When thinking about taking your business online or engaging in online marketing, there are several things you must first consider so that you won’t start what you won’t be able to sustain. They are in form of questions which are as follow;
- Why do I want to market online?
- What do I want to market online?
- What do I know about online marketing?
You don’t have to worry or beat yourself up if you don’t know these answers to the questions, that is why we have written this article to share some of the steps that we have learned about online marketing through endless testing and tweaking as we grow our business.
Why Should you market your business online?
There are several answers to this, a few of them could be to enhance your offline business or being able to make money without leaving your home? Or because online marketing is easier than marketing offline because online marketing takes care of itself and makes you money on autopilot?
If it’s the last answer you’re in for a big surprise. There is no such thing as EASY or AUTOPILOT in online marketing. Well, sure it is but not in the way many thinks. Online marketing may look very simple from afar but not easy when you start engaging in it. This means, it takes a lot of work to set it up and you need to be constantly tweaking and testing strategies to maximize your efficiency and profits. Nevertheless, do not be scared because online marketing is lots of fun and you could make friends all over the world. Does that make you feel better? Smiles.
Once you have been able to come up with the right reason for engaging in online marketing, then we move to how you can answer the question of what you want to market online.
What do I want to market online?
It is good to answer this question thoroughly because to thrive in the online space you must have a product that could be physical or digital or a service that could also be rendered either digitally or physically. You might then be wondering about knowing the one you’d love to take online, don’t worry, just keep reading and we would explore better together. Let’s consider the below to get you your answer.
- Know your market/niche
A niche is a focused area, it is a targeted area that you can serve and serve very well. It is specific and should be known to you. Your specific market is your niche. Simple as that.
So, where do I find my market? Well, there are a lot of places to find that. First of all. You’ll want to target a niche that is actually profitable. The greatest mistake one may make in online marketing is to market a niche where no one is ever buying anything or a niche that pays very low. You want a niche that is in trend so to speak. It is what everyone is talking about and what people are interested in learning, using, and purchasing.
For example, our niche at Cloud10 Tech Hub is digital marketing to help small businesses grow, and we are serving our clients very well with our services. So, to find a monetizable niche you will need to look at the trends. The trends are what people are interested in and what people are buying. What are people looking for? What are their main concerns or their pain points and how can you help them solve it?
When it comes to online marketing these are the most important questions to find an answer to. So you’ll need to do some research. Did you just read some? We actually mean a lot of research. If you know what your market desires, then you know what to sell or MARKET to them. If you want to stay ahead in the online marketing game, you should always look forward to solving the problem of your potential customers.
In case you have a physical business already, you need to do some research about how your kind of customers are relating with your kind of product or service online. This will help you determine the right online marketing strategy you can use to market to them.
- Market Your Skills
You have a set of certain skills, I’m sure. Are these skills relevant to marketing and business? If not, you might want to consider acquiring a set of those skills before throwing yourself into doing online business. Either online or offline, the first thing you should do is to assess your skill tree. A simple mind map could do the trick or just a list with what you know. Rank them on how experienced and good you are at a skill. Circle the top 3 skills you are most proficient in. Is that very good? Great!
The next question you then ask is if they are profitable or monetizable? Meaning could they make you money (with a little fantasy and imagination) If not, pick the next skill. That’s your main focus to begin with. Now, underline the 3 bottom skills that you’re not very or, at all proficient in but still are in context with your top skills. Those are the skills that you should focus on learning.
Apply the same rule as with your top skills but with the little tweak, Are they useful, and do they enhance your top 3? Now that you know what to sell online, then we can move to know about marketing online.
What do I know about marketing online?
Having understood why you should go into online marketing and what you should market online, knowing about online marketing then becomes something of great importance. There are several strategies involved in online marketing but they are so much that we can’t fully cover it in this article. So, we would advise that you watch out for our next article which would be on online marketing strategies.
In case you need any of our services, you can contact us and we would respond to you as fast as possible.
