How to Brand and Set Up Your Business for Online Presence.

Are you ready to take the bull by the hone? Are you tired of a 9-5 job? Then why don't you start your own business? This will give you financial freedom. Sounds good right? Unfortunately, few people manage to earn real money from starting up a business.

In this article, I will help you brand and set up your business for online presence. To prevent you from losing thousands of money to brand and set up your business, I will help you on your way with the right marketing blueprint to a successful online business!

Then what is branding?

Certainly, different company logos pop up in your memory. Such as Mc Donald, Micro Soft, Apple, and Coca Cola.

However, it’s pertinent to say that your brand is your business identity. You can identify your brand with your color, message, logo, product, audience, and perception.

Great branding is consistent as your audience hears, sees, or buys from you, they will easily recognize your brand.

Steps you must follow for your setting up your business for online presence. Previously many businesses are majorly domicile in a physical location without an online presence. Now, businesses must embrace the popularity in the use of the internet to be successful and as well as maximize profit. 

Research shows that many entrepreneurs start with no or half a plan. To become successful as a coach, you must plan such as being certified, getting adequate training, and other professional courses. 

Below I give you the 7 steps you need to go through to start a successful online business.

Step 1: Create your dream customer

Many entrepreneurs failed to identify their potential customers, but how well do they actually know their customer? Salient questions must be asked such as; do you know their names, their background, work, their dreams, their fears, and their income? 

Many entrepreneurs cannot answer these questions and it often goes wrong there from the beginning!

I’d advise you to take a mental picture of your customers, carry out research, know their pain point, and provide value. By doing this you will 'realize' who’re your potential customers. 

It may be a bit weird, but by visualizing your client in this way you will find that it is much easier to start writing products, services, and blogs for your target group.

Another step further, indicate gender. You may decide to sell your products to ladies between the age of 20 to 50 years old. Research where this person lives and background. 

Does he or she live alone, there are children and there are pets. This question seems funny but it’s the fact. This will help your business to upsell and cross-sell.

Make your list as comprehensive as possible! For example, write down what kind of work this person does for a living. What kind of colleagues does he/she have and what is the salary? 

You will find that you are starting to like it. That is precisely the purpose of this exercise!

Now that you have identified your ideal customer, research about their problems/secret. 

What kind of product or service would this person need to solve the 'problems' in his life? Could you deliver this product/service and at what value? Write down things like this and with many details.

Go online whether there are entrepreneurs who already serve your created target group or customers. 

Here you can view who their customers are. Check the entrepreneurs’ testimonial pages to see what their customers are talking about. What do they do well and what can you do better? 

Step 2: What value does your company give?

You may be wondering “value”. I can assure you; If there is no 'click' between you and your customer, it will be very difficult to reach a transaction! So don't underestimate the value you provide at every point in time that your company must radiate! This feeling must be reflected everywhere: on your website, in your social media, your telephone conversations, and in your presentations. People really need to get a bond with you! So don't hide behind a logo!

However, how do you create an atmosphere for providing value in your company? This is easier than you think! You can use 6 categories for this to convey emotions to your client. 

Thought and feeling, Speak and do, Hear, See, Pain, Need

Now put under each of these needs what someone must experience when they contact you. How should he or she feel, what does that person see and hear? Check regularly whether the feeling that you want to radiate is still reflected in your online business.

Step 3: Learn and earn!

Now that the basis for your business is up, it's time to start setting up your business model! This is what I like best! I like to build a business for online presence together with my customers. However, the title of this tip suggests that we are going to learn from other successful companies. I'll teach you how you don't have to invent the wheel yourself.

If you start an online business, then you have to make many choices. Such as hosting your website, which autoresponder, what type of website, WordPress, etc. ... the list of choices is often huge! Fortunately, there is a trick to learn from others! Why would you reinvent the wheel completely if you can also just look at what works for a successful competitor in your market? They often make no secret of what software they use and what their target audience.

Now, visit www.similarWeb.com and enter the URL of your competitors and study the results. This gives you insight into how much reach they have, traffic sources, social media platforms, and other information. Then create a table in Excel and put all the competitors among each other and also put the data that you have retrieved from SimilarWeb.

You can of course also enter a number of keywords in Google and note your competitors there. Once you've done that it's time for the next step, find your customers!

Step 4: Study your customers

To have a successful online presence you have to know everything, yes really everything from your customers! 

You need to know exactly where they hang out online and what they share. If you don't know this, it is hoped that people will come to you instead of wanting to buy from you! 

You have to ensure that people come across you everywhere. Whether this is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and news site, you must be present everywhere! This is what many starting entrepreneurs underestimate! It often takes hours, days, weeks, months to maintain good visibility with your target group! Fortunately, I have a number of tips for you to be as visible as possible to your target group.

Make an overview of the online media that your target group uses. Is your target group on Instagram, then you must be there, perhaps you are starting a B2B, then you need a LinkedIn? If they are not on Twitter, then you don't actually have to be active on that. By making an overview of the various social media and online channels, you know exactly where to spend your time.

Research in the Google Keyword Planner which words your target group uses the most. Put these words in your Excel schedule.

Find a vlogger with at least 10,000 subscribers on YouTube and ask if you can make a video with this person.

Go to iTunes and search for the podcasts that have many listeners. Contact the owner to see if you can work together to better approach your target group.

Approach your influencers (entrepreneurs who are already successful) who have the same target group but offer a different product. Connect with them and get in touch. See where you can help them. Comment on their blogs. Become their ambassador. Only later when you have helped them will they recognize who you are and you can ask more of them.

So before you immediately start using all social media and online channels, it is good to study what your customers do online. What videos they watch and what they are looking for. By doing this you know exactly which content you need to create in order to become visible.

Step 5: Create a content plan

If you know which channels your target audience uses, it's time to start creating content. For example, you can start making a weekly video or a podcast. Perhaps you can write a blog every day. There are so many options that sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. My advice is to start with something that you enjoy doing.

If you feel comfortable in front of the camera, you could start making videos. 

If you find that scary, blogging might be a good alternative. 

I have noticed that if you do something that you have to do and that you actually don't like, you show less passion. Your viewers will easily notice this and will have a negative effect on your online business.

This does not alter the fact that you can be helped in this. That fear often comes from the unknown. Something that we have not done yet. Immerse yourself in it and get advice from a professional because the video is a big trend at the moment.

To discover what popular topics are, I recommend you go to popular blogs from your market and read the responses. Also, view the most popular articles. There you often see what problems your target group has. Also, the reactions under videos on YouTube often contain very valuable information. If you know what the problem is for your target group, then you can start creating content that you really need!

Step 6: Create a sales tunnel

Many entrepreneurs say they have a 'business', but many have a hobby. A company generates money and a hobby costs money. We want to build a company right? To achieve this, we have to sell a product or service, but how do we do this? We need sales to funnel for this! A sales funnel is a process in which we try to convert visitors to customers. This could be done through email marketing.

We need 4 steps to properly deploy a sales tunnel. Those are:

The lead magnet 

This is a very valuable product or e-book in exchange for the e-mail address.

A tripwire 

This is a cheap offer to amaze your customer. This product creates a bond with the buyer, you, and your company.

The real offer 

This is the normal product that you offer

The VIP product

This is something extra or a VIP version/premium package of your normal product.

The point of a sales funnel is to let visitors convert into loyal customers. You can automate this entire process. So you can enjoy your free time!

Simple email sales tunnel

However, before you set up a good sales funnel, you have to think carefully about the design of this. In our coaching program, we will help you step by step with this. It is quite a process that takes a lot of time. However, if it is, it can save you a lot of money!

Step 7: Be an expert!

The final step is that you will market yourself as an expert! Show who you are and what makes you stand out! You will notice that eventually people will come to your company and buy products from you.

Use all channels where your target group is active, share knowledge and enter into dialogue. It will not be an easy process, but you will soon see your results!

Write do your decisions.

Now, document everything you learned and guidelines for how you portray your brand and set up your business for online presence. The best way you can start to implement these ideas is by keeping a document that states all of your findings so that you can always reference it when you go to create something new.

Conclusion.

It is hard work to achieve something. The sun rises for nothing. But if you go through the right path, you make things easy for yourself. Do everything in steps and follow the correct order. Taking action is important.

I hope these tips have helped you start and business your business for online presence. I guide many starting online entrepreneurs and therefore know all the pitfalls and success factor.

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