How I Launched A Successful Business Online

What is the most cost-effective and efficient way to build a business around your idea? Taking it online. An online business quickly enables you to reach out to a global mass of customers and even scale at will, among many other things. Additionally, when you are first testing out your business idea, online is the safest place to do that, as it poses relatively much less risk compared to starting a brick and mortar company. In my own journey as an entrepreneur, figuring out the best strategy and designing the roadmap to building and growing my startup, Hiver, was a challenge. Through a number of trials and errors, we have arrived at the best roadmap for building an online business, which can be fairly generalized. On that note, here we go:  

1. Before anything else, find a market and fill its needs

Most people make the mistake of hunting for a product or an idea first, and then start to figure out marketing. A better way to go about is to find a market first, examine its needs, and try to fill them. If you find that a specific group of people facing a particular problem, without a solution, that's probably where you are most needed. The bottom line is to make sure you walk into something that already has a market. 

Pro tips:

Do keyword searches. Find the keywords that have a lot of searches, but have very few search results.

Scour question and answer platforms such as Quora and Reddit to discover the potential problems you can solve. These websites are where most people seek solutions.

2. Come up with a great communication strategy to help people understand your goals and purpose

How you communicate your business story, goals, and purpose is a crucial determinant of your success. When you write a copy describing your product, you have to make sure it communicates clearly - crisp and concise. You need to use a problem-solving tone throughout your message - answer and establish how your product/service can solve the problem and uniquely so. 

Pro tips:

Your message should have simple and easy-to-understand terminology.

Keep the focus on how your product can benefit the users, how it can solve problems.

Repeat your marketing message creatively in order to reinforce what you stand for in the customer's mind.

3. Design and build a website - design carefully

A business website is what I like to call the ‘pivot' point. You have figured out your product and managed to pique your prospect's interest. They have now decided to check out your website to see what you are about, what you want to do, how successful you have been so far, and how trustworthy you are. I call this a pivot point because this is where customers decide if they should turn you down completely or take the next step in the buyer's journey. A poorly-executed website will definitely not work in your favor. 

Pro tips to remember when designing your website:

Keep the navigation clear and simple - extremely user-friendly.

Use plain texts, fonts, and colors.

Include an opt-in offer to subscribe to the email newsletters.

Include testimonials from previous customers to establish credibility. Also, place logos of any major companies you are working with on the landing page.

Keep it clutter-free and easy to scan through.

4. Showcase your expertise and credibility

You have your product, marketing message, and website. What next? Well, the next step is to build a brand around yourself and your company by establishing your expertise. How to do that you may ask?! It's simple - give free advice, free but valuable, and give lots of it. 

Pro tips:

Guest blog. Find newer and better avenues to post your advice and insights.

Visit Q+A platforms and answer questions which are relevant to you and for which you have valuable insights.

Of course, run your own blog and post some unique/original content.

5. Flirt with search engines

Everything you do, from the content you post to the images you use, should be search engine friendly. Once the search engines start loving you, your website's domain authority will start to go up, and traffic will come to you organically. 

Pro tips:

First off, get your website indexed by Google.

Figure out a bunch of relevant keywords and use them throughout your website and blog. Of course, don't just dump them haphazardly, find perfect places to fit them instead.

You can also bring in traffic through pay-per-click advertising.

6. Send emails to woo your visitors into becoming your customers

For an online business, one of the most valuable assets is its email list. This is something you have to start building from day one, through opt-in options on your website. Email marketing is a great way to nurture leads. Nurtured leads buy 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. 

Pro tips:

With email marketing, you can measure how you are faring. Use this data to fill the gaps and keep adding more value.

Do it right and you can build a lifelong relationship with your customers.

Be consistent. Have a fixed day to send your newsletters and never bombard your subscriber's inbox with multiple emails every week.

7. Have a sales strategy in place

So you now have a large pool of prospects who are absolutely interested in your product/service. This is where your sales strategy comes in. Make customer service and experience decisions early on. Are you going to service your prospects 24/7, or are you going to use a live chat system etc? 

Pro tips:

Hire a salesperson early on. An experienced employee can likely do better than you.

Make sure your sales personnel know the ins and outs of your product.

In order to figure out the best sales strategy for you, you should draw insights from your competitors or test out a few strategies yourself.

8. After you win customers, keep 'em

It's not just enough to get subscribers or one-time customers - you have to build a loyal customer base. You need people who will come back to you again and spread a good word-of-mouth for you. 

Pro tips:

Keep in touch through email newsletters.

Up-sell when you know a particular product complements their previous purchase. Keep letting them know about your product updates.

Sending loyalty offers and rewards will help too.

Final thoughts

While finding the market and the product may take a lot of your time and energy, building a business around it needn't be hard if you have a systematic plan and strategy in place. All you have to do is religiously follow it and adapt wherever necessary.