How to Grow Online: You Better Be Offline.

Online growth. It used to be simple.

All you had to do was put your business online. Just take your name and add a .com to it. Then, plug in an easy-to-use shopping cart, make sure your site showed up in Google searches and sprinkle a little paid digital marketing on top of it.

Boom. Growth appeared...like magic.

The Not So Long Ago Glory Days

It used to be that way. You went online and growth just happened. As long as you made sure you took things seriously and made sure to understand the basics of web technologies; your concerted efforts quickly paid off. You suddenly became a tech-powered, digital savvy retailer marching into an online marketplace ripe with opportunities and full of customers yet to be discovered. To get people’s attention, in many cases, all you had to do was start with a simple ppc-search marketing program, focus on link-building SEO and then sit back and watch the traffic come in and convert.

The key with the above is that this was when:

• Ecommerce was still relatively new,
• Online competition was still pretty light,
• And the whole retail sector wasn’t already spending heavily on all available digital platforms thus driving ad costs up.

During this time, it's important to note, online user and usage growth were dramatically increasing. Their numbers were exponentially going up each and every year as more and more people were jumping online to search for what they could do, find, and buy on the Internet. It was like a new frontier yet to stake your business claim on…and we all were pioneers.

Of course, this was before the explosion of the commercial web. This was before sophisticated ad targeting platforms. This was before the iPhone and the rise of mobile everywhere and anywhere. This was before the full adoption of ecommerce by all major retailers (minus the ones who tanked: Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Borders, JC Pennys, etc.).

Wow. This wasn’t that long ago! Think about it. This was probably somewhere between 2002 to 2012. Of course, this depends on your industry. For some of us, this time ended just a few years ago. Others may feel like it is just ending now.

Gee, things have certainly changed. Ecommerce as a channel has matured. And, if you want to grow, it will continue to demand Retail reinvention for those who still want to achieve pioneer-like growth.

Online is the only place growing

Today we live in a world where, duh, the Internet rules. Ecommerce squarely has everyone’s full attention. For the majority of retailers, it has become their primary growth channel. For others, their online business is now their only growth channel. Thus, more than ever retailers are looking to maximize their online revenue and putting their muscle into it.

Investing and building ecommerce initiatives have never been more fevered by established retailers and well-funded start-ups. As expected, all this competition is making profitable, online growth difficult. For many, the secret is out. Investor-backed or established big-budget companies can grow to a point, but then they hit a wall. Or, they can’t grow profitably. Or, both in most cases.

That’s not to say there aren’t still plenty of opportunities to grow solely online. There are. Oh my, are there! I love this part of the Internet. This is especially true if:

• Your brand is unique,
• Your product is amazing,
• You’re building a niche community that hasn’t been served before,
• You have a novel business model that provides an amazing value to consumers.

For these companies, profitable online growth is still very, very promising.

What We’ve Learned

Yet, the days of just being a “new kind of shirt company” or “new, cool underwear brand” and expecting your online growth to naturally skyrocket are over. And, even if growth is in the cards for you, you better be disciplined on how you grow. I.E. keep your eye on EBDITA and don’t fall in love with CAC.

Thus, the market has responded. The case studies are in. We now have a bevy of online-only retailers that grew to $10’s or $100’s of millions of dollars in sales, only to come suddenly undone. You also have dozens of others that sold just in the nick-of-time to larger retailers who then found them unsurprisingly unprofitable. Then there are other online businesses who are just now promising they will be profitable soon, only after receiving $100’s of millions of dollars in investment and after burning through a cash runway built by unicorn hungry VCs. You even have once darling online industry companies who now can’t even find a buyer willing to take them.

This is what the market is learning: it is getting increasingly harder online to drive awareness, connect and acquire paying customers while also making a profit. It is even getting harder to get them to come back. Successful business will need to build synergies between the online and offline worlds. You can’t just invest in one over the other. Otherwise, you’re using a recipe that will fail to scale.

Bosom Buddies: Online & Offline FTW

Don’t get me wrong. Being online is still the thing to do. Your online presence is one very important key to your company’s overall success. But it isn’t the only key. Now, more than ever, to be successful online, you better have an offline strategy. You’ll need to lay it out. For example, you’ll need to know how being offline helps you drive online awareness. You’ll need to understand how being online helps foster conversations offline between actual people. Both worlds will need to work in tandem, like bosom buddies.

Why do you think there are so many online retailers who are now opening up their own stores (hint it's not the retail apocalypse giving them cheap rent opportunities)?

Or, why do you think celebrated online companies like Harry’s and Honest Co are now on the shelves of Target?

Easy. Online, these online-focused companies have either hit a wall and are now having a problem with new customer acquisition or they have a profitability issue. Likely both.

Yodi Says: A Different Game You Should Play.

So, think long and hard. How is your company being represented offline? What opportunities could you explore?

• Could you test a novel retail partnership such as a store within a store?
• Could you have a limited offering available at a larger retailer who are pining to have a “cool” brand like your's in their store’s product selection?
• Could you run a pop-up store or even open up your own stores with a new, smarter footprint?
• Could you participate in events?
• What about your community? Are you building an online community that talks about and shares your brand #IRL?
• Do you produce and syndicate your own amazing content?
• Do you have a real, meaningful celebrity either endorsing you or is part owner of the brand with a large platform of their own to leverage for free?
• Maybe it’s your owner’s story that brings the crowds? Could this compel people to talk about your company in the real, offline world?
• What about older, mediums? You know, the ones that work off the computer and into the ears or hands of potential customers?

Many of the smartest and healthiest online businesses that continue to grow online are executing the above. Of course, they aren’t openly sharing this. And, if they are, they aren’t telling you the real reason why.

There you have it! This is one ingredient of the secret sauce that no one is talking about (or will give you details to).

To be successful online now depends more than ever on having success offline as well.

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Elton Graham is a proven, experienced marketing and retail consultant. He has previously worked with or held leadership positions at companies during periods leading to extreme growth. Some of these companies include Shopzilla, Nasty Gal, Kellwood and more.

Bonus: Kenneth Cole’s innovative beginning. Cole started as a film company in order to get his first 40,000 customers. Skip to minute 2. Genius!