10 Wonderful Ways to Increase Your Online Business' Odds of Success

If you're an entrepreneur with an online business, growing your company can feel like an insurmountable challenge. With increasing global competition, it can be tough to build a thriving online company. Whether you are selling products via an e-commerce store or selling services as a solo-entrepreneur, how you develop your online business is critical to maximize long-term growth opportunities. If this is the year you go all-in on building your online business empire, following are 10 wonderful ways to increase your online business' odds of success.

Differentiation Factor

If you want to increase your odds of success as an online entrepreneur, you must have a detailed understanding of how you are different from your competitors. Analyze how your business is similar to others in your market sector and what sets you apart from competitors. Once you understand what makes your online business special, double-down on promoting your differentiation factors.

Daily Plan-of-Action

Online business owners who optimize their activities for productivity tend to build stronger companies than those who approach business growth in a haphazard manner. Create a plan-of-action for your online business eachday and maximize your efforts to ensure your tasks get completed. When you focus on growing your company on a daily basis, you'll be amazed at how much revenue you can generate each year.

SEO

If you do only one thing to optimize your online business for success this year, getting smart about SEO is likely your best bet. Search engine optimization techniques should be applied to everything from your product descriptions to the meta data on your images. Work with a talented SEO specialist to grow your online company and there's a good chance you'll increase your annual sales in the process. 

Customer Analysis

One fabulous way to grow your online business is to analyze how your target customers prefer to learn about products/services within your niche. If you are marketing your online company in a manner that doesn't match the content consumption preferences of your audience, you could be throwing good money after bad. Learn as much about the content consumption preferences of your target audience as possible and then create a customer acquisition strategy that takes their preferences into account.

Product Development Strategy

Just as you should analyze your customers' content consumption preferences, so too should you analyze your product development strategy. Don't develop new products or services just because you receive a handful of requests for a specific thing. Look at your company's overall product strategy and determine whether the new product being requested figures into your long-term goals. Building a successful online business is all about weighing costs versus benefits to determine profitable avenues for growth.

Problem Analysis

For online entrepreneurs who want an unfair advantage over their competitors, learn to develop a problem analysis formula for your target customers. Conduct deep-dive investigations into the problems of your core customers and make it your mission to understand their problems on an intimate level. The more you know about your customers' problems, the better prepared you are to create products/services to address their needs.

Social Media Community

If you want to build a thriving and profitable online business, don't overlook the importance of growing a community around your brand via social media marketing. Customers who feel they're part of your business' inner circle tend to be fiercely loyal to the products and services you sell. Create a strategy to build a community around your company and you'll not only increase sales, but tick off your competitors in the process 

Storytelling Strategy

Online entrepreneurs who develop a storytelling strategy for their company have an increased chance of business success. Your company's digital marketing strategy should include everything from how you tell your brand's story on social media to the types of blog posts you create. Utilize everything from appearances on podcasts to video marketing webinars to tell your online business' story.

Feedback Strategy

Create a strategy to use customer feedback to grow your company. What sort of comments do customers leave on your product pages? Do they share their purchases on social media or do they complain about your online shipping charges on review sites? Once you develop a strategy to use consumer feedback to your advantage, you'll be impressed at how quickly you can grow and improve your online business.

Engagement Analysis

The final tip for entrepreneurs who want to grow their online companies is to measure engagement with your business. Engagement analysis should include everything from social shares of your content marketing posts to views of your videos on YouTube. Become a master at analyzing consumer engagement with your brand and you'll out-perform competitors and leave them wondering about the secret to your success.

If you want to increase your online business' odds of success, integrate the above-listed tips for entrepreneurs into your company's growth strategy. Chances are good you'll not only increase company profits, but discover new growth opportunities in the process. What are your thoughts? Are there any tactics you'llbe using this year to turbocharge your online business' growth rate?

At Germinate.com we help people launch their eCommerce dream on the web. If you have a dream and need some help, we are here to help turn your dream into reality.