Traditionally, the concept of business growth was so easy to explain. You sell a product/service, and people are happy with it, so they buy more and convince others to buy from you. However, this word-of-mouth-based marketing only worked in smaller environments.
Now that the whole world is one giant market, you need the help of marketing in order to grow.
So, how to grow your business online the right way? How to grow your brand?
Read on to find out!
Start with your website
All the tips on how to grow your business have to wait until you’ve dealt with the basics.
First, you need to set the foundation for any future strategy by starting a website.
Let’s say you’re promoting your business via social media or doing business exclusively on social media. Let’s say you’re selling clothes or cosmetics on Instagram. It works well, and your customers are coming in droves, but some want to look you up. They google you and can’t find your website. How many of them will start doubting that you’re legit and assume that you’re just scamming people on social media?
Without a website, there’s nothing. There’s no SEO; there’s no content marketing (what are you going to link to and where are you going to post anything), there’s no email marketing (where are you going to invite them and what link are they going to follow), and, for the above-mentioned reason, there’s no social media marketing either.
Before you can even think about backlinks management, you need something worth linking to. This means that if you don’t have a site or a blog, there are no talks of link building.
The site must be responsive, well-made, and solid overall. The design needs to be high-quality, and all the systems have to be up to date.
While there are so many drag-and-drop builders out there, if you’re looking for how to make your business grow, it’s better just to hire a professional.
Increase your marketing spending
There’s a lot you can do on a budget, but when trying to figure out how to make your online business grow, you have to face the uncomfortable truth that you have to burn money to make money.
Most online businesses spend 1-5% of their average annual revenue on digital marketing. This covers everything from basic marketing tool expenses to PPC. Depending on where you are, how big of a market portion you’re currently holding, and how competitive your field is, you may have to spend even more.
If you go online and start googling tips on how to do your own SEO, how to run your own social media profiles, etc, you’ll find a lot of material. In fact, this material is well-written, and the examples and tips sound completely legitimate.
The problem is that they’re just not as effective.
They sound great. Better yet, they sound intuitive. After all, since you’ve been running your own social media profiles for well over a decade now, why can’t you do it for your own business? Also, you post something, and people like and share it, so this means that spending money on sponsored content on social media is a waste, right? You would be surprised at just how big of a fallacy this statement really is.
So, how to grow your business online?
The short answer is – increase your marketing budget!
Whoever tells you otherwise is just talking fairytales.
Sure, small teams can employ creativity to do more with less, but you just have to spend a bit more when it comes to growth. A good marketing campaign will achieve a much greater effect than an expensive campaign, but don’t be fooled into thinking that you can have a good marketing campaign without spending any money.
Pick your niche
The question of how to grow your online business will lead you to a broad topic, so starting a bit narrower might not be a bad idea.
The first thing you need to do is pick your niche. Google is very serious about tracking your history, but not in the way people think. While search engines pay attention to the track record of your posts and statements and reward you for positive behavior, they’re not giving you a blank check that you can just take anywhere you like.
Instead, they’ll give you this imaginary currency to cash within your own niche (metaphorically speaking). Let’s say, for instance, that you’re a dentist with a decade of stellar online presence. This will net you an incredible amount of authority, but this comes with a caveat – this authority stops on the topics related to your field of expertise.
Technically, with a huge SEO team and endless resources, you would be able to qualify in more fields than one, but in practice, it won’t work this way.
So, your first objective is not just to figure out how to grow your business online. It’s to figure out the specific niche where you want to qualify.
Coming up with a general strategy is like being a boxer and preparing for a tournament without any idea which category you’re trying to fight for.
This will also help you figure out who your target audience is. This will later help you set your voice and tone. It will even help you decide the direction you want to take your business in.
Team up with influencers
Influence is a currency, and a huge group of people leverage it as an asset. Due to their large following, they’re selling their endorsement. They share something on their profile, and thousands and millions of followers see it. Many brands are willing to pay good money for influencer endorsement.
Now, one of the most cost-effective tips for growing your business in the digital world is to find the right micro-influencers.
In the previous section, we discussed the importance of ranking well in your niche. Depending on your field, the word of a specialist could matter more than the word of a major celebrity.
Again, with the previous example. You see, if you’re selling dental products, an endorsement from a dentist will be almost as impactful as an endorsement from a major celebrity.
The key lies in identifying these influencers and making a great proposition. As we’ve already mentioned, their influence is their asset, and while they could, technically, do you a favor, by doing this for free, they’re devaluating their brand.
Also, keep in mind that it’s in your best interest to establish a long-term collaboration. Remember, you’re looking for ways how to grow your business online, not searching for the next get-rich-quick scheme. You can’t afford to make enemies, and influencers are often quite marketing-savvy people. They could prove to be useful allies in the long run.
Create a good content marketing campaign
The next thing you need to do is start a quality content marketing campaign, which will help you rank far better.
Why content marketing?
The biggest problem with the dilemma of how to make your business grow is the one of focus. Instead of focusing on the customer, you’re focusing on the abstract idea of growth and an inanimate entity of business that exists this way only in IRS forms.
So, focus on the customer, but how?
Customers are more obsessed with what you can do for them than what they can do for you. This is only natural. You must provide value, and content marketing is the best way to do so for free.
Through your content, they’ll get educated, entertained, and informed without having to pay or commit too much. Sure, you want them to pay, but even regular customers won’t buy twice a week. On the other hand, if your content is good and your content marketing team can withstand this output rate, they could come back twice weekly to check out your new video or blog post.
The biggest challenge with content lies in achieving adequate consistency. You have an editorial calendar that you have to honor. This usually means posting anywhere from twice per week to twice per month. At the same time, the content needs to be of high quality. This is a challenge because it takes 3:51 to write an average blog post. Keep in mind that you’re aiming for far above average.
While pondering on the future of your business, you probably wondered how to make your business grow scalably. Well, the same thing has to be asked about your content team and your content marketing strategy.
A systematic approach gives the best results
Building success is like building a house – it will get shaky and unsteady if you don’t start with the foundation. Start with a website, set a healthy marketing budget, and pick your niche. Then, when you’re ready, combine a set of methods to spread the word around. SEO, PPC, Content marketing, and influencer marketing are just some of the things in your toolbox.
