

A mission statement is synonymous with a company’s purpose. You are declaring to the world why your company operates. It solidifies your business’s stance. The statement expresses your company’s values

How a Mission Statement Is Used

Basically, a mission statement does 3 main things:

  1. Tells people what your company does – sells food products, offers HVAC services, supports people’s training or educational needs, etc.
  2. Tells people how you operate.
  3. Includes why your business does what it does.

Examples of Mission Statements

1. Say you sell athletic wear and shoes. Your mission statement might take the following form:

My company’s purpose is to:

Sell athletic apparel and shoes that cover the needs of customers who will use the products in sports, such as baseball, basketball, football, running, and tennis.

2. Maybe you have set up a nursery. You might create the following mission statement.

My company’s reason for operating is to:

Offer lush and healthy flowers and plants, gardening tools, and seeds of the highest quality so people can rely on my business for all their plant and garden needs.

How Mission Statements Can Be Used

You can use a mission statement to support your business’s ad campaigns or include it on your company’s website and in social media. If people are not familiar with your company, they can refer to your business’s mission statement for direction.

A Foundation for Your Business’s Plans and Objectives

When you have a mission statement in place, it is much easier to create and outline a business plan. Doing so will allow you to follow a principled approach to conducting business. Use a mission statement to promote your business and gain trust from your customers. You can also employ it to support your needs for venture capital and funding.

Remember: Company mission statements are not just slogans. They represent a company”s values and purposes in business. The influence of a mission statement enables you to create a company that will live up to specific standards so it can build customer trust and loyalty.

Launching Your New Business, the Stress-Free Way

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |launching a new business|Launching Your New Business, the Stress-Free WayWhen you decide to launch a new business, you may find yourself being put off or even sidetracked by the potential stress that may come alongside your new venture. You may have heard stories about unsuccessful business launches, or you may have heard about chaotic startups, and they may have put doubts into your mind about whether a new business is a way you want to go. Well, fear not, it is not all as bad as it seems or as it is made out to be. The process of launching a new business can be enjoyable and stress-free if you want it to be, and the way to make this happen is to plan as much as you can. Plan for all eventualities, and always utilize the assistance and guidance of experienced business professionals.

Write a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan

Without a business plan and marketing plan, you will not know what you are doing, when, and why, so make it a top priority to create them. A business plan will allow you to see where your business needs to be, and a marketing plan will allow you to see what action needs to be taken to reach your customers and target audiences. Both are interdependent on each other, so try and create them simultaneously if you can.

Get Your Finances Straight and In Order

Knowing how you will finance your business and knowing how you will keep track of the finances will take a huge weight off your shoulders. When you get your finances straight and before your launch your new venture, you will ensure that you can start and run your business efficiently and effectively.

Utilize Professional Guidance and Assistance

When you launch a new venture, you can be tempted to try and undertake every role or aspect yourself, and this might not be as beneficial as you originally anticipated. However, utilizing professional guidance and advice from professionals such as William Bevins, a financial advisor in Franklin TN, will ensure that your business is set up correctly from the start, helping you avoid any unnecessary stress, pressure, or hassle. In addition, when you utilize advice and guidance from professionals, you avoid common pitfalls, pitfalls that may cost you both time and energy.

Break Up the Startup Process

Having false illusions about how quick it is to launch a new business is one of the things that can add unnecessary stress and pressure. Do not expect to do everything overnight as this will not happen; instead, plan for the process of getting your business up and running to take a few weeks. Break up what needs doing into small and manageable chunks and targets, and this way, you will get everything done in a stress-free and easy way. When you break up larger jobs and tasks, you make them more realistic and achievable, and this is what you are aiming to do when launching a business, a stress-free way.

The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Small Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a Small Business|The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Small BusinessStarting your own small business can be daunting. This is why we bring you a step-by-step guide to help you get started.

While naming your business and creating a logo is important, ever wondered how determining your business structure or crafting a detailed marketing strategy might affect your business?

It’s easy to get confused and lose motivation because there’s so much to consider. Rather than guessing where to start, follow our checklist to start your own small business.

1. Refine the idea

If you’re thinking of starting your own small business, you’re likely to have an idea of what you wish to sell or at least what your target market is.

Research your competitors to understand how they work and figure out ways how you can do it better.

If you think your business will be able to bridge a gap that your competitors can’t, then you’ve got a solid business idea.

If you’re hesitant to start a business, you can consider opening a franchise. The business model, brand following and concept are already taken care of; all you need is funding and a good location.

Brainstorm your company name

Your business name should be memorable, short and should be able to nail down your idea’s value. Brainstorm ideas with your team or search business name ideas on the web.

Determine your target market

The excitement of starting your own small business can easily make you forget your target market.

Identify how you’ll provide value to your customers, how you’ll communicate with them and how much they’re willing to pay. Iron out all these seemingly small details during the ideation phase to achieve success.

2. Design a Business Plan

You have a business idea in place and now it’s time to consider answering a few important questions such as:

  • What’s the purpose of my business?
  • What’s my product’s USP?
  • How will I finance my business?

These answers will help you create a business plan.

A well-thought-out business plan will help you avoid the most common mistakes new business owners make.

Conduct a Thorough Market Research

Invest in focus groups, conduct surveys with your target audience, research public data and SEO in order to make a full-proof business plan.

Market research will help you understand the behaviour, needs and preferences of your target audience as well as your competitors, both of which have the power to transform your business.

Conduct competitive analysis and collect demographic information to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and limitations of your market.

Craft an Exit Strategy

It’s wise to consider an exit strategy when drafting your business plan. You need to have a few exit routes to help you look at the future.

When you go to a movie hall (or board an aeroplane), what’s the first thing they show you? Where the exits are.

A good business plan will help you understand where your business is going, how will it overcome any obstacles and how will it sustain itself.

3. Focus on Your Finances

Determine how you’re going to fund your business. Do you have the funds or will you borrow money?

A whopping 29% of startups fail because they run out of money. Overestimate the costs a little to ensure that you have enough to cover up for unexpected expenses.

Understand your funding options. Do you have sufficient means to start the business? If not, will you be taking a business loan or a grant? Would it be better to bring in an investor or opt for crowdfunding?

Conduct a break-even analysis to help you determine profitability, price your products and analyse data properly.

Contrary to popular belief, refrain from overspending when starting your own small business.

Monitor your expenses to ensure that you stay within the pre-decided budget.

4. Determine the Business Structure

You should have a clear idea of the kind of entity your business will be in order to register your company.

Would it be a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or limited liability company?

The structure of your business affects everything from your personal liability to how you file taxes therefore, understanding different business structures is crucial.

5. Build a Great Team

Starting your own small business can mean you running your business on your own or hiring a small team to help you get started.

Companies that have a good company culture have a 4X higher revenue.

Clearly define the responsibilities and roles of each employee, consider their feedback and figure out ways to work together early on will help you save a lot of headaches later on.

6. Branding and Advertising

According to 77% of B2B marketers, building a strong brand is the key to a company’s growth.

Understand how you can build your brand and the cost-effective marketing strategies you can invest in to help you establish yourself in the minds of your target audience.

A few places to get started are:

  • Logo: Should be easily identifiable, relevant and easy to recall.
  • CRM: Use CRM software to understand the market demographics. A killer email marketing campaign will do wonders for your new business.
  • Social Media: Are an excellent means to spread the word about your business.
  • Website: 85% of customers conduct online research before making a purchase. Create a clean, minimal, mobile-friendly website that has the capacity to convince your potential customers into long-term customers.

Update your website and social media accounts with interesting and informative content to help you build a rapport with your customers.

The Wrap Up

Starting your own small business is so much more than the launch and first sales are just the beginning of the business.

You need to stay afloat and start making profits to help you grow your business. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort.

Understand that the success of your business depends on the decisions you made before you launched your business. So, invest in research, craft a detailed business plan, keep a track of your finances and create a marketing strategy to take your business to new heights!

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Shristi PatniShristi Patni is a content writer and owner of F and B Recipes. She enjoys writing about Intuitive Counseling and Spiritual Mind Treatment. Formerly the Chief Content Officer at Raletta, she is currently working on her second cookbook.

 

15 Essentials for Your Startup to Succeed

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Startup|15 Essentials for Your Startup to SucceedBuilding your startup is life-changing and can enable you to fulfill your dreams. It can free you from an unfulfilling job and give you more flexibility in life both at work and with your family. However, it is no walk in the park. Starting a business and growing it is even more challenging. You need the courage, determination, and enthusiasm to overcome obstacles, persevere during hard times, and stick it out in the long run. The following essentials can help you drive your startup to success.

Be committed

If you’re a jack of all trades, you will be a master of none, and you are likely to set yourself out for failure. For your startup to be successful in the long term, it needs your undivided attention. You can start other businesses in your lifetime, but do it one at a time. Prepare to sacrifice a lot of your time, money, and energy for the success of your business. Choose a business idea that you’re ready to devote your time to.

Join organizations

Starting a business can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of isolating yourself, join the right organizations and associations in your industry. Here, you can make new connections and partnerships with like-minded business people through networking. The right organizations aim at empowering entrepreneurs like you by giving you skills that provide a stable footing in the business world. Be sure to attend seminars, conferences, networking events, and workshops. Since there are many organizations out there, choose the best fit that will be beneficial to you.

Create an outstanding team

No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to build a successful business alone. Consider working with friends and family for a start as you increase capital to invest in a professional team. Employees bring something new to the table, like their skills and ideas, which are essential to the success of your startup. They also take a lot of work off your hands, giving you ample time to concentrate on core business functions. Consider outsourcing for repetitive tasks, form a board of directors to advise you, and create a remote team if you don’t have enough office space.

Set up a professional website

Having an engaging online presence is one of the business’s unspoken rites of passage today. Research shows that most consumers first go online searching for the products/services they need before purchasing offline. Work with a professional web design company to create a user-friendly business website. Ensure you include the necessary information to attract the right customers and ultimately boost conversion rates. Additionally, create optimized content that engages with your target audience and helps them find you easily. A highly-rated website signals to consumers that you are trustworthy and builds confidence in your brand.

Timing is everything

Timing is essential when picking the optimal moment to launch your startup and deciding to make exceptional moves such as expansion. Determine when it’s best to launch your start-up by looking into what’s going on in your personal life; if you’re going to move places or get a baby, it might not be the best time. Ensure you understand the flows and ebbs of your industry and determine if the odds are to your advantage with things like competition and demand for your product.

Have a clean budget

One of the common mistakes that could set you up for failure real quick is failing to plan for your capital. Even though you have a lot of savings and additional funds from financial institutions, the expenses of a startup can drain them fast. Create a detailed budget that ensures your capital is sustainable until your startup is stable and bringing in a substantial profit. Remember that you have personal needs that need to be taken care of other than the startup. Keep aside funds for your basic needs and an emergency fund in case of unexpected business expenses.

Know your competition

Every type of business has competition, and you need to launch your startup knowing how to satisfy your consumers’ needs. Understanding how your competitors operate can help you create a more competitive business by filling a niche and coming up with better strategies. If you don’t have competition, then the business idea may not be a real need in the market. Research on your competition even as you grow your business to stay ahead in the industry.

Business plan

A business is not only essential when you’re seeking investors, but also gives you a blueprint of your goals, strategies, and destination. A business plan is the one thing you shouldn’t miss when building a startup; it’s where you go back to measure your progress and compare your outcomes with initial goals. When you don’t meet those goals, you can determine where there’s a problem and change strategies. It also motivates and keeps you and your team on the same page by specifying objectives and timelines to achieve particular goals.

Be curious and creative

When you’re an entrepreneur, curiosity and creativity are as essential as intelligence. Curiosity enables you to discover niches in the market that aren’t being satisfied and consumers’ sentiments regarding changes they’d like and their thoughts on particular products. Curiosity also enables you to learn from your competition and be better. Creativity helps you develop ideas that can provide solutions to problems in the market and boost success for your startup.

Effective communication

Without effective communication, your startup can’t be successful; a communication breakdown can cause your business to go under. As an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to communicate clearly and effectively with employees, investors, potential, and existing customers. However, if one side isn’t listening or loses interest, this is the beginning of failure.

Communicate in a way that makes the other party listen by being confident, informative, and attentive. Effective communication, apart from motivating employees, can earn you long-term connections with the networks you build.

Have a daring vision

A vision gives you the much-needed energy you need to embark on your entrepreneurship journey. Not everyone who builds a startup becomes successful, but defining and selling your business’s vision can get you there. The same way you present other ideas is the same way you should share your vision. Be daring, realistic, and enthusiastic about it. A daring vision signals your passion for what you do and pushes you to explore, challenge, insist, and have the willpower to succeed even when the road gets bumpy.

Flexibility

One problem that many entrepreneurs face when launching a startup is the lack of flexibility to modify or rebuild the entire business plan. When you’ve been consistent, put in a lot of effort, and time into your startup, it can be challenging to accept that your idea just isn’t working, and it’s time to make changes.

As you begin this venture, keep an eye out for processes such as marketing, production, operations, and branding that need tweaks and alterations to make your business successful. It’s okay to immerse your energy in one business model, but be flexible enough to make changes in the strategies and methods you use to achieve success.

Be resilient

Even with a well-thought-out business plan, research, capital, creativity, and capital, a startup will fail if you aren’t resilient in the face of adversity. Be ready to put in the work, do the heavy lifting, and get your hands dirty instead of waiting on employees to do it for you. Every business experiences setbacks. But to be successful, you must adapt, pick yourself up, and dust off the frustration. Build resilience by staying calm when there are unforeseen challenges, treating yourself kindly, and seeing this as an opportunity for growth.

Be knowledgeable about the law

One of the things that can lead to failure or immediate closure of your business startup is going contrary to the law. Even while working with a lawyer or attorney, make a point of researching laws that affect your business. Avoid lawsuits that can cost your livelihood by keeping up with taxes, insurance, business registrations, permits, and inspections. Take care of your customers by giving quality service and legit products. Remember to treat your employees as assets to the business; ensure their safety by securing the place and insure them in case of any accidents.

Exercise discipline

Being disciplined isn’t all about using funds as you should. Exercising discipline has to do with many parts of your business, such as being timely and following through with plans that propel you to success. Being an entrepreneur comes with freedom from strict deadlines from bosses; you can clock in and leave as you please or consume products meant for sale. However, failure to exercise discipline is setting yourself up on a fast road to failure. Be an example to your employees to run a successful startup.

Bottom line

Launching your startup can be full of exciting highs and frustrating lows, but you need to be resilient and follow through with your business plan. However, avoid startup failure by being flexible enough to make necessary changes when necessary. Go into this venture with enough information from research, know your competition, and stay committed to your goals. Build an effective team, know the laws in business, exercise discipline, and most importantly, have a daring vision.