The pandemic has changed how entrepreneurs approach their business. Such regulations such as taking away only, social distance, and reduced business hours have reduced the business volume. However, many online businesses have been flourishing throughout the period. They were able to serve customers beyond allowed hours, expand their market reach and connect with existing customers.
Find out what you need to expand your business online.
Start by Surveying the Market
It is important that you understand your market before you create any online strategies. Determine the buyer behavior and platforms where customers hang out when online. Besides, determine what the competition is doing online and what you need to do differently to meet your market needs.
You can start by visiting forums where people review similar services to yours. Then, check the search numbers for related goods. Complete your research by visiting competitor sites and seeing how they are dealing with demand so that you know how to outdo them.
Create or Improve Your Website
If you do not have a website, you need to design one as soon as possible. The website becomes your ‘command center’ in online marketing as every other marketing effort directs customers to your site. Therefore, it has to be engaging, provide relevant information, and be easy to navigate.
On the other hand, if you have a website in place, you need to improve it so that it meets your business goals. Hire a professional web development company for a redesign. The agency can help in creating a content strategy for the website, enhancing your ranking through SEO, creating an e-commerce site, and ensuring that the website is responsive.
Remember, SEO is a continuous process to enhance your website ranking in the relevant search results. With a reliable web development agency, the process is a lot easier.
Create and Post on Your Blog
A blog is a soft marketing platform as it sells your products while giving practical information or knowledge to your users. On a blog, you may provide any relevant information that may help your potential clients to make informed decisions. Some popular topics include:
- A simple buying guide if selling different products
- How to use a particular product for a given purpose
- Demonstrations on how to use and troubleshoot products
- Questions and answers regarding the features and characteristics of your service
- General information regarding the industry
- Your web developer will include a blog page on your website for ease of access to your visitors
Use Paid Advertising
As said earlier, SEO is the best source of traffic. However, it takes some time for you to rank favorably in web results. You can get targeted traffic to your site by paid advertising. In this advertising method, the search engine puts targeted ads at the top of the relevant search results so that users can find and click them to visit your website. Popular paid advertising methods to include pay-per-click and pay per 1000 impressions. The former is more popular with many business owners.
Your ads should direct customers to exact pages where you are selling the said product or service. You can have a landing page where customers get product information and offers.
Create a Social Media Presence
It is important that you connect to your market base by having potential and past customers follow you. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook keep your customers ‘warm’ by letting them know what the business is doing.
Start by creating your business page on the platforms that you found your potential customers in the first step in this guide. You may spread across a few platforms. However, beware that spreading too thinly will make it hard to provide sufficient attention to your followers on all the platforms.
On social media pages, avoid having to tell them about your products with every post. Instead, aim at engaging them by providing, dun but engaging and relevant topics that would keep the conversation going. Make your posts easy to digest and share to increase your presence. You may have a team or outsource workforce to manage your social media pages.
Sell Online
Your target is to increase your sales through online platforms. You can sell straight through your website by having a cart and fulfilling orders. Besides, you can also sell through online marketplaces such as Amazon. They help with order fulfillment. You may also sell on social media pages such as the Facebook Marketplace and deliver goods to your clients.
With the right strategy in place, you can market your products online fast. Just ensure that you follow the above information and deliver way above your promise.
