The Investments that Will Help You Grow Your Business Online
It’s fair to say that, in recent years, there has been nothing short of a seismic shift in the way we all do business and use businesses. Now, more than ever, we use the internet as a key tool for promoting, selling, finding and reviewing companies.
With this change, comes the need for business owners to invest more money in growing their online operations to bring them bang into the 21st Century. If you’re trying to bolster your business online, here are some of the key investments you should consider making:
A Bespoke Website
Perhaps the most important thing you can so to grow your business online if you haven’t already, is to invest some of your capital in creating a bespoke website, which is completely unique to your company and which looks great and is easy to handle. This won’t come cheap, but if you’re serious about impressing the public online it really is necessary, and you can always take out a business loan to get things up and running. Go to UnsecuredFinanceAustralia.com.au for more information about business loans now. Use your loan to create a top-notch website like http://www.feedmusic.com/ or http://www.mikiyakobayashi.com/, and you’ll be onto a winner. Your website is, after all, in the online business world, one of your best assets!
SEO Services
SEO services are something you can find out more about at http://www.seocompanysydney.com.au/, but they are basically a range of techniques that boost the visibility of your online operations so that they can easily be found by people searching for the kinds of goods and services you offer. They are pretty important because, if no one can find your website, then no one is going to buy anything, no matter how good your products and services are.
A Brilliant Blog
Obviously, there is little point in designing a beautiful, high-functioning website if no one is interested in visiting it either, which is why, as an online business, you should be looking to create your own corporate blog and populate it with high-quality content that draws the visitors in.
In order to do this, you should ideally, hire a professional blogger or copywriter who knows your niche, to create engaging content that appeals to your target market, and your blog should be updated at least once a week.
Social Media Marketing
Marketing on Radio or TV or in magazines and newspapers was once the best way to grow one’s business and boost sales. Today, things have changed and although, depending on your niche, you can still do well advertising in those ways, it’s much more cost-effective, and well, just plain effective, in most cases, to advertise online, particularly on social media.
Setting up profiles on all of the main social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and employing a social media manager to create and post content on a very regular basis, as well as running competitions and giveaways is a sure-fire way to increase follower numbers and create a captive audience who are already receptive to what you’re doing.
An Email List
Investing in a strong email list and what it takes to grow one, is a sensible move for any online business because, email is still the main form of communication for businesses online, and having a list of people who have either purchased from you in the past, expressed an interest in doing so, or who are interested in the general area in which you trade, is a vital tool for success. You’d be surprised just how effective sending out a weekly email newsletter or promotion can be!
Mobile Apps
Every business in the 21st Century should have its own mobile app, which makes it easier for them to engage with their customers and vice versa. Ideally, these apps should be unique to each company and truly offer something that makes downloading them worthwhile, such as unique promotions, the ability to track orders, or live chat with customer services. Creating such an app might be a little expensive, but again, it’s a really good use of a business loan because it will increase engagement and consumption of your goods and services if it is executed well.
Cloud Services
If you’re operating online, now just might be the perfect time to switch your operations to the cloud. Doing so might actually save you money because you won’t need to run your own servers or store your own data, and it will protect your business from various outages and data hacks too.
Reputation Management
Now that it is so easy for anyone who has a grudge against a business to vent their anger online, companies should at least consider the benefits of reputation management, which can be used to get rid of malicious posts about one’s companies, so that what is written on the internet is a truer reflection of the business which won’t unduly put anyone off.
It’s worth mentioning that, although it’s possible, it isn’t really advisable to get rid of all of your bad press because, if you try to hide every less-than-glowing review of your company, it will look suspicious and it could put people off just as much as the bad reviews themselves. Only use reputation management when you’re experiencing a real issue with malicious rumours and false reviews, and you should be fine.
Influencers
The internet has seen many an influential blogger, vlogger or website personality pop up and these people can have thousands, even millions of loyal fans. If you want to get your brand/products/services seen by more people within your niche, it may, then, be worthwhile paying one of these influencers to promote your stuff. It’s amazing just how much of an influence they have over their subscribers!
Doing all, or even just a fraction of these things is sure to see your business grow online, but you need to remember that it won’t happen overnight – for online success, you need to work hard, play the long-game and never give up!