Grow Your Business With A Non-Traditional Online Approach
The Traditional Growth Method
Launching a new business is exciting. There is a ton to get accomplished and plenty of new things to keep you busy.
Many times when it comes to launching a product based business, entrepreneurs have followed a pretty consistent pattern.
After testing the product, finalizing label and packaging, putting up a “semi-functional” website (hopefully with eCommerce of some sort), and getting all the phones hooked up, it is now time to start calling potential buyers for meetings. For many, these potential buyers are local retail stores.
It is understood that “you need to sell where the customers are.”
Many feel that customers won’t buy unless they have the opportunity to touch, taste, smell…basically go through all of their senses in order to make a decision to purchase your product.
This is usually the point when reality begins to kick in.
The Problems With Traditional Marketing
This “traditional way of growing your product product based business has become a draining ordeal for many new business owners.
Between giving up “pieces of the pie” to brokers, distributors, retailers and the expense of inventorying, most businesses are left with little to nothing in the budget for marketing the product to the actual end buyer, the consumer.
Many go into this process thinking, “Well we got the product here, lets go out and get some distributors to sell in other cities.”
This can also lead to a great deal of overhead and headache.
We Really Need To Be Asking Ourselves:
“Why should people buy our products when there is something similar they have already tried and/or is familiar with?”
If this is a question you are not sure you have made clear to the general public, not only will customers hesitate to purchase, but you won’t receive reorders from the retailer.
We all know the distributors DO NOT market your products, this job is left to the entrepreneur and his team.
Buyers of all types: college students, mothers, or wholesale buyers are all going to need some form of education from you and your team to help them
A: Identify with your brand
B: Understand why they should buy from you vs. your competition
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many retail locations you are in, you will not be able to receive the type of sales you have worked so hard to achieve if there is no marketing to back it up.
Taking a Non-Traditional Approach
Rather than draining your resources trying to reach distributors and retailers, many businesses have received a better return on investment by spent time to craft their brand’s voice, reputation, and building ambassadors (we will define these lovely people shortly).
For many new and or growing businesses this can be difficult.
“I love my product, why doesn’t everybody else?”
The truth is, your product isn’t necessarily for “everybody.”
Many business owners run into the following questions:
- Where do I start first?
- How can I get people to try my product without a retail location?
- How can I reach enough people to sustain my business?
- Will people actually purchase again?
- How can I afford to do this?
All of these questions are relevant and fair, but with the right planning, can grow your business by leaps and bounds.
Keep in mind how many “pieces of the pie” you are going to give away?
Step #1 Identify which hands are important to keep, and which are taking too much of the pie at the current time.
By cutting out the amount of “hands” in contact with your product after manufacturing, you can now focus your energies on creating a seamless and efficient way to identify, promote to, and engage with your ideal customers, creating a culture and tribe around your business.
“You mean I never have to work with a distributor again?” 🙂
No, distributors, importers, brokers, and retailers all play an important roll when you are working to grow your business.
Trust us, these key partners will be banging down your doors once you have the right marketing in place.
With the right strategy and team behind you, you can accomplish your goals and begin growing the type of audience and brand recognition you need. Once this is accomplished, you can confidently begin sharing pieces of that delicious pie you created.
Below are the answers to the rest of the questions.
Top 8 ways to start growing your
business online:
- Go through discover process to identify your core buyers
- Optimize current web and social pages to target that audience
- Identify and approach potential content partners that share with your clients ideal audience
- Promote products through digital retail sites
- Incentivize return business through online loyalty and rewards programs
- SEO – Once you understand your ideal buyers, now it is time to start showing up under searches they are conducting daily
- Social – Your fans and followers will tell you a lot about how to grow your business, make sure you are getting in the conversations
- WOM – Give your customers something to talk about. ALL BUZZ IS GOOD BUZZ
