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Strategies to grow online business
Running an online business is hard. The internet was crowded before the pandemic, but when COVID-19 forced businesses online, it made matters even worse. But bringing your business online can offer you a whole new platform to reach your customers. On top of this, you’ll be able to build business plans that can help you edge out competitors who aren’t great at the online side of things. The internet offers you innovating and exciting ways to put your business out there.
But this doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard to grow online business, whether you own a well established brick and mortar business or you operate only on the internet. However, it’s true that brands who put effort into having a great website, strong online branding and a good social presence are more likely to grow.
Growth won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen without work. But we’ve got your back! It’s time to focus on some strategies to grow online business.
Content is king, so learn how to control it!
One of the best ways to grow online business is by making sure your site is full of great content. Content is what brings users to your site, whether it’s a funny article shared on Twitter or a product description found on Google. Make sure the content across all your channels is optimised to bring in traffic and help you convert them to customers. Read on for some more info on how to make each channel great!
- Blogs and articles
Blog posts and articles are a great way to bring in web traffic. For instance, if you sell skateboards and skating gear, you could post articles full of skateboarding tips, news and other interesting related articles. This means you’ll get web traffic from people searching for those things, who will then potentially be interested in buying the products on your site. You’ll also give your existing customers a reason to engage with you, which increases the likelihood of them buying from you again.
- Social media
There are very few businesses that wouldn’t benefit from at least one social media platform. Whether you need a more professional platform like Linkedin or something more casual and personable like Instagram or TikTok, there’s a way to utilise that platform to grow your business.
Most major social platforms allow you to at least create a profile for free. Depending on your budget, you can use social media for free or utilise all the paid options possible. Either way, you’ll be building brand recognition, engaging with your audience, and growing your online business. There are very few more effective ways to engage with a widespread and diverse customer base than social media.
But how do you use it effectively?
Well, first of all, it’s important to figure out what kind of posts work best for which platform. You can do this by testing different styles of posts. For example, Twitter posts that contain video are 6 times more likelyto be retweeted. On LinkedIn, posts that include imagery receive 200% more engagement.
Try out different posts on different platforms and see what works for you. But building a social media strategy is more than just figuring out what kind of post works best for each platform. It’s also about posting content relevant to your customer base.
Before you hit that “share” button, ask yourself: “will my users find this content useful, interesting, or entertaining?” If it doesn’t serve any of these three purposes, it’s not worth posting. Do your research (or talk to a social media specialist!) to figure out how to make social media work for you. Read more about identifying your target audience to help make your business successful here
Next, you can plan your content calendar! Your content calendar should work for your time and resources. Whether you create multiple daily posts or only once per week, as long as you’re consistent you’ll see results. Make sure you stay on top of industry trends and approach social media proactively.
Most importantly, be social. Social media should live up to its name! Use social media to interact with your audience. Reply to comments, post stories, send messages… as long as you’re engaging, you’re progressing.
Read more about boosting ecommerce sales with social media here.
- Email marketing
Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers. The best thing about it is that you can tailor it completely to your business and your resources. Only have time to send out a newsletter to your whole audience once a month? That’s great! Got some free time to write up emails that address different segments of your audience? Also great!
Email marketing can be as quick and easy as you need it to be. As a minimum, you should try and get in touch once a month with your whole customer base. If you have more time, you can segment your audience into groups that work best for you. We suggest at least segmenting into these three groups:
- People who have bought from you
- People who have signed up for your mailing list and never bought
- Prospects whose data has been captured another way.
Then you can target each group with emails that suit them best. Platforms like Mailchimp allow you to automate mail journeys, segment your customers however suits you, and build easy-to-design drag and drop emails. It’s also free if you send under 2,000 emails a month.
Grow online business with tried and tested marketing strategies
Digital marketing has been around since the 90’s. There are many tried and tested strategies out there, you just have to figure out which ones work for you! Here’s how:
- Get SEO savvy
SEO (Search engine optimisation) and PPC (pay per click) are types of digital marketing that aim to get your website as high up the Google search results as possible. Getting to grips with SEO and PPC strategies can help grow online business hugely!
However, they can be pretty tricky and time consuming to figure out. Because of this, you’ll probably need a designated member of staff to take care of your digital marketing. If you can’t do this with your resources, you may be better off hiring an agency. An agency that offers SEO, PPC, and various forms of content marketing (like social media, emails, and blogging) allows you access to a team of experts at a rate that may suit your budget better than hiring an internal team.
- Leverage free marketing tools
If you can’t afford a team or an agency, have no fear! There are plenty of free (and very cheap) marketing tools out there… too many to list!
Figure out what you need from a free marketing tool and do your research: you’re almost guaranteed to find something that helps you out! From those that streamline your email marketing campaigns to those that allow you to design a social media graphic , you don’t need to break the bank to craft great marketing material.
- Fix up your website
One of the best ways you can grow your online business is by having a great site. Remember, if your site is hard to navigate, slow to load, and difficult to use, then people simply won’t use it! The internet makes finding alternatives so easy that most customers very quickly give up on rubbish websites and take their business elsewhere.
For example, more than a third of users will leave a site if the layout and functions are poor. On top of this, over half of users on mobile devices give up on websites that take more than three seconds to load.
Making your site quick, easy to navigate, and nice to look at is vital. But that’s not all: you also need to optimise your site for mobile. At any given time, 52% of users will be browsing from smartphones. If your website doesn’t work well on mobile, you risk scaring off more than half of your potential customer base. Read more about optimising your site for mobile here.
Grow online business by researching the competition
Figuring out what your competition is doing online can be helpful. If you work in an industry that is largely brick and mortar rather than online, you’ve already got a head start. If you’re a little late to the game, not to fear! The best thing to do is check out what your competitors are doing, so you can do it better! Of course, it’s important to put your own spin on everything and be original. But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be making sure you’re meeting industry standards.
For example, if your competitors all have lots of FAQs and blog posts published, it’s important to make sure your site is just as populated.
But you can also learn from your competitor’s mistakes. If, for instance, they use lots of video and very little text on their site, you can make sure you use some video but also fill your site full of great written content. If their social media isn’t cohesively branded and is full of rubbish photos, you’ll know it’ll be easy to get ahead! Use this research to figure out what may be working/not working for your competitors, and include this information in your strategy. The competition is fierce—but you can use this to your advantage.
Find a home for your business
If your business is online only, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a brick and mortar home for your business.Nearly 3 billionbusinesses are based at home. Home working can be great, sure. But there are lots of things that aren’t ideal: slow internet, loud children, having to store stock at home… the list goes on and on. The good news is that there are multiple solutions.
- Run your business from storage
Running your business from storage is a great option. Whether you need to store documents like client information and accounts files or store back stock of your sales catalogue, you can store it with us. We offer flexible business storage to suit you and your business. Here at Magenta Self Storage, we have locations across the Midlands and South of England to suit businesses of all sizes. Whether you need a short term solution or a long term home for your business, we have a secure and easily accessible storage site for you. Bring your business out of your home and into ours! Get a quote today.
- Check out shared office spaces
If you’re short on the space (or peace and quiet!) needed to work at home, you could consider shared office and co-working spaces. If you’re in our area, we also offer office solutions from desk spaces to private offices. We’ve got spaces to suit offices of all shapes and sizes. Find the office that’s right for you, with no hidden costs. Give us a call or drop by the Magenta centre closest to you so we can show you what’s available!
Not in our area? Read our advice piece on how to find shared office space.
If you’re thinking about finding a home for your business but you’re not sure what you need, drop us an email and we’ll help you figure it out.