NOVEMBER: 7 Quick Tips for Online Growth This Month
Melody McKinnon
Online Business, Content Marketing & Affiliate Management ◆ Digital Publishing ◆ Author
About This Column
This monthly column is intended to inspire action. You don’t have to master anything right now, you only need to move forward and learn as you go.
If one growth tip doesn’t work for your business, pick another one and try that. If you do that over the course of a year, you may be surprised at how much your business has grown and how clear your path is to further growth. A customized strategy will naturally emerge from your efforts, all from trying something new every month.
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Grow Your Small Business Online in November
The following bite-size tips reveal fast ways to grow your small business online this month.
[DISCLOSURE: We may receive compensation for links to products in this article.]
TIP 1: Fast Growing Startups
If you’re just beginning your online entrepreneur journey, hedge your bets by choosing a business model with the best chance of growing quickly. If your ultimate goal is a profitable exit, it’s even more important to get there as fast as possible.
One of the benefits of working online for over 25 years is the opportunity to see digital businesses grow and expand, while noting how they do so. Any business can have empire potential, but some online business models are consistent winners. When you combine proven business models with today’s demand, you have an unbeatable growth strategy to greatly improve your chances of success.
8 Online Businesses for Growth Potential and a Profitable Exit:
Of course, there’s much more to it than choosing the right business model or niche. You’ll still have to put the work in, develop your skillset, and wear many hats to build a digital empire.
TIP 2. Black Friday Growth
An increasing percentage of consumers shop online for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Digital marketing drives sales growth for these shopping events.
“With so many brands vying for consumers’ limited attention during this peak period, the most successful strategy to ensure that your brand is noticed is to start gradually building up that awareness and to form a relationship with the consumer over time,” suggests Elliott Clayton , former Senior Vice President Media UK at Conversant (now Managing Director of International Sales at Epsilon ).
Consumers can object to holiday promotions if they're launched too early. The best way to avoid alienating them is to refrain from mentioning the holidays or using holiday images in your early Black Friday campaigns.
We’ve had much more success with a subtle approach:
If you target an American audience, check out the Black Friday Consumer Report, with insights from over 1,000 consumers to reveal where, when, and how much people will shop during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday 2024.
The Canada Black Friday Cyber Monday Report 2024 will provide some general direction for your Canadian Black Friday marketing strategy.
TIP 3: Growing With Top Growing Companies
Every year, multiple publications rank the fastest growing companies, usually in a specific location. You’ll find these rankings contained within geographic locations by city, province, or country.
There are two impactful ways to benefit from these rankings:
Growing companies need products and services to support that growth. Give some thought to how you can get their attention, beyond a cold call or email.
Get started with the following lists:
Inc. 5000 2024 Meet the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America
Canada’s Top Growing Companies by Three-Year Revenue Growth
TIP 4: Grow With Affordable Outsourcing
A common misconception is that Virtual Assistants (VAs) are like executive assistants who only help with admin tasks. But VAs offer a range of services, and there’s a good chance you can find help regardless of your task.
领英推荐
Learn how in Virtual Assistant 101: How to outsource tasks effectively and take your creator business to the next level
TIP 5: Opportunities, News & Resources
News: New Affiliate Tracking System Actually Tracks
“Despite concerted efforts to have all advertisers upgrade their tracking to the best possible standard, there are still some that lag behind. By doing so, a significant sum of affiliate sales are not being tracked. For affiliates, that means a sizable amount of commission and sales going unrecognised and unpaid. For advertisers, this means the impact of the channel is being significantly understated, with other channels and routes to purchase reaping the benefit. This threatens not only the individual affiliate businesses affected, but also the delicately balanced ecosystem of partnerships that is premised on the affiliate ad model…
Awin Global is launching the Conversion Protection Initiative to modernise tracking standards and reform them for a world in which relying solely on deterministic methods is insufficient.”
~ Awin Announces New Conversion Protection Initiative to Safeguard Affiliate Tracking: The affiliate industry is losing significant ad revenue every year due to poor tracking setups.
Opportunity: Online Business For Sale
Run this business in about 5 hours/week!
Avg. Monthly Revenue $14,550.00, Profit $3,418.00, Margins 23%
Assets Included: Amazon Seller Central account (with 8 SKUs), trademark, suppliers, employee contracts.
Resource: 17 Best Infographic Tools for 2024 (Full Comparison Guide)
TIP 6: Business Books Worth Reading
Here we share quick quotes from business books we’re reading to help your knowledge grow with your business.
“Customer Journey optimization is not a one-time project, but a continuous process of improvement. It requires a culture of customer-centricity and a commitment to using data and analytics to drive decision making…
According to a study by Mckinsey, companies that excel at customer journey management can see revenues increase by 10-15% while also lowering the cost to serve by 15-20%. Therefore, investing in customer journey optimization can yield significant returns.”
~ 25 Case Studies on Customer Journey Design by Flevy.com - Marketplace for Business Best Practices (Flevy Management Insights)
TIP 7: Holiday Growth
No matter where you are in your digital transformation, there are ways to use the internet to increase your sales. If you’re not familiar with any of these strategic moves, there’s still time to do more research and implement whatever you can before (or during) the holiday season. Once in place, you’ll enjoy more sales all year long.
Some of the most effective ways to increase holiday sales are:
Your Website – You need a homebase to send consumers and customers to, be it for marketing, repeat sales, or customer support.
Content – Answer their questions, address their concerns, resolve their problems.
Social Media – Add your social media links to your web page in a place where visitors will see them immediately.
Email – Email marketing is alive & well and your email list should be grown at every opportunity.
Discounts – Be it on your website, social media, or in newsletters, you can soothe inflation pain points with a reward program, discount sales or coupons.
Go Global – The internet has cracked the world wide open for anyone who wants to sell online.
Learn more in 8 Things to do Online to Make Holiday Season Sales Soar
Incremental Change
Changes spread out over the year will combine into powerful results. When growth based on technology overwhelms us, we can make small changes to continue growing and develop further as we feel our way through it.
How will you grow your online business in November? Please share your ideas or questions.
A Canadian version of this article was originally published by Melody McKinnon on Online Business Canada.