1. Be Different Through Design
When people see a great idea, they tend to directly copy it. In a market saturated with the same, re-branded products, to stand out from your competition it is crucial to be different. This can be achieved by making your brand memorable and immediately recognizable by your target audience, known commonly by the term “brand awareness”. Gaining brand awareness will require you to creatively advertise your product or service in such a way that makes it different from all the others available on the market. If you were selling dish soap, how would you stand out from other bottles on the shelf? That would be your design. Humans have evolved to rely on sight as their primary sense, so what you’ve got needs to look good – flaunt it. It could be a uniquely-shaped bottle or a label that catches the eye and has people gravitating toward it. If you have a great design then people are more likely to trust your product and purchase it over others, resulting in higher sales and a larger profit.
Another important brand feature you must make visually obvious is how it can address a potential customer’s concerns, or solve their problems. For example, suppose your target audience includes the parents of a young family, frustrated that their kids use too much soap because their current brand only comes in a squeeze bottle and it runs out too quickly. How can you solve that problem and give your dish soap the edge? The reasons how and why your brand is the best available become your “competitive advantage”.
When designing for peoples’ emotions, there are good reasons why. For example, what brand of soap do you think of when a picture of a baby duck is mentioned? Dawn Dish Soap. They capitalized on the gulf oil spill, showcasing their product being used to help save animals covered in the thick oil. Dawn had numerous ads showcasing this, resulting in an entire generation remembering the baby ducks being washed. They pull on that emotional memory by continuing to use the baby duck on their packaging. If their product can wash off crude oil, it can wash dishes.
2. Use TikTok
TikTok is a great way to create organic growth. This social media platform was created for entertainment purposes but has grown to be the world’s largest social media app, as it has evolved to become a visual search engine. The best part about TikTok is that you don’t have to spend enormous amounts of money to get traffic. The TikTok algorithm is distinctive in that everyone’s For You Page (FYP) is unique, making it easier to create content that will automatically show up in users’ FYP based on the algorithms’ look-a-like audience. If you create content for a niche and exploit it, you will be seen by your target audience and there is a vast opportunity to go viral. All you need to do is create a video that grabs users’ attention whether it be creative, funny, or informative. TikTok is a great way to create awareness around your products or services. Make sure to start creating your own hashtags that people can join in on when sharing their experiences with your brand; this is a great way to create more organic views. Be sure to utilize trends, trendy sounds, or caption your content with questions to increase viewer engagement. Post often! Remember, keep it simple and give your brand its personality.
To Learn More About TikTok check out: Why TikTok is the best platform for growth in 2023.
3. Funnels and A/B Testing
Funnels are a key ingredient in marketing campaigns to drive traffic towards a specific end goal – a purchase. Funnels can help you upsell products by adding various add-ons, thus helping your business make more money. Click Funnels, a customizable funnel creation service, is a great way to get started. There are many services out there to create a funnel system for you, all you need is your copy, photos, videos, and product.
Another way to create funnels for your website without using an additional service is to build landing pages. A landing page is a stand-alone page on your website that does not have a menu bar, so the only buttons available for people to click are to take them to the next page, email subscriptions, add on additional products, or purchase. Landing pages are very simple, but effective in creating an order of information to persuade your customer to complete the desired action. A great way to optimize your funnel and landing pages is to use A/B testing.
A/B testing is very simple, you are creating two versions of the same page to compare which one is doing better with design and copywriting. Technically the page has the same URL, but 50% of traffic is viewing option A while the other 50% is viewing option B. For example, on the A page, the ‘Buy Now’ button could be blue, but it performs better on the B page when displayed in red. So, from then on you could compare different colors to see what works best for your website. Thrive Themes is a great website-building service for WordPress that has built-in A/B testing. Their system shows you data on how well the page worked based on your desired outcome. It will automatically switch all users to one, after your designated time frame. Regardless of what service you use, A/B testing is one of the most critical tools to help convert customers.
4. After purchase surveys
Reviews are a great way for potential customers to see how others like your product. But what about helpful data for yourself? That’s why surveys completed after customers have purchased and experienced your item are great. There are many plugins, via Shopify, available to add to your post-purchase emails to see how your customers experienced your product. A major point you want to learn from these surveys is how your customer heard about you, and where they found the information that led to a purchase. Besides having data to know where your customers are coming from, this helps you narrow down even further why they came. This will vastly improve your marketing, and it will help you save money on running ads in the future. For example, you might be running a lot of ads on Facebook you may learn via your survey that most of your customers came from Pinterest, thus allowing you to push your ads more on Pinterest where you are getting the best results. Saving your business not only time but money.
5. Finances
It doesn’t matter how good your brand, product, or service is, if you don’t accurately track your revenue and expenditures, you’re sure to have issues eventually. Bookkeeping is an absolute must! Hiring a professional accountant will help you keep everything in order, particularly the lesser-known expenses such as taxes and import fees that can sneak up and bite you if you’re not careful. By keeping track of every single dollar earned and spent, you and your team will be able to price products accordingly to adequately cover operating costs ensuring a healthy profit margin to continue the upkeep and growth of your business, and maintain your competitive advantage by lowering your prices, in some cases. The accumulation and analysis of financial data will help you set goals, reach them sooner, and keep everyone accountable.
6. Key Performance Indicators
When starting a business, sometimes you are the one doing everything. As you begin to expand your business, you will have goals and expectations set. Those goals and monitoring their results are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). You can use KPIs to measure how effectively an individual, team, or organization is achieving a business objective. Companies use KPIs to help individuals at all levels focus their work on achieving a common goal. KPIs also help businesses understand whether they’re spending their time, budget, and talent on the right strategies, tasks, and tools to achieve their goals. A very important step in monitoring the KPIs is by creating a dashboard that monitors those goals in real-time and creates an analysis at the end of a designated time frame to see if your business has met those goals. There are many services out there that can create dashboards of Key Performance Indicators to aid a company in monitoring its overall net profit. These dashboards will help you and your team visually see what is happening. This will help your team track efficiency and further optimize your workflow and operations to have better success in the long run.
7. Objectives and Goals
Goals are essential, both for you personally and your company. Without having defined objectives that you can strive toward accomplishing, it’s easy to lose focus on the big picture and get bogged down trying to find a way forward. Start by setting a large company goal – what does your business aim to achieve? With that question answered, it’s time to make it happen. There are often many individual tasks or objectives that must be completed in the pursuit of a common goal, so it’s just as well you’re a master of delegation. Break down the primary goal into a series of smaller ones that can be grouped into categories, and then shared among the different departments comprising your company. Once responsibilities have been appropriately distributed, objective checklists should be drawn up for each goal tailored to the requirements of those goals, and the teams who are working toward them. This will enable each department to function with purpose and to work cooperatively toward the desired outcome. When drafting these checklists, it is important to ensure that objectives are quantifiable and 100% measurable so that all key requirements can be met, and the results can be analyzed through a feedback loop – what worked well, and how can we improve in the future? This data will help optimize your team further and encourage members to actively participate in improving your business.
8. Your Team is Your Business
Your supply chain is important. Having a cohesive team, even more so. Reliable, diligent employees are perhaps any business’ greatest asset. With the right team, you can deliver high-quality products or services efficiently without needing to micromanage everything, which in turn will allow you to better spend your valuable time refining and growing your business. In this endeavor, your team again becomes an asset; if you’re open to “factory floor” feedback you can gain valuable insight into how the fine mechanics of your business operations. Trust in your leadership and don’t be afraid to accept criticism. As the boss, you have a lot on your plate and it’s no shame to admit you can’t think of everything. By encouraging your team to share their thoughts, any small gaps in your business model have a greater chance of being filled in, streamlining operations, and a sense of responsibility is fostered among employees that can only serve to improve communication, and personal accountability – if a person feels they hold a stake in something they will be more likely to do their best and personally want to see it succeed. Invest in your team. If a valued member comes to you asking to attend a training course that will help them hone their skills and increase their productivity at work, consider paying their fees. Not only could this be tax-deductible, but it will show them that they are valued. Remember, people don’t quit jobs; they quit bosses.
9. Don’t Be Afraid to Take on Larger Projects
As you continue to grow your business you might feel like you have little to no spare time. Though entrepreneurs are dreamers, we are constantly coming up with new ideas. If you have one that seems too big but could drastically change the game for you, do it! There is no one stopping you from setting new goals for yourself. Sometimes a small idea can turn into your largest and most successful project. Take chances on yourself, you’ve gotten this far. Think through the entirety of your idea, and ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this in alignment with my current goals?
- Is this in alignment with my current priorities?
- Does this solve a problem my audience cares about?
- Do I have proof of this?
- How does it benefit me or my business to pursue this idea?
- If I were going to do this now, what would I let go of to pursue it?
Start by creating an amazing, branded experience for your customers. Take those big leaps to create something new, make sure to protect it, but have fun doing it. The only thing stopping you is you.
10. Product Timing is Everything.
There are two sides to this coin, some will say for overthinking entrepreneurs to go ahead and put your product out there. If you are making progress towards your goals, you will learn as you go. You will look back later and might not be proud of your first product, maybe because of the packaging. But remember, Gretta Van Riel started packaging SkinnyMe Tea at her kitchen table in plastic bags, whereas her business now makes millions a year. She has reflected on her experience in multiple interviews talking about how sometimes it just takes getting started to get the ball rolling.
The second aspect of creating and selling a product is creating something new and unique. Look for trends, get ahead of them, and profit! If you were the first person to have made Silly Bandz, animal-shaped rubber bands that kids traded, you would have made millions. Have fun, create something different, and don’t be afraid to take risks. That’s what being an entrepreneur is all about.
