Understand your Business

The first step in marketing your business online is to understand what it is you are selling. Many business owners make the mistake of thinking if they build a website, droves of traffic will come. This just isn't the case. Online marketing is not easy. First you need to be seen, and your customers will give you about 2 seconds of their time to make their decision on whether or not to stay. The competition is fierce. There are millions and millions of websites out there all trying to be seen, and more importantly, trying to get new customers. What makes you different?

By understanding your products and services you will be able to identify what it is you are selling, and what type of value you can provide people. Take your time on this one to get it right, but don't worry, you will have time to adjust it. The technique discussed here is about "molding" your business to your customers, so there will be time to tweak things as we go.

Some questions:

• Do you have any products to sell? How much do they cost? What are your margins?
• Are you products and services suited to marketing online?
• What services can you sell in relation to your products? If you are a services business, what services can you offer?
• What are your overhead costs? How much money does it take to run your business? Is your pricing reflective of this?
• Do you have enough supply of either your product or people to fulfill your services? How much will this cost?
• How many sales do you need to make to break even or see a profit?
• Is your accounting setup to handle your sales tracking?

To fully understand your business, you will need to have an answer for each of these questions, and run the numbers. Create a profit and loss statement to ensure that you will have enough cash flow available, and to "crack your nut" (the amount of money you need to make to break even). Once you have this, you can then run a forecast and understand the growth rate you need to acheive. There is no point in putting a business online if it isn't profitable. There are a lot of offline marketing techniques such as handing out pamphlets, advertising in local papers, etc that may be more suitable. Make sure you really need to market online. If it turns out that you don't you will at least need to have a website to provide credibility. As an example, if your business is purely local, you would probably be better having a basic website, and putting your efforts into graphic design for offline marketing brochures.

Understand your Business

The next step you need to do is understand who you are selling it your products and services to. Understanding your market, who your competition is, and who you target audience is will allow you to understand what it is they need. Having products and services that no one will buy is pointless. One of the common mistakes new business owners make is they think their products and services are for everyone. Sure, it would be nice to have everyone as a client, but if you don't know specifically who will buy your products and services, then you don't understand your customer. For example, if you are selling office supplies, do you think dancers will buy them? The more you can identify who your customer is, and think like them, the better off you will be in understanding what message to put in front of them. If your product is expensive, selling to people that are in a low profit bracket probably won't get you the sales you need.

Some questions (be specific>:

• What age group will be interested in your product?
• What types of personalities would be interested?
• Is your product more relevant to a particular gender?
• What value will you be providing to these groups?
• Where do these people shop? How can you get your business in front of them?
• Can you do any marketing studies/surveys/focus groups to confirm your target market?

Remember, the more specific you are the better. This is particularly relevant online. As mentioned above, people will only give you about 2 seconds (and that is generous) to make a decision to look at you further. There is no point in you wasting their time, or them wasting yours by telling someone of a product who just wouldn't be interested in the first place. People are bombarded with advertising these days so you really do need to be specific, and get your instant message in front of this 2 second window. Don't get dishearted though, there are more ways to get them to spend more time looking at what you are selling, but I won't get into this now.

Understand YOU

You read right. Understand who YOU are. Marketing online isn't just about coming up with a fancy slogan, getting placed on google, or putting banners out into the internet. You will be dissapointed with your marketing efforts if you do this, and it will take a long time to make a profit. The first real way to conduct business is to build people's trust first. Once you have their trust, they will be more than happy to buy from you if your products are something they need or want. This step is the magic that makes online marketing possible. It is a different mindshift. Rather than focusing purely on your products and services, and trying to sell these onto complete strangers, you are your own product first. What makes you attractive to people? Are you involved in community work outside of your business? What hobbies do you have? What can you say about your self that will make people want to get to know you? Once you get people to become a "friend" to you (and you will make some fantastic friends this way), you will trust them, and they will trust you. Then, you can (without being pushy) just let them know what you sell. Beleive me, they will come to you to buy. Introduce your products and services, and, over a bit of time, give them your link to your website for them to check it out. Build your credibility by being a person first.

Putting it all together

Now that you understand your products and services, your financial picture of what you need to achieve, who you are selling to, and your own strengths as a person, you are now on your way to understanding how to sell. Go back and revisit your products and services, pricing models, and anything else you need to adjust before you start to come up with how you will sell. Once you are completely familiar with your business, you will be able to start working on the messages that you can put out there, identifying the best advertising locations, and how to really "help" people (rather than purely helping yourself).

How will people order?

Finally, now that you understand your business, and how you can sell it, how will you accept payments? Here are some suggestions:

AlertPay/PayPal

AlertPay/PayPal are the leading online payment processors supported by a lot of websites. These are "online" accounts that allow you to easily accept payments from people without the overhead of a full ecommerce enabled website. They are a great place to start. You can even have recurring payments (subscriptions) setup using these services.

Get a merchant account

Another option if you want more control over the order process is to ecommerce enable your site. In order to to this, you will need a merchant account from your bank, and will need to have an ecommerce solution that can "hook" up your website to your bank. This is a lot more complicated, but if you are large enough is well worth the effort.

Need Help?

If you need any help in understanding your business, or setting it up for an online presence, let us know. We have a range of services available and are happy to help. Contact Us Today!