Online Presence: 5 Rules for Scaling Your Business

How important in credible online presence to business? Like every other industry or aspect of life, businesses have to follow certain guidelines in order to build a lasting castle. Each building is a block, but it doesn’t matter how fast they are built. It’s always about “how they need to fit together and make a whole.” A solid capital base is not the only important criteria to build and sustain a business. Rules are essential.

While it is important to have a plan in place to launch your business, the absence of key elements can make the plan unworkable and prevent it from running smoothly. This is precisely what this article is going to show you. These are not the rules you know, but a list that is often overlooked and neglected by a business wheel. Without them, your 21 ^st year-old business will continue to thrive even after its 10 ^th anniversary. Take a look at the following!

• Online presence

Yes, I know you thought about it but you aren’t just doing it. Building an online presence is the pillar of every business in the 21^st century. Given the level of the technological revolution that has taken place, any business that has not bought a share in the digital world would be left to cater for its needs with an empty pocket and bankruptcy is just a few stone-throws to its door. Businesses have since been leveraging on the sustaining arms of the digital world, it is exactly why a small business of yesterday now sits among the ‘rich few’ because no matter how popular this advice is, some business owners are still living in a world second to ours, they simply don’t know how it works.

There are several ways of building an online presence; build a mansion up there (website), find the right platform to advertise your business, employ the arms of social media and get solidly rooted to be able to withstand the rockiness of the business ground.

• Target your selected audience and not the crowd

I have seen businesses putting things in the right places and even conscious enough to maintain their space in the digital world but they lack a core part of management that has been drawing them back or leaving them stranded. There is one rule of business they have suddenly forgotten to heed to; “Don’t target the crowd, not all smiling face is a customer”

Many businesses because of the crowd pull on the internet have decided to play the game of “target them ALL”. Let me make it simple; not everyone that lands on your page needs the services or product you are offering, some people only got hooked up in your fancy net and will find their way out as soon as possible. But this doesn’t mean your advertising strategies aren’t properly structured, they just aren’t channeled to target your buyers. The internet is a big place, big enough to get you a good and perfectly running customer base but you have to be sure you are targeting those who need what you sell.

• Improve your customer services

It is this simple; “always wash your nets or get fresh new ones”

Every business understands the story of “A bait and A net and A hook” It is the three-way pattern for getting your leads (potential customers) and getting them glued to you. Every fisherman understands the concept of always mending their nets because the bigger the catch the weaker the net. Mending or washing your net to a business is what I call; improving your customer services. Replace your baits and freshen up the look of your net, it’s important to keep up with your catch. You shouldn’t get too happy with how much catch you made in the month, it’s better to always be extra careful and keep watch for loosened or leaking nets.

Find out if your customers are still getting exactly what they expected or you need a bit of adjustment made.

Growing a customer base is as important as keeping it. It gives you more on your plate but the digital market has made it an easy one to chew. There is the place of seller-customer relationship and this is done by the use of email marketing. You get to keep watch on your customers and follow up on their previous and new demands. Their demands might likely change with time, it is the nature of all humans, our wants sometimes become too difficult to contain, and therefore we always have a reason to nurse our increasing desires for newer things.

Update your customers about new upgrades and ask for what just changed in their offer and how you could improve your offer and keep them satisfied with your offers.

• Build a working strategy

No business survives for long without a plan. First thing first, strategize and always stick to your business plans. A part of setting a good and working strategy involves setting realizable business goal(s). Also draft a working template, as you try out and find a working strategy, keep a record of it. We seldom keep business records and it’s a bitter truth various businesses share. Some business plans work in and out of seasons while some are affected by the waving forces of the market that can influence the supply and demands of certain products and services. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic shook almost every sector of every world economy and made so many business owners adopt several saving methods to hold their ground even in the face of it. Once, it’s gone and things go back to normal, draft a template that shows how you thrived and survived this storm. No one knows what tomorrow holds.

• Consultancy and Feedbacks

Don’t be too proud to ask for help from neighboring ventures, make it official, interview them, hold seminars & workshops, invite key players in other firms to share business ideas together. Be a friend-of-friends with other business owners, that is exactly how you can get a shoulder to lean on.

Also, draft a customer review template, send it to your customers, and get feedback about what and where you need to work on. Your eagle may not see through every corner, let them tell you what they see, think and want.

Apply this pentagon-rule and get a chance to scale your business and enlarge its expanse.