Startups have captured the online marketing world. Every successful offline entrepreneur wants to put a ‘’check’’ mark into the online field for building a business. Everyone who has previously heard about the success of some online startup dreams of repeating its success. However, 90% of all startups fail, and 50% of those which succeeded fail within 5 years. The number of startups grows, and the number of fails increases.
Failures happen because of the ignorance. Only some of new branded online entrepreneurs start with building a strong background. Most of them start their business without any preparation. Of course, lack of knowledge and absence of basic comprehension of online marketing tools are causing them to go away sooner or later..
To run an online business successfully, you need to get the idea of 5 secrets that help endure all complications and grow your business to success. These 5 secrets include making a business plan before starting a business, analyzing targeting market, communication with customers, understanding principles of social media marketing and, the most important of all ? offering a great product.
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Create a business plan
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A good business plan determines overall success of your online business. Vice versa, if you ignore this point the success is hardly possible. It guides your business, highlights all milestones and establishes goals giving step-by-step recommendations on how to achieve these goals.
In spite of the common misbelief, a plan for development of your business is not a long document written in a complicated and twisted language. It should be detailed and strictly organized, but it if that’s your first one - don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s what startups do - they experiment. It is enough to create a visual roadmap where you indicate all the stages of growing your business.
The benefits of the plan are precious:
You set determined goals
You set a deadline for each goal
You decide on the methods for running your business in advance
You create a marketing strategy beforehand
You choose the tools for growing your business in advance
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Of course, every plan endures some changes with the growth of the business. A professional entrepreneur knows when and how to change it in order to make it effective.
Stuart Walker, the owner of Niche Hacks website, has succeeded with his business plan. There are thousands of marketing blogs but only some of them are the best in their niche. Stuart Walker has got the Top 100 Business Blog 2015 reward. In the articles, he insists: The reason you lost money is because you had no plan. We believe, this guy knows what he is talking about.
Analyze the market and the audience
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An inexperienced entrepreneur makes a gross mistake in online marketing. He ignores the choice of the target audience. Everyone uses Internet now: kids, teens, women, men, people from the West and people from the East. You cannot offer your business to everyone, as for each niche you need to choose a proper approach. You cannot offer the services or products with the same marketing approach both for teenagers and retired people.
To analyze your audience and define your target and tools for reaching your TA, answer the following questions:
1) What problems do you solve with your product or services?
2) How does your customer look like?
3) Who will endure more losses without using your product or service?
4) How can you personalize your products or services?
5) What is your particular area? What do you do better than other companies?
Answering these questions, you get a basic concept of your target audience. However, to create a proper picture, you need to create focus groups and communicate with your potential customers face to face.
For example, Upwork is one of the startups that used their TA for reaching success. Upwork is a platform created on the basis of Elance and oDesk marketplace. They have chosen a proper strategy to promote their platform: they determined a proper market and a proper audience. Although everyone is interested in earning more money, Upwork concentrated their efforts on professional freelancers who already have the experience in making money of marketplace.
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Listen to the customers
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You should not listen to your customers only if you want to fail. Communication with customers leads to success, especially if you run your business online. You can use various ways to get permanent feedback and support your clients. The most effective tool is implementing social networks in communication. We will talk about principles of SMM in marketing in the following point.
You need to receive a regular feedback from your real customers. If you have some problems with the quality of your product or services, you will be able to fix this problem. If your customers have some ideas on how to make your product or service better, listen to them and try to implement their suggestions. Working with startup, it is crucially important to listen to the recommendations of your customer, nevertheless, you become one of those 90% failing companies.
For example, LCDcycle found their inspiration in the customers’ insights. LCDcycle stands for the possibility to repair a smartphone after it was broken, not to buy a new one. They consult people on how they can repair their gadgets. Leading effective communication lies is the basis of LCDcycle business. And they have managed to find a proper way to listen to their customers and hear their desires.
The Importance of SMM
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Social media marketing is important to any online business. Even if you sell bulbs, you can turn your communication in social networks into revenue. SMM help build bulletproof relations with the customers. They will always return to you if they remember about you and know your current promotions and offers. Make sure you have introduced Facebook and Instagram networks to increase the engagement of your audience.
A brilliant example of SMM implementation is Humans of New York story & photograph startup. They have over 17.5 bln followers. Starting as another photo project, they managed to reach a success and keep growing their popularity.
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Build a Great Product
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You can create a perfect business plan, choose your target market properly, introduce all possible ways of communication with your clients, and choose the most effective tools, but it will never be enough if your product or service is bad or even average. No one needs mediocre product; everyone looks for the highest quality.
Why do you need a great product? The veterans of business will tell you that 20 years ago the quality of the products was not as important as it is today. The matter is a modern world offers multiple choices and a person can always find another product of service with the better quality and lower price. You should always struggle to become the company which attracts customers with the quality, not with the marketing tips and promises.
Snapchat, an app that captured the whole online world, has recently proved that it deserves to be called one of the most prominent photo-sharing startups of the previous 5 years. Snapchat screens are everywhere. Their success has a simple formula: they always put the quality of their services to the prior place. Today, Snapchat is worth $20 billion, and this result should be the goal of any startup.
Running a successful startup is one of the biggest challenges in online marketing world. An entrepreneur who decided to give a try to this form of business should be prepared for unexpected outcomes, 24/7 working hours, disappointments and sudden success. Always keep in mind these 5 secrets and eventually you will build your own online empire with the best-quality services.