Any business executive worth their salt will tell you that a business’s growth trajectory stays upward only if you play the long game. You might experience bumps in growth and periods of sluggish movement. However, the real test lies in your long-term performance.
There is no magic formula for building a successful online business. The sooner you realize this, you will be able to explore options that work for you and your brand. A great way to promote your online business is through videos. It is inexpensive with the numerous online video editors available. If you are unsure about how to edit videos for YouTube, use the guides and templates that video editing software offers.
An online business has its benchmarks. Yet, is similar to traditional businesses in that it benefits significantly from long-term strategic planning.
Strategies for Long-Term Growth
Here are some effective long-term strategies for growing your business online:
1. Be Yourself
As a young business or a new business owner, you might be tempted to follow the lead of other entrepreneurs and use what works for them. But, customers today are looking for a unique connection. If you imitate other voices, they will never get the opportunity to get to know your brand.
Define your company’s vision in 100 words and make sure your messaging stays aligned with your vision. A good vision statement sets the agenda for the company. It also sets your brand apart. Use your brand’s unique voice to forge long-lasting connections with your customers.
2. Define Your Core Audience
Targeting your core audience will give your brand long-term business. To know who your target audience is, you need to define your ideal customer. They are someone who directly benefits from your product or service. They also align with your brand’s vision.
Once you have your ideal customer, you can define your target audience. They are united by a range of demographics that include age, gender, location, spending behavior, and interests. Social media allows you to focus on specific audiences for your marketing strategies.
3. Provide a Clean Interface
Your brand’s website is the online face of your company. Essentially, it acts as a digital storefront. You would take care to maintain and present a good store experience to your customers. Similarly, your website too should be simple and easy to navigate.
A simple interface is timeless. Plus, you will not need to update it too regularly. It also removes the impression that a website is trying too hard to sell to their audience. Lastly, make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. Depending on your business and your marketing strategies, your impressions might be skewed towards hand-held devices.
4. Look beyond Social Media
Social media is a powerful platform for businesses looking to grow. However, you must not focus on it exclusively. There are several other strategies that you can adopt that will help you reach your target audience. Some of these strategies include:
- Ambassador programs
- Affiliates
- Trade shows
- Newsletters
- PPC advertising
- Email marketing
As you can see from this list, there are several effective ways beyond social media that can help you reach your audience. They can also help you find new niches of influence.
5. Reach More Customers
A long-term initiative your marketing team needs to put in place quickly is a strategy to reach out to more customers. You will find that your customers come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Thus, the long-term play is to have a broad base of unique impressions with a reasonable conversion rate.
There are several ways in which you can improve the unique impressions on your website. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to a set of strategies that boost your brand’s rankings on search engines. PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising is ideal for small businesses with limited budgets. Other strategies include email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing.
You must track the results for each one of these strategies. Expand on different strategies based on analytics. This will keep changing as your business grows.
6. Keep Tabs on Your Competitors
Competition is healthy for business. It keeps you on your toes and forces you to innovate. Your competitors are also great resources to find new customers. Indulge in some healthy and gentle disruption to expand your base.
One of the most effective strategies you can adopt to attract your competition’s base is Facebook ads directed to people interested in your competitor. You can also disrupt their videos with your video ads on YouTube. Thus, your competition’s audience has eyes on your brand. Use a promo video maker for free to create your videos.
7. Remarket and Retarget
Remarketing refers to marketing to the same people multiple times. Retargeting involves sending online ads to the same target audience over and over again. Retargeting is, in fact, a part of remarketing. This practice has proven to improve brand recall, increase conversion rates, and better ROI.
A great way to begin remarketing is with Google Display Network remarketing. Remarketing display ads can give you the same conversion rates as an AdWords search ad for a fraction of the cost. Once you have done this step, you can then segment your traffic into different funnel stages. In this, you make the right offer to the right stage of a customer’s journey.
You can use Facebook’s platform for super-remarketing. This is a strategy that combines the platform’s targeting abilities with customers who visited your website. Regular remarketing strategies will yield a 2-4% conversion rate. Super-remarketing is more targeted since it finds only visitors who can afford your product.
8. Make an Impression on Influencers
You must have a long-term strategy to build your business as a recognizable brand and an essential voice in the industry. A great way to reach niches that you would not otherwise have exposure to is to bring influencers on board. However, rather than forging collaborations, you should focus on generating influencer engagement with your brand.
Conclusion
There are several ways in which you can build a robust brand presence. One of the most overlooked aspects is video content. YouTube, Instagram videos, and TikTok are all-powerful marketing platforms that can be leveraged to build your brand.
