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Tag: online business

  • How to Start an Online Business Selling Digital Products

    How to Start an Online Business Selling Digital Products

    A digital product is a type of product that you can create, market, distribute, and sell digitally. This product only exists digitally, and you cannot touch it.

    Our lives are affected today by digital platforms and content taking over today. The demand for digital content keeps rising. For instance, the global digital content creation market size is expected to touch over $16 billion by 2025. This means a business that invests in digital products has a chance to thrive.

    There is a lot involved in making a hustle out of a digital product like eBooks, tickets, podcasts, manuals, or tutorials. It all begins by having the basic knowledge to run a successful online business. Here is a guide on starting an online business selling digital products.

    Register your Business

    The first step to starting an online business is registering it with the relevant authorities. You want to ensure your business is legitimate and recognized. You can register your business as an LLC and get the proper certification and copyright for your digital products.

    The cost of registering an LLC may vary depending on your state. For instance, in Delaware, it costs about $415. This cost includes a state filing fee, name reservation, and adding a registered agent. When you register your business as an LLC, you can reap the benefits of a partnership and a sole proprietorship.

    An LLC allows you to reduce personal liability to your business while gaining flexibility in operation and taxation. The process of registering an LLC is not that long compared to other types of business. You should also learn more about the benefits of an LLC for different types of business before deciding the best type of business to register.

    Define Your Image and Brand

    If you are selling digital products online, you will need a brand image that can sell your products and battle the stiff competition in the online market. Your brand is like an overall vibe of the business. It will need to be iconic enough in case you do expand enough to have more products or even a business delivery fleet.

    You want to ensure everything in your business, right from the business name to the design, conveys a consistent idea and visual image of your business.

    When working on your brand, you should focus on the logo, color scheme, page layout, typography, photos and graphics. These elements should work together in portraying your brand image out there.

    Build a Responsive Website

    A website is a must-have if you want to sell digital products. As soon as you’ve validated your business idea, you should proceed to build your website. A website is like your storefront for selling digital products.

    It is not that difficult to build a website nowadays. You can create your website in just hours without coding skills using any of the best website builders. You can also hire a website designer to design your website who will also help you choose the best host server that will keep you online round the clock.

    When designing a website to sell digital products like courses, written content, and podcasts, you should ensure it has all the required functionalities. Here is what you should do:

    • Incorporate forms so visitors can subscribe and join your list.
    • Build customized landing pages that can educate your audience to learn more about your products and services.
    • Design your website to accept payments so it is easy to sell online.
    • Optimize your website for mobile and make it responsive to most visitors who access your services using their smartphones and tablets.

    Build an Audience to Sell to

    For a physical store, this will sound like building a customer base. If you are selling digital products like a coding course, you want to first build an audience that needs your product. At this point, you want to make use of your greatest asset, the email list.

    Everyone on your email list is interested in your brand, which means they trust you. There is a high probability that they will buy from you if only you market your products and services. Add people to your email list and begin marketing your brand to them. Send emails with information on your products and services. This is called list building.

    You can give people freebies in exchange for their contact information. For instance, if you are selling a course, you can give a short coaching session to everyone that subscribes to your email list. Freebies can act as your lead magnet. It can attract leads to your business and help you grow your business.

    Optimize Your Website for Conversions

    You are already selling your digital products to your customers at this stage of the business. What remains is finding ways to increase your sales. If you want to increase your sales, you should optimize your site leveraging SEO to convert most visitors to customers.

    To optimize your website, you should look at the data on your site. What do the numbers say about your most trafficked pages? You should also identify the pages on your website that most people rarely visit, and once they do, they leave the page fast.

    You want to ensure you can hold your visitors for long so you can get the chance to convince them into buying your products and services. Focus on removing the things that don’t work on your site and improve those that work to optimize your website sales funnel.

    You should focus more on how you can sell your digital products on the website. Therefore, make it clear that your website aims to attract people willing and able to buy your products and services.

    Make sure you can send every visitor to your landing page, and you persuade them to buy. To achieve this, ensure you have a call to action on one very single page of your website. Go straight to the point and tell your visitors what you want them to do.

    You can then reward them accordingly for taking action you asked for.

    Final Thoughts                                     

    Suppose you are out to start a business selling digital products, now is the right time to start. Register your business and get a copyright for your products. Build a website, brand, and audience for your products and services.

    Start your business today by following the five steps listed here and turning your fantastic idea into an income-generating business.

  • 5 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty for Your eCommerce Business

    5 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty for Your eCommerce Business

    A decade or so ago, most businesses develop relationships and loyalty with their customers based on one-on-one and personalized interactions between the company owner or the staff. These days, most transactions occur online. However, customer loyalty remains a key component to the success of any business.

    As the Beeketing blog explained, it’s more expensive to gain new customers than to retain current ones. A company has to spend a lot of time, effort and resources to find new clients. It’s far easier and more profitable to just keep existing customers satisfied, happy and loyal. As a matter of fact, keeping customers happy and returning can boost profitability by up to 75%.

    But how does one build customer loyalty? Here are five tactics an eCommerce business can use:

    1. Sell Good Quality ProductsImage result for quality

    You can’t expect to garner customer loyalty if the customer’s first experience with a purchased product is one of disappointment. This is why it’s imperative that you sell good quality products. If the item, software, or downloadable content you’re selling is poorly made, your customers will not come back. They might also hurt the business further by leaving bad reviews. Conversely, delivering a well-made product will ensure repeat business and develop loyal customers.

    2. Provide Great Customer Service

    Aside from offering high-quality products, providing good customer service is another vital way for an eCommerce business to develop and encourage customer loyalty. A 2011 survey conducted by American Express revealed that 8 out of 10 customers would not patronize a business anymore after one bad customer service experience.

    Providing good customer service isn’t necessarily hard or expensive. There are also several options open to companies, like incorporating a live chat to make it easier for customers to reach someone. Self-service options can also make it simpler for clients to troubleshoot common problems or find answers to frequently asked question. Interacting on social media and offering flexible return and exchange plans can also keep clients returning.

    3. Be a Logistics MasterImage result for logistics

    Much like the two previous examples, fast and reliable shipping service also strengthens customer loyalty. This is particularly true for eCommerce businesses as they have to master logistics like shipping packages safely, quickly and cheaply to their customers. This also means having a clear concept of how to pack products properly, finding the best courier and service for a specific shipment, and setting realistic expectations with the client. Remember, good products bought at fair prices that arrive promptly or when they’re expected will go a long way to earning customer loyalty.

    4. Develop a Fun and Relevant Rewards or Loyalty Program

    Loyalty programs are an effective but surprising underutilized marketing tactic. Make your customers feel important and valued by offering rewards for their continued engagement. This can be in form of major discounts, free gifts, or instant or early access to exclusive sales. Personalizing the promotions you give loyal customers will also make them feel important and give the impression that the company is taking care of them.

    More and more companies are also opting for fun and gamified rewards programs that allow the customers to participate. For instance, a coupon app can give customers access to special deals and promotions while encouraging them to earn badges by looking for deals on particular products. Aside from making it more fun, it also creates interest for the product and could even tap into the customer’s social media network.

    5. Offer Useful and Entertaining ContentImage result for useful content

    Another way to boost customer value and loyalty is via content marketing. Studies indicate that retail sites that made use of content marketing could have six times better conversion rates than those sites that do not. However, the trick is to make sure that the content, copy, and marketing actions are informative, entertaining, and engaging. One prime example is the weekly digital magazine of fashion house, Mr. Porter. The articles are often about the company’s products but they also include topics that deal with health, fashion, food and the arts.

    Think about the various ways your customers interact with your company. Make sure they have a positive experience every step of the way and they will keep coming back for more. More importantly, your loyal customers might even tell their friends about your business.

    [Featured image via Flickr.com]

  • 5 Trends That Are Dominating E-Commerce in 2017 So Far

    5 Trends That Are Dominating E-Commerce in 2017 So Far

    The U.S. currently has too many shopping malls. Studies have shown that the country has 24 feet of retail space per capita. However, it seems as if the retail bubble has burst and it’s now time for e-commerce to step forward and fill in the vacuum to satisfy the consumers’ compulsive need to shop.

    Below are just some of the e-commerce trends to look out for in 2017:

    1. The Rise of the (Chat)Bots

    With Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft releasing new updates on their chatbots, other companies are sitting up and taking notice. Chatbots are slowly taking over the customer service aspect of these brands’ technical support. This year will see e-commerce fully embracing this innovation. Complaints, follow-up for orders, as well as real-time engagement, will make the shopping experience better for the consumer. Some chatbots do have avatars, which make them more fun and engaging, and may even take your order in real-time.

    2. Death Knell for Brick-and-Mortar Stores?

     The number of retail establishments and brick-and-mortar stores that have closed down since last year is staggering. According to a Credit Suisse report, more than 8,000 physical stores will cease operations in 2017 compared to just 2,000 in 2016.

    More and more people are shopping online as e-commerce stores slowly perfect their systems. Logistics and shipping costs are declining, which also provide added incentives for consumers to just click away. More often than not, shipping costs are offset by gas and parking costs anyway.

    3. Social Media As an Emerging Force

     Facebook has been branding itself as the all-in-one platform for e-commerce companies. The use of social media to drive traffic to e-commerce sites is not new, but Facebook is making it even easier for brands to sell their products on social media with the Facebook Shop. Customers can also purchase products directly through Shopify, so they don’t even have to leave Facebook. If you’re looking to show off your products to potential customers, Facebook Live is a good platform to do so.

    4. The Mad Scramble for Convenience

     The main reason customers shop online is for convenience. They can shop in the comforts of their home, they don’t have to dress up or drive to the mall through heavy traffic. However, as the competition becomes stiffer, convenience takes on even greater importance. This is the reason why e-commerce stores will really have to invest in the architecture of their websites.

    Lost revenue caused by incomplete transactions due to freezing websites reportedly amounted to $4 trillion. E-commerce sites need to cut the number of steps for their customers, from choosing the product, purchasing, and even delivery. There are just so many e-commerce stores out there who will gladly fill in the gap for businesses that fail to improve the convenience of their service.

    5. Fast Delivery

    Speaking of delivery, e-commerce sites now offer same-day shipping of their products as an added incentive to buy. In fact, you can add a surcharge and the customer won’t mind, at least according to this Forrester report, which states that customers are willing to pay more just so you can deliver the product on the same day they order it.

    E-commerce stores will really have to step up their game if they don’t want to be left behind by this ever-changing trend. During the early days of e-commerce, you could afford to be complacent due to the monopoly of transactions. Now, it’s the consumers who are dictating the direction of the industry and online stores have no choice but to keep up with the pace.

  • GoDaddy Expands To Latin America

    Emerging markets are where it’s at these days. While there’s still plenty of small businesses in mature markets in the U.S. and Western Europe, companies are now targeting small businesses in emerging markets to take advantage of the explosive growth these countries are seeing.

    GoDaddy announced today that it will begin to target small businesses in Latin America with a suite of tools that are now localized in both Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. That means small business owners in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and more can now purchase a domain name and build a Web site through GoDaddy without having to learn another language.

    As part of its move into Latin America, GoDaddy has created a new position within the company – Vice President of Latin America. The first person to take this position is Rafael Fernandez MacGregor – a Mexican national and entrepreneur that started Microsoft’s online business in the region. He will based in Mexico City and oversee the entire region.

    “GoDaddy is creating new opportunities for small businesses in Latin America and making the business of operating a business easier, especially for the small business owner,” MacGregor said. “As a Latin American entrepreneur, I can tell you from experience, small business owners are the most innovative and dynamic job creators in the region, and anyone who has ever launched or run a small business here will tell you how hard it can be. GoDaddy is determined to help companies build and maintain an effective online presence easily and affordably.”

    GoDaddy’s move into Latin America follows the company’s hiring of Arne Josefberg as its CIO last week. All of this is to help GoDaddy expand into 60 markets and offer its products in more than 30 languages by 2015.

    Image via GoDaddy/YouTube

  • Google Encourages Kentucky Businesses to Get Online

    Google thrives as the web thrives, so the company is, understandably, encouraging all business owners to take get their businesses online. To that end, Google has created “Get Your Business Online with Google,” a website developed to help small business owners create a functioning website that will bring in customers. The site also holds events where business owners can get help with setting up their business webpage from Google. One such event in Kentucky was recently highlighted by Matt Cutts in a tweet. Cutts is the head of Google’s webspam team and a graduate of the University of Kentucky, which featured an interview with Cutts during its recent graduation ceremonies.

    @mattcutts
    Matt Cutts    Kentucky business owners, don’t have a website? Google will help you make one for free at this event: http://t.co/Dy7UTrI9 9 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    The Kentucky event will be held on May 29, from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm at The Henry Clay event space in Louisville, Kentucky. At the event, business owners can get help building an Intuit website, obtain a customized domain name, and get free online tools and training – all free for a year. After the free year is over, business owners can continue using both the domain name and Intuit web hosting for around $7 per month. Laptops will be provided at the event, or attendees may bring their own.

    Pre-registration for the Louisville, Kentucky event is currently available. Business owners can sign up for three different sessions throughout the day which cover topics including building the free website, how to grow a business online, and how to promote a business online.

    As Google points out on the Get Your Business Online website, having a web presence is vitally important in 2012. They cite statistics showing that although 97% of consumers look online for local products and services, 71% of Kentucky businesses do not have a website. Take a look at this video Google has prepared that shows just how easy they are making it to get online and leave a comment below if you plan to attend one of the events or tell us how your business has grown since going online.

  • COSBOA Joins Effort to Get Small Businesses Online

    Last month, Google Australia celebrated the first birthday of Getting Aussie Business Online (GABO) and announced that more than 50% of Australia’s small businesses are now online.

    Users can get a website for free through GABO that allows them to do business while they slumber. The service is being pitched to prospective users as a free solution from Google and MYOB.

    It also includes:

  • Free .com.au web address for 2 years
  • Free e-commerce functionality for 1 year
  • $75 free Google advertising trial

    • Despite these advances, nearly half of Australia’s 1 million small business owners remain on the sidelines of the digital economy.

    To overcome this economic disadvantage, the Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA) has announced they’ve joined the effort and become an official supporter of the movement. Their support will enable the program to reach small businesses in COSBOA’s network of organizations and educate them about the importance of being online.

    COSBOA was founded in 1979 and was incorporated in 1985. The organization has been noted as a strong advocate for small business issues ranging from taxation and workplace relations, to competition law and retail tenancy.