Running a business is not easy. In fact, it can be downright scary at times. You never know when the next hurdle will come along and knock you on your backside.
It’s important to have a plan in place before anything happens so that you’re ready for anything life throws at you. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 7 things every business needs right now to be successful.
Sales Funnel
Every business needs a sales funnel. It is important to test out various funnels to find the one that will generate the most revenue for your business. A sales funnel is your way of generating and converting warm and cold leads into customers. You want to have enough information collected about the prospects so that you can sell to them effectively. This means researching their challenges and how they will fit in with the rest of your company’s offerings.
What you decide to include in your sales funnel will depend on the type of business you have. For example, a SaaS company might offer free trials and then turn those prospects into paying customers. A brick-and-mortar retail store would need different tactics than an online retailer to get people through their doors.
Converting Website
Your website needs to be a converting one. This means that you need a site design, copywriting, and strategy all in place, so people can find you and easily buy from your business without being distracted by anything else on the page.
Many businesses struggle with this because they don’t know how their customers want to consume content or what kind of content they need to be delivering. This is where a website strategy comes into play. You should hire someone who has experience in this area and knows how to design your site so that it’s not only top-notch but converts well for you too.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most important things your company should be doing right now. You want to have a content strategy in place that will help you reach new prospects and keep current customers coming back for more. This also means having enough time set aside to write blog posts, create videos, do podcasts, or any other kind of content marketing you want to do.
If you have a blog, then give it the time and attention that it deserves. This means dedicating at least one hour per day or more depending on your goals for your company’s growth. You need to put content out there so people can see what kind of business they’re getting into when they work with you.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies you can use to get more traffic and sales for your business. Your emails should be personalized, engaging and give people a reason to act on them, like downloading an ebook or buying something from your store.
Email is also straightforward to measure, so it’s a great way to tell what kind of content generates the most revenue for you.
You want to be sure that your emails are delivering value, or they’re going to get filtered out by people’s spam filters and end up in their trash can. This is an easy way to lose prospects who might have been interested if only you had put a little more effort into it.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a tricky beast. You want to be sure that you’re using it in the right way and not overdoing it, so your content becomes stale or annoying for people who follow you on these various platforms.
You should have at least two posts per day, but only if they are quality pieces of content with high engagement rates from your social media followers. This means that you don’t want to be posting three or four times a day just for the sake of keeping your audience engaged because then people will start unfollowing and disengaging with your posts entirely.
Advertising
Advertising is a great way to grow your business right now. It would help if you had the know-how on how it all works.
This means learning about bidding strategies, tracking conversions from ads, and other tactics that will help you generate revenue without having to sell as many products or services yourself. It can be not easy to find out which ad campaign is most profitable for your business, so it’s best to ask someone who has experience in this area and knows what they’re talking about.
It would be best if you also were using a CRM system that will help you organize all of the information from these campaigns, so you know which ones are working and which need more attention or tweaking.
Customer Service
Your business needs customer service more than ever. You don’t want your customers to have a horrible experience when buying from you or using the products and services you sell.
This means having staff members on hand who are dedicated solely to answering emails, resolving issues with unhappy clients, providing refunds for people who didn’t receive what they ordered, and so on.
This means having enough staff members to accommodate the demand you have for customer service right now and is something you should place ahead of other things.
To be successful, you need a sales to funnel that converts. You also need a website that is converting and content marketing for your site. Email marketing will help keep in touch with customers after purchasing from you or interacting with your company’s social media platform. Advertising can get the word out about your business, leading to more exposure and potential customers coming through the door of your brick-and-mortar store. Customer service will make sure no customer leaves without being happy!
