Whether you are starting an online business or want to expand a current one, you will know how important keeping up with the changing online marketplace is to customer acquisition and retention. In this new online world, competition has never been stronger – and you need to ensure you’re covered for all eventualities. So, continue reading to discover what you need to know that will help you stand out from the crowd in 2024.
1. Better understand your niche
Understanding your target customer is one of the most crucial steps to optimizing your business strategy and increasing profit margins. As competition increases in 2024 and customers are given more options, it has never been more critical to appreciate your customers and who you should be advertising to.
2. Engage in SEO
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process of making your website more attractive to search engines, which boosts its visibility in search results. Once you understand your target market, you can begin analyzing the keywords that are most relevant to your website and/or product. Using appropriate and popular keywords will help ensure that your website gets seen by the people who want to buy your product.
3. Offer good customer service
Excellent customer service always stays in style, which deserves a mention on this list. When you are selling a product that has taken years of hard work to create, receiving bad customer feedback can be soul-destroying. The truth is, despite your best efforts, things will sometimes go wrong. Usually, when parcels are damaged or lost, the fault lies with postal services or the weather, but you might occasionally be responsible for disappointing the customer. It could be that you accidentally sent them the wrong product or overlooked the quantity of an ordered item.
We all make mistakes! Excellent customer service involves admitting when a mistake was made (even if it wasn’t your fault) and doing your level best to try and rectify it. Customers will appreciate your honesty and quick solution!
4. Don’t try to do everything
Social media plays a significant role in modern life, and online businesses can capitalize on this by developing social media accounts and paying for adverts that drive traffic to their website. However, imminent business suggests that it can become overwhelming for a small business to keep up with the demands of the many social media platforms available. So, avoid spreading yourself too thin in 2020 by focusing only on the big three: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
5. Never knowingly undersell
When starting a business, it is easy to undersell your product (or service) to make quick sales. However, this can have significant disadvantages, especially as customers come to expect the same low prices in the future. If you are a freelancer, it can be challenging to increase your rates when you have offered lower prices in the past. So, when deciding product/service price points, ensure that you are taking into account all costs associated with production and that you will be paying fairly for your own time.
6. Offer competitions
Nothing creates social media buzz for an online business like a competition. Offering a competition is an excellent way of generating user participation and getting people talking about your website. Make sure the competition is worth people’s time, though! If you only offer the winner a 10% off coupon, people will probably not comment, share, or like your social media content or links to the competition.
