Can Your Customers Find You Online?: A How-To Guide to Marketing Your Local Small Business Online

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In the housing bust, I was laid off as engineer and soon developed health concerns that lead to a new direction in my life and an opportunity to take advantage of the growth of gluten-free foods demand. Berkey Water is a water purification system unlike anything else on the market. You could put radioactive sludge in it and it would pull out drinkable water for you. Or, the health and cancer recovery segment —— where individuals are looking for the absolute cleanest water possible.

Plenty of other shopping segments love the Berkey Water filter, as well, but their success has long been hinged on markets on the lookout for the absolute best in water purification. Growing up on our walnut farm, I witnessed the care and passion my father put into growing his walnuts. It seemed only natural for me to create a company which allows people to experience what fresh organic walnuts taste like just after harvest, rather than walnuts that sit on store shelves for unknown periods of time.

I started a Youtube vlog as a journal to hold myself accountable while trying yet another diet —— not thinking anyone one would be interested in my vlog and not realizing people were actually following me! After losing 65 pounds in less than 6 months, people asked me for help. Continue on to learn how to evaluate your list of business ideas to better understand what is realistic, feasible and market-ready. If you are interested in selling products online, we suggest the following steps to increase your chances of success. After you list your products, customers will be able to purchase them on Amazon.

However, you need to be strategic about helping customers find your products. We suggest improving visibility of your products with tactics such as an Amazon SEO strategy. We also recommend reading The Definitive Guide to Selling on Amazon for more ideas to help you start selling on Amazon. Each of the articles in these sections will walk you through how to set yourself up for long term online selling success.

The fastest growing business on the BigCommerce platform view themselves similarly to a stock portfolio: Smart brands have multiple revenue streams to supplement their ecommmerce website.

Better yet, modern consumers are agnostic to their final purchase destination. This means that a customer has no preference on whether they shop on Amazon or your webstore. The best how-to articles come right from the source — those business owners who have been knee deep in the day-in and day-out activities of success. It is now time to finalize the products you are going to sell, launch your online store and start driving traffic to your website. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. In the mids, she and her husband started their own online business and successfully exited so they may come to Bigcommerce to teach other SMBs how to do the same.

Currently, she's consulting for Jasper PIM, a Product Information Management PIM solution focused on unifying back-office operations with front-end shopping experiences for mid-market and enterprise businesses looking to scale. Chapter 1 What to Sell in Get The Print Version Tired of scrolling? Online competition is fiercer than ever. This is why figuring out what to sell online is a strategy in and of itself.

Choosing the right products to sell will impact every other business decision you make. Forget a pretty theme.

Forget a catchy company name. Forget which shipping options you offer.

Need ideas for what to sell online? No matter what industry you pick, there are really only two kinds of products to sell: These are the products everybody needs. Niche products are goods or services that serve a specific segment of customers. Many brands sell a combination of commoditized products and unique, niche products.

The Value in Unique The motivation behind launching our business was a combination of wanting to be in charge of our own destiny and the thrill of making a high quality American-made product that others would enjoy and value.

11 essential social media tips for small business

After a couple years use it was worn out and you needed to purchase a new one. So, we decided to up the game. We started our business because we wanted to create something new, fun and of value.

How Modern Consumers Shop Across Channels Consumers shop on their own time, in their preferred channels and compare across stores and prices. Build your omnichannel strategy for your target customer right now. Try tuning into your everyday tasks. What things put a hitch in your giddyup? Nothing relieved the nasal pressure, and she was increasingly more miserable at night.

As luck would have it, her mother mailed her a neti pot. Finally in desperation, she tried it. After one rinse she got such relief she began telling everyone. Before Thanksgiving , he decided to open an additional venture — this time with his wife. Combining Niche with Passion I made a When other runners saw it, they wanted one. At the time no one else was doing this commercially! Read More From deployment to police raids, the Nine Line founders have been through it all —— and live to tell the tale. Turning Strife into Comfort Food In the housing bust, I was laid off as engineer and soon developed health concerns that lead to a new direction in my life and an opportunity to take advantage of the growth of gluten-free foods demand.

We use half the ingredients of other popular commercial brands, with twice the taste! Consumers LOVE our product! It is all about helping people. The ads brought in 1, subscribers in 36 hours —such a massive response that Jimmy Beans had to pause the ad for a few days so they could catch up with the orders. Using social media marketing, this small yarn shop has grown into a multi-million-dollar business. The unique benefit of social media compared to other marketing channels is that it allows you to talk directly to customers and followers.

You can build relationships over time, rather than asking for a sale right upfront. When people engage with your organic content or ads, you can jump in and reply, helping to build trust and form the early stages of a rewarding customer relationship—like SkinnyMint did here:. Facebook Groups are another great way to build community and establish relationships and brand loyalty.

Sticking with SkinnyMint, they have a group in which women can show off their weight loss and support each other.

How to Use Social Media for Small Business: 11 Simple Tips

Using social channels, you can also build connections and relationships with other entrepreneurs and influencers in your niche. Think your business is too small to work with influencers? Consider that microinfluencers starting with 10, followers can be incredibly effective for establishing brand trust, and they are often not out of budget range for smaller brands. Once you have dominated your original market niche, you can use social tools to reach out to new audiences. For example, the nutritional supplements company GoSupps started as a small business in the United Arab Emirates.

Its original audience was primarily made up of bodybuilders. In order to grow the business, GoSupps needed to expand its audience to a more general sports and fitness demographic. Using Facebook targeting options, the company reached out to new potential customers who were interested in health and fitness.

The campaign resulted in a four times return on ad spend, and GoSupps has grown its Facebook Page to nearly 97, fans. While the company still has a strong focus on its original bodybuilder audience, it also posts social content that has broader appeal. Studies show that following a diet high in calcium is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

You can also use social media to drive new customers to your local business.

For example, Hootsuite geo-search streams can help you monitor and respond to local conversations about your business , and build relationships with other local businesses in your area. People have come to expect social posts to include a visual component. Social images drive real-world action, too.

More than half of millennials have made travel plans or visited a restaurant based on an image or video a friend shared on social.

Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, in particular, are visual-first networks. They sell fresh Georgia peaches across the United States, and all those gorgeous peaches are perfect for sharing in social posts. Who else is immediately craving all their peach treats they canned this summer on the first chilly day of fall?

A post shared by The Peach Truck thepeachtruck on Oct 11, at 7: They started out literally selling their peaches from the back of a truck, and they used social ads to get the word out about where they would be each week. More than half of the people who came out to buy their peaches heard about the company on Facebook. For service businesses in particular, this can be a bit of a challenge. But every business can tell its story through photos and videos. Maybe you can showcase your company culture with images from inside your office.

We're working hard this week, can you tell? Happy almost Friday, everyone! Or maybe you can use photos of your customers to highlight how they use your service. Square does this really well, highlighting customer success and creating a warm and fuzzy feeling about what is at heart a pretty boring though important product. It's an honor to be part of your incredible journey. A post shared by Square square on Oct 11, at

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