Creating a strong online presence, as we all know, is critical for today’s small business. However, it is daunting to navigate through its unfamiliar terminology and complexities. The following is a simple roadmap that explains the key elements and how your online approach should fit together:
Develop an outstanding website! This is the hub of everything. Make sure that it clearly embodies the experience you want your customers to have. Make sure to create a clear and easy path to purchase. Make sure to create a dashboard of key metrics such as traffic, conversion rates, bounce rates, and more. Also, monitor where people are spending their time on the site. This will tell you where your customers’ interests lie. A skilled web design partner can streamline the process.
Build influencers and advocates! Start by fostering customers who will talk about your products or services on their social media. This should be a combination of paid-influencers and customers that are just willing to tell everyone how much they love your company. Remarkably, many influencers will endorse solely on positive experiences and free samples. In time, you will see who will garner the most influence and whose messaging brings best results.
Build your online community through CRM! These are the people that you will want to build a strong relationship with over time. Make sure to provide your community with relevant information. Gauge how well you are doing by tracking metrics like email list growth, churn rate and open rates. Building your CRM database can be through invites on your website, purchasers, and collaboration with other brands. There are many user- friendly CRM programs on the market to help with the process.
Use Paid advertising with a positive ROI! It is critical to understand that ROI is required to make your business successful. Define the cost of acquiring a new customer through Instagram, Google or TikTok ads. Your digital media partner must provide you with ROAS (return on advertising spend) figure. This tells you how many dollars in sales you get for every dollar spend on advertising based on people clicking through the ad to your website to purchase. You want to set your target ROAS not on a single transaction but on the expected lifetime value of a customer. By tracking which ads and target audiences have the best ROAS, you should be able to improve your advertising strategy overtime.
Optimizing Positive reviews is critical: Here are some guidelines to gauge responses: a starting goal is to have 20 reviews per product with a minimum of 4.3 rating. This sets a strong foundation. You will likely need to prime-the-pump with friends or other referrals to get your initial reviews but make sure they are always real and authentic. Be aware if your ratings fall below 4.0, this is a danger sign. Step back and adjust your approach based on the customer feedback.
Essential Partners are critical for execution: Collaboration is essential:
· A Website Manager: to oversee design and function.
· Communications Manager: for CRM and Influencer engagement
· Customer Service: ensuring exceptional user experience.
· Advertising Agency: for Paid Media campaigns
These experts can be engaged on a part-time and contract basis so you can scale as needed.
With all these strategic elements highlighted in this blog, your small business can strategically position itself for online success!
Tom Wolff ASE