6 Business Trends & Growth Strategies For 2021
6 Business Trends & Growth Strategies For 2021
2020 was a transformational year for people and for businesses - the pandemic has changed the way people live, interact with each other, the way they consume information, the way they interact with businesses, and even the way they earn income.
The pandemic has completely reshaped the way entrepreneurs and business owners operate their business, advertise and attract customers, and even deliver their products or services to customers.
Businesses that have adjusted and pivoted to the new virtual world we live in have thrived, and those who have not done so, have experienced some of their worst years in terms of sales and growth. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have even shut-down and dissolved.
If you're looking to head into 2021 with a rock-solid business plan to grow your business, to earn revenue online, or to monetize your knowledge and skills by creating and selling courses, programs, or services, here are 6 actionable steps that you can incorporate to experience meaning results.
1. Conduct Market Research Before Creating Your Products, Courses, Or Programs:
If you're looking to create an online product, course, program or service, start by conducting market research before you start creating your content. This involves spending time on Google, Youtube, or social media, where you are typing in keywords and look at the results that show up on top. Think about what your customer would be searching for to arrive on your courses or program.
The key is to understand what words are your competitors or market leaders using to rank on top of the page.
Examine the type of paid ads that appear on the top of the page, as well as the organic results that rank well. This will give you ideas of how the headlines appear, and how you can strategically reposition your content to suit what the market needs.
Then look at the actual websites or landing pages that people are using to advertise their businesses - are there any commonalities, traits, or formats that they have incorporated.
The same strategies that can incorporated for Youtube videos - which videos are getting a significant amount of traffic and why. What makes them stand out or appear on top?
This first step in conducting market research will not only save you time and resources, but will give you a good idea and a great framework when you are ready to start building your products or services.
2. Reverse Engineer Content To Ensure You Address Market Needs:
Once you have an understanding of what's ranking well on Google or Youtube, use those examples to understand what people are looking for, what problems they face, and how you can create content that will specifically address those problems and gaps.
This strategy will help you create headlines that attract customers, format content that will be well received, and position your content, products or services with a formula that has already proven to drive results in the real world.
Conducting this market research will ensure you're creating solutions that people need and want and are actively searching for.
Many entrepreneurs and course creators create products, courses or programs that are not in demand or don't solve concrete needs of their target market - which can cause frustration, cost you time and resources, and may even lead to burnout, since you may be inclined to stop creating if you do not see results.
This is the opposite concept to "build and they'll come" - it follow the "build it so they come" formula.
Reverse engineering your content will enable you to not only understand what the market wants and needs, what's selling like hot-cakes and what's not, but also help you save a ton of time and energy and streamline your product or service creation and selling process.
3. Offer Different Tiers Of Products For Different Market Segments:
If you are going to invest time and resources to create a course, program, or solution that you want to sell to your “target market”, it’s a good idea to build something that has two or even three tiers of offers that serve different markets.
Your ideal customer may be at different steps in the process, offering someone step A when they are at step M may not be the right solution for them.
In other words, when you create a solution for the top of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel, you are able to attract customers who are at different stages in the process. Let's look an example to help you understand this concept in more depth.
Let’s say you’re creating a course about "How to build and scale a successful e-commerce store". There are two distinct types of customers - those who are in the early stages and those who are in the growth stages.
Customer 1: A new entrepreneur who is looking to start an online business. Your content or course can be about why e-commerce is a great online business to start. This involves diving into the reasons why e-commerce is a good option, how e-commerce is expanding, and how someone can go about creating an e-commerce store. This involves not just convincing someone why starting a business is a good idea, and why e-commerce is a great model to follow.
Customer 2: Someone who has already started an e-commerce store and wants to learn and incorporate strategies to grow their existing store and earn more revenue. The content that they are looking for is going to be different from the first customer. They need content and strategies that will help them understand how to sell more, how to lower costs, how to advertise, how to streamline their business, and how to grow profits.
These are two separate customer demographics who need different solutions. Creating one product or program to address both market will not only confuse your market, but will stutter your growth. You need two different offers, two separate programs, and two distinct price points for each of those markets.
One mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make is to try and sell one product or service to different market segments - you need to create content and solutions that are going to address each customer demographic separately.
Think about what car companies like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, or even Volkswagen do - they have a cars that are lower-priced for the mass market, and they also offer high-end luxury cars that cater to those who in the market for luxury cars. Same company, same factory, same raw material, same assembly line - two different brands with distinct offerings and price points.
4. Attract And Convert More Customers By Incorporating Webinars, Virtual Summits, And Virtual Events:
In 2020, the world of virtual workshops, webinars, online events, and summits exploded since people could no longer sit in a room with others, thanks to the pandemic.
This means that your customers have become accustomed to watching webinars and attending online workshops - chances are you have attended a virtual workshops, events, and webinars yourself.
This means that you can grow your business by leaps and bounds by leveraging what your customers are comfortable with.
Conducting your own workshops and webinars have many advantages:
1- You can attract, educate, and share your knowledge with more people at once with little to no additional work involved
2- You do not need to book a conference room, a workshop facility or even a large auditorium to conduct your conferences - all you need is Zoom or a similar webinar or group conference technology
3- You can increase the number of people who consume your content and may want to contract your services through group conferences and webinars
4- You stand out from competitors who are waiting for things to return to "pre-pandemic" life (face-to-face meetings) or who have not yet integrated this model into their business and still relying on 1:1 meetings
5- Your advertising efforts can have a compounding effect when you can attract, educate, and pitch your products or services to more people at once (more people attend, more chances of conversions)
6- Webinars and workshops enable you brand yourself as the teacher, the educator, and the problem-solver, which helps you build authority in your market and helps you get recognized as the source of knowledge
7- Webinars and summits enable you to increase your “hourly rates” astronomically
Let’s say you charge $100/hour, or value your time to be $100/hour, imagine having an event with 10 people or 50 people listening to the same exact message or pitch. That’s $100 x 10 = $1,000/hour or $100 x 50 = $5,000/hour.
Hosting workshops, webinars, summits, and group education and conversion events is an excellent strategy to grow your business astronomically in 2021.
5. Deliver At Scale Using Groups Masterminds, Group Coaching, And Through Virtual Communities
As mentioned above, people have become accustomed to consuming content and engaging with others in a completely remote and group setting. This not only applies to the way you attract and convert customers into course, program, or service, but also applies to the way you deliver your material to them.
When you start delivering your content in a group setting, you are able to maximize your time, deliver to more people at once, and create a community where people can engage with other and meet like-minded people.
Think about your own experiences - you learn from your peers as much as you learn from the instructor or educator. If one person has a question that you need to answer, chances are that others are going to have a similar question, and they will find value from the solutions/answers that you’re going to provide to that person who asked the question.
Group delivery allows your customers to gain more value, answer each others questions, collaborate with each other, and even form lifelong connections through the groups they are a part of - no different from how universities and schools have operated for centuries.
6. Invest In Yourself, Invest In Your Business, Invest In Mentorship:
Regardless of where you are in your business journey, there are others who are in a later stage of growth than you are. Commit to getting mentors and coaches, and learning from those who have already been in your shoes.
Don’t look at it as “spending”, look at it as "investing". Invest in yourself, in your growth, in your business.
People too often focus on the direct return on investment (“ROI”) to assess whether it's worth joining a course or program. A question that many ask is, "if I enroll in your program, what's the ROI I can expect from it".
That's a wrong question to ask - ROI can be measured in diverse ways.
- Learning has an ROI.
- Education has an ROI.
- Change in mindset or perception has an ROI.
- Learning a new strategy and perfecting it has an ROI.
- Avoiding mistakes has an ROI.
People are so focused on “making money” that they often overlook the “process” of making money.
To make more money in your business, you need to have:
1. Good content
2. Great market research and insights
3. An irresistible offer
4. A pricing system that makes it a no-brainer to work with you
5. A workflow that makes the buying process simple
6. An understanding of paid and/or organic marketing
7. The skills to sell and pitch with confidence
8. Stellar presentation skills
9. The power to persuade and influence decision making
10. Internet skills and technology skills
11. An understanding of websites, workflows, and delivery systems
You’re not going to magically learn all those different skills by yourself. You need to invest in programs and courses that help you learn those skills and drastically reduce your learning curve. Each of those components has a compounding effect on your business and your revenue.
So, if you’re focusing on asking “how much money can I make from this program”, that’s the wrong question. Ask yourself:
How many of the above-mentioned skills and processes do you currently know or have mastered?
Which areas do you need to develop and perfect before you can grow your business faster?
What areas can you outsource so you can stay in your zone of genius?
The answer to your question depends on how well you are able to execute what you've learned in your business.
Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself and your business growth to learn skills that you do not possess - it’s going to have a significant impact on your business.
Now that you have a 6-part framework, work implementing these strategies into your business right away to gain more authority in your marketplace, attract the right customers to your business, and experience growth in 2021.
I wish you all good luck in your 2021 business quest!
If you'd like to read more inspirational articles and blogs to set you on an upward growth in 2021, feel free to visit www.sidpeddinti.com.
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