Here’s the Perfect Starting Point for New Online Businesses

People start new businesses online every day, so it can’t be that hard right? No, it’s not. In fact, it’s maybe too easy to start a business online. To start a business that does well and lasts for more than six months to a year, however, that’s going to require a bit more work. You will have to put a few essential things in place to create a brand and business model, aggressively promote and prepare for the unseen to make sure it has structure and built for continuity.

Here are some of the first steps you need to take once you’ve decided to start a business online.

Creating Business Identity

You wouldn’t set up a physical shop without a business name and logo, so why would you do it online? Your business needs to be identifiable and have a professional look that appeals to the people you are targeting.

If you’re not a graphic designer, don’t attempt to do this yourself – you’ll almost certainly fail. You don’t have to pay thousands to an expert either. Instead, check out Fiverr where you can get a really good design for less than the cost of a restaurant meal. Most designers on Fiverr also offer samples of their work up front and a guaranteed response time, along with ratings and reviews from previous clients. You can’t ask for much more than this.

Once you have your logo and brand colors determined, you should then use it to create any other material you use to promote your business – business card, letterheads, etc. (You can find someone to create these on Fiverr too!)

While Fiverr is great, there a bit of bad in everything so thorough test your potential freelancers to ensure that work is up to standard. For hiring designers in particular, you can use a tool like Tineye to do a bit of a background check on work in their portfolio they claim to have done themselves or have submitted to you. Tineye is an image recognition service that will scour the web for a presence of the same artwork.

Establishing a Reputable Business Presence

The next step is to create a presence online. One of the first things people do when they are interested in hiring a contractor or buying a product or service is to search for it online. You need to ensure that they find you when they do.

 When setting up a website, it’s best to take the time to invest in building a website you own, rather than on a free platform that limits what you can do or prohibits exporting your site once you’ve grown. Your website will need a hosting platform. Hostt offers free hosting once you purchase your domain name; the only service we’ve found that offers this balance between cost and control over what you can publish since they support popular CMS’ like WordPress and others.

Promotion

From day one, you must consistently keep marketing your business. Otherwise, you will tend to have extremely busy periods followed by devastating slumps, rather than a continuous flow of work.

One of the most effective ways to promote your business is via social media. It’s very easy to set up accounts, but harder to maintain quality posting and tracking fan responses on a regular basis, especially since you’ll be busy running your business. Consider a minimal investment in a social media management tool like Oktopost, which not only helps you keep track of social media activities, but helps you plan and execute campaigns to help grow your brand online.

Oktopost helps you visualize, plan and execute social media tasks geared for bigger picture, long-term goals through advanced scheduling, feedback and analytics and other detailed management features.

Build Relationships

Social media is great for getting interest and leads, but most of these users won’t convert to customers through this method alone. You will have to put processes in place to identify persons who are most likely to become your customers and nurture a relationship with them.

That’s where email marketing comes in. GetResponse is an all-in-one email marketing tool which offers everything you need from embeddable forms for your Facebook page, landing pages for your special business offers, responsive emails and the ability to track responses through A/B testing so you can know what’s working. In addition, they have an excellent blog geared towards helping businesses make the most out of email marketing and the rich tools they provide.

The great thing about email is that it’s still a powerful tool and medium that is producing massive returns for marketers.

Getting Paid & Managing Finance

Getting paid may sound like a simple process, until the IRS knocks on your door. Business owners must ensure that they have proper billing, income and expenditure records. These will save a lot of money and headaches in the long-term once tax season comes around or when growth opportunities require deep assessment of business activities in relation to profits.

One of the best tools we’ve found for accounting and invoicing is Wave. It’s a free tool that allows you to create and send invoices, track expenses, store receipts, and generate valuable reports. You can also hand over the reins to your accountant when necessary, since it is tax-compliant. Wave simplifies finance for business while providing a very cost-effective option.

Keeping track of everything

We just presented a lot of tools to you and you’re probably a little overwhelmed. If only there was one place that you could be able to look at everything at a glance. A comprehensive dashboard tool like Cyfe will be perfect.

Cyfe works with numerous tools for businesses to allow you to get an overview of all the tools you use and how your business is performing. Customize and create unique dashboards that pull information from the multitude of services and accounts you use on a daily basis to run your business. Imagine being able to see only the information you want in the format you want, in just a few screens rather than having to login to dozens of websites and services to piece together disjointed data – this can be accomplished with Cyfe.

Once you have these processes in place, you are well on your way to having a business with the potential to grow, replicate and ultimately achieve success.