5 Tips Everyone Ought to Know When Taking Their Businesses Online

The future is online, whether we like it or not. If your businesses don't evolve with this technological change, it will be left behind.

So as a business, why do you need to keep evolving with technology?

The simple reason is because of what I call the 'Consumer Behavior'.

Meaning, our consumers are constantly changing their taste and preferences and to keep up, we need to keep tweaking our marketing strategies.

 It was in this process of trying to adjust to the ever-changing lifestyle of the modern consumer that digital marketing was born.

Years ago, consumers got information solely from Newspapers, Radio, and Tv adverts, now they simply turn to Blog articles from Google, Audio materials from podcasts (online radio) and Videos from YouTube.

Owing to this shift in attention by your prospective customers, it is vital to look for ways to adjust to this trend so your business can continue attracting more relevant eyeballs.

If you are not willing to transform your business or move with the trend, you will be disrupted by your competitor or somebody else.

Someone probably much younger than you. The younger generation embrace and adapt to new technologies quickly, this explains why we have so many start-ups headed by young individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 years.

This is a call to action for you to become more flexible and open to learning new digital skills, techniques and methods of doing things if you want to run a profitable business in this 21st-century.

The way you use online platforms or social media as a person is totally different from the way you would use it as a business.

As an individual, you post and engage with the medium to show your audience what you like, your dislikes, your preferences, etc but as a business, your aim is to show your audience what THEY like, what THEY prefer and not show what THEY dislike.

We have to start having this mind set and understanding, before even thinking of creating a presence online so we don’t end up wasting our scarce resources on things that won’t work.

All right, now to the…

STEPS TO TAKING YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE.

1. Master your craft.

Often times we are all caught in this money chasing facade that we overlook the real reason behind buying and selling or doing business which is to create VALUE.

We need to spend more time improving our products or sharpening our skills than we spend marketing it.

Believe me, marketing or convincing a consumer is a lot easier and cheaper when the consumer can see the value your business offer without having to be cajoled into buying.

2. Make yourself stand out.

Doing a business you have a passion for will make this long and tedious process of improving yourself and product a lot more fun and exciting for you.

But having a passion for your business is not enough, you have to understand the 'WHY' behind your business, the WHY is simply the reason you decided to launch that business.

what are the problems you are just tired of seeing and wish to solve?

The more efficient your services are in solving this problem, the more valuable your product will look to the consumers.

3. Understand your business niche. 

It is very important to understand your business category. Sit back and analyse your business, who are you servicing? What kind of people are more prone to using your service? This is where you draw out your customer avatar or buyer persona.

You have to know your target audience, the set of people that will find your offer valuable, the kind of people that have the needs your product is solving.

This will help you draw up an effective digital marketing plan with an accurate audience targeting strategy when you are ready to run paid ads.

And doing this will also make it easy for you to keep refining your product to continue to speak directly to its intended users.

4. Coming Online.

Now that you have an irresistible product, and know the kind of people that your product will be highly useful too, the next step is to ask yourself where online do these people spend most of their time.

This is where most people get it wrong, they think they have to be present on every online or social media platform.

No, doing this will hurt your limited resources and it can be time-consuming trying to manage all these online mediums at a time and still find time to keep improving on your product or services.

I will advise you to find out where your target audience spend time the most, after doing your research and know their preferred online platform, the next step is to know how that particular medium work and how their paid advertising platform work.

Doing this will really streamline your expenses and help you focus your limited resources on more relevant activities.

(You can also enlist the help of a digital marketer to help you with setting up your ad if you are not willing to do it yourself).

If you did step 1 and 2, this stage will be cost effective for you because you know what you want and the platform you are targeting, all the DM needs to help you do is to set up your advert).

5. Measure and Adjust.

You have to learn how to work with data. Whether organic or inorganic interactions with your business.

You want to know what every customer is saying concerning your business. They are the business, not even your product. Without them, there is no product.

You need to solicit regular feedback from your clients whether the good or the bad. These positive feedback can also be used as testimonial posts on your online platforms. This strategy really helps to build trust in your product and services.

And Wait!!

Why not be different??

Why not also share those negative feedback on your platforms and also how you were able to overcome that challenge?

This will portray you as a business that is trustworthy, sincere and really cares about the welfare of her customers.

In Conclusion,

I highly recommend we cultivate the habit of finding answers and learning new skills on Google whenever we are stuck in this journey.

Everything you need is on Google, believe me.

In this age of the internet, you barely need a physical mentor. The mentor you need is online. Make use of this technology, it is free.

Please Help Share This Post If You Found It Useful.

And Please share your ideas in the comment section below too, so I can learn from you!.

Many thanks!

© Ayo O. Duru

Digital Marketing Expert

Co-Founder at Duru’z Media Africa