With online businesses growing more and more each year, it’s safe to say that ecommerce and web based businesses are officially here to stay. While it might have seemed much easier for online businesses to grow in recent years, for many, developing and growing their business has become much more challenging and difficult to understand.
Working long hours trying to develop your business and studying your results, can often lead to frustration and a lack of motivation, however it’s important to realise that every business eventually plateaus.
Getting over a period of stalled growth doesn’t have to be difficult however, with the right tools and a proper understanding of where you might be falling short, there’s plenty of ways you can overcome a slow period, some of which you might not have even considered.
Watch out for these easily overlooked reasons why your business might not be thriving:
You Aren’t Investing In Marketing
When it comes to online businesses one of the major factors which can determine success is digital marketing. Online visibility is often taken for granted, with many believing that once a website is live, people should just flock to it, however that’s often not the case. In order to become visible online, as well as increase your conversions, your business needs to invest in the best marketing for your industry. With so many options out their for marketing your business, even ignoring one could cause issues for your brand.
By investing in Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click ads and even email marketing, you can reach out to a much larger audience than you would reach without, ensuring that your business pops up as the answer for any questions, queries or product searches your audience or potential customers might have.
You Too Focused On Social Media
In the last few years social media has done wonders for online businesses, acting as a platform to engage with your audience as well as another platform for you to utilise paid adverts. However, over the last year the social media world has seen rapid change, one tactics that worked effectively have become tired and no longer work, with more focus being placed on paying to advertise on social media platforms, instead of reaching to others organically.
While you should use social media within your marketing strategy and it’s still important to measure your customer engagement, it’s good not to rely to heavily on your social media, using it to engage with your audience or to post fun content rather than using it as your sole marketing tool.
You’re Relying On Old Strategies
These days technology moves quickly, what might have worked effectively for your business three months ago may often not be as successful now. In fact there are plenty of tried and tested strategies that have changed over 2016, meaning marketers are now having to up their game in order to get effective results. If you’re relying on old school tactics to grow your business, then don’t be surprised if you’re not seeing the growth you want.
There’s plenty of people around these days who are willing to pass around outdated marketing information as though it’s law and while it worked once, chasing influencers and using black hat tricks is now unlikely to help grow your online presence.
You’re Trying To Copy Others
We get that it’s natural to want to copy or learn from someone who is successful, however it’s likely that the more successful business are only that way because they’ve marketed their brand in a unique and creative way, helping them stand out as an original business. You don’t want your brand to seem like a cheap rip off of another brand, you want to be seen for the great quality, trustworthy business that you are, something unlikely to happen if you’re not being true to yourself.
While it’s not uncommon for business to take ideas from successful businesses and adapt them to fit their company or develop them to become even more successful, straight up ripping off your competition has never worked for anyone, so don’t waste your time and money, instead work on developing YOUR identity.
You’re Not Monitoring Your Progress
You can’t truly know and understand how your business and marketing strategies are going if you aren’t measuring your results. In order to grow your business you need to know what’s working and what isn’t, letting you make the relevant changes needed to help grow your audience and encourage more sales, leads and clicks. By utilising tools such as Google Analytics, you can review exactly what’s going on with your site and how people are interacting with your brands website.
Reviewing your marketing and engagement metrics weekly, you can determine if the work you’re doing is enough to reach your goals or if it’s likely that you need to make changes or do more in order to achieve the best results for your business.
If you’re reading this because your website growth has slowed, why not take some time to go over your business plan and marketing strategy, looking carefully at what you’re doing and how it’s working for your business. By testing your changes and what you think will work well for your business, you can gain new insights into how your business functions, as well as look to increase your engagement and conversions.
Prioritising your issues and working to find a solution is a good place to start, by working through your strategy in a step by step way, you can be increasing your custom and seeing growth again within a matter of months.
