“How can I grow my business online fast” continuously popped into my mind in 2014 when I first launched my online business.
According to Smart Insight, there are over 4.6 billion people using social media and over 424 million new users have come online in the last 12 months.
To grow your business online, you can either grow it for free or use paid means. like paying for sponsored Ads on Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms or you do it for free by creating a business page on those platforms and putting out valuable content that gives value to your Target customers.
Whether you want to grow your business for free or use paid means, you can apply this marketing strategy to whichever way you want to grow your business online.
You only need the right online marketing tools and strategies in place to start expanding your business online.
Lucky you to have found this article because, In this article, I am going to show you the 5 smart ways on how to make your business grow online fast and you don’t even need money before using these tactics.
Contents
HOW CAN I GROW MY BUSINESS ONLINE
As a small business that is looking to break into the online space and get visibility, sales, & leads online, It is best you know that the first thing to do is to:
1. Set The Goal Your Business Wants To Achieve Online
Knowing what your business goals are, helps you to determine the right way to promote your business online.
Before you start your business online, you need to answer these questions;
- Why is your business online?
- what do you want to achieve with your business online?
- Do you want to create awareness for your business?
- do you want people to engage with your business?
- Do you want people to buy your products or services?
- Do you want to acquire leads and do a follow-up with them later?
If you fail to answer these questions, then the question of “how can I grow my business online” will still be running through your mind every day with no answer to it.
2. Brand Your Business Online
If you are putting your business online for the first time, or your company has been online long before now and you have not done branding, you should start implementing it right now, to start growing your business online.
The reason why you should brand your business is that the internet is very noisy with a lot of content and advertisement, you want to make your audience recognize your brand whenever they see it online.
If you don’t brand your business you will find it challenging to grow your audience online.
Start by having a logo and using the same colors for all your online marketing. This looks small but is very powerful.
3. Analyse Your Competitors
The next step is to analyze your competitors online and see what is working for them and what is not working for them online.
Why is it important to Analyse competitors?
You want to analyze your competitors because you want to know what they are doing and not doing right and what you can do right for your own business to get their customers to patronize you.
How do you analyze a competitor?
There are a lot of tools you can use to analyze your competitors online both paid and free. For free, you can use Google to search your competitors and also search your competitors’ social media accounts to analyze what they are doing. And for the paid, You can use this tool called Ahref to analyze what your competitors are doing online.
4. Know Your Target Customers
How do you attract customers online and grow your business when you don’t know your target customers? To know your target customers means that you are not talking to everybody but the people that are most interested in your product or services.
How do you know your target customers?
Create a customer avatar for your business and that customer avatar will give you an insight into who your target customers look like.
How do you attract customers Online?
After creating a customer avatar, how then do you attract customers online to patronize your business?
- Know your target audience
- Have an irresistible offer
- Give value to your customers for free
- Offer mouth-watering discounts on your products or services.
5. Choose The Right Platform For Your Business Online
There are a lot of social media platforms, but don’t be tempted to use all platforms because Mr. A’s business is doing really well on the platform does not mean that your business will do well on the platform.
When I was asking myself in 2014 “how can I grow my business, how can I succeed in online business, and how can I make my business grow fast as a start-up”, I never knew that, not all social media platforms are suitable for some businesses.
For instance, If you sell fashionable wear, Instagram will be the best place for you and not LinkedIn.
That is why you should do your competitor analyses and know what platform your competitors are using the most to drive customers to their business.
Is online business profitable?
Are you wondering if your online business is going to be profitable after following the steps I have listed above?
Online business is very profitable and will give you a good ROI if you have the right online marketing strategy. If online business is not profitable, Jumia, Amazon, Jiji, and even google, or any other online business you have come across, will not be here today.
How long does it take to grow an online business?
You are now ready to start growing your business, but you are still not sure how long it will take for you to start seeing the results of what you have done.
Growing a successful business online requires a lot of dedication and hard work before you start seeing results.
For some businesses, it will take a week, while for some other companies, it can take up to a year and so on. It all depends on so many factors like the kind of business, marketing strategies used, etc.
However, the standard time frame for a business to grow online is 1 year, if the online marketing is done correctly.
It all boils down to how well you have put in the work of all that I have mentioned above because those are the foundation of good online marketing to grow your business online.
Conclusion
Growing a business online can be a smooth and easy journey with great profit when you implement the right marketing foundation which i have listed above.
Every business owner you see online started just like you and walk their way up. It is time for you to roll up your sleeves and implement those steps into your online business.
If you have gotten an answer to your question(how can I grow my business online), do well to drop a comment below, and if you have any questions, also drop them in the comment section.