Seriously. How hard can it be to do business on the internet?
So the internet’s been around for a while. Quite a while actually. If the internet was a person it would be in its forties now. In human years, that is fast approaching old age. In dog years, you would have probably died about 3 times over. In turtle years, you’d probably be swimming around somewhere in the Indo-Pacific ocean contemplating the purpose of your life (because turtles live for quite a while). The internet, the internet. Let’s stay on topic here. In its forty years of existence, the internet has exploded and imploded and grown in all known directions. It’s become a sort of a virtual world. A virtual world where real people interact with other real people through One’s & Zero’s.
The really interesting thing about the internet is that it is still very very young. As a technology, as a means of communications between man and machine, man is still exploring this new found wormhole that allows him to control and manipulate mass audiences and heavy machines through lines of code.
An example of this massive propulsion in progress for man because of the internet, is best understood in the automobile industry. Today, we have witnessed for ourselves the 100% electric car, the self driving automobile from Mercedes and even more so, the self driving semi truck (an astonishing feat of engineering and digital Information systems working in tandem). This raises an interesting question; what if the internet was invented and functional up to modern standards before the automobile was invented? Would we have ever realized what a pleasurable thing driving a car is? Personally, I’m pretty sure not very many of us would have ever realized the need to learn how to drive a car let alone make it a pleasurable activity. Getting around would only require us to get in a vehicle and tell it where to go.
As always, what propelled the internet into everyday use by large sections of the human population across the world is largely due to the commercialization of it. Once you learn how to make a profit out of something, you tend to do it again. And again. And again. Until you have mastered it. Because when you master it, you can outdo yourself. And when you can outdo yourself, you outdo your competition. When you outdo your competition, you become the market leader.
On the internet, if you aren't buying something, you are the product. Because of the sheer numbers of people on the internet everyday, the internet is the biggest market place the world has ever seen. As of last count, the number of people on the internet is 3 billion+. That is greater than the population of China, the country which has the biggest population in the world. You can add the population of India and the USA and still the internet would have a slightly greater population.
Imagine being able to open a shop in this market place.
3 Billion wandering around, not really interested in buying things but they wouldn't mind sparing some of their attention to what you have to offer. Let aside the enormous numbers of people wandering about the internet, here are six and a bit reasons to help you seriously consider doing business on the internet.
#1 Target Massive Niche Markets
Niche markets confined to localities make for very little numbers, but when you do it across the internet, your market expands exponentially. Many niche markets are simply an offering of a delightful service wrapped around a core product. The secret is to understand how your customer wants a certain good or service delivered in a manner that causes a lot of convenience and very little headache.
Interestingly and thankfully, the internet is a Godsend to business owners who have a real sense for doing business. For tech savvy business owners, the internet is seen as another dimension to this world. You get to do business with people who live in places you didn't even know existed. It’s like a make believe world with real people who have real needs in it. "All you have to do is identify a problem that you can solve and start selling."
“Thanks to Facebook and Google, the internet is no more the wild west that it used to be and is soon becoming a digital civilization. A proper civilization. You get cyber cops who crackdown on you when you do cyber crimes, you get people donating to charities online, opening up stores online, watching movies online, ordering food online, and believe it or not, people finding spouses online. The internet is very very real.”
In days gone by, a typical niche market seller would heavily rely on word of mouth and customer delight to fuel his sales. If you lost a customer due to bad service, a new customer wouldn't walk in the next day. Not to downplay the importance of great customer servicing, but in niche markets your customer can be quite fussy and quite wealthy. So if you mess it up, you’re in deep water and gasping for breath. Excellent customer service is the life line to your business.
Today however, the internet has changed the way things used to be. Because the internet has increased accessibility to markets for both customers and sellers, niche markets aren't as niche as they used to be. For example, their used to exist a niche where wealthy people would pay a lot of money for expensively tailored, fine clothing. Today that niche has blown out and become a fully fledged market with nearly everyone who lives in or around a decent sized city, taking part in this market.
The master tailor who used to cater to the expensive clothing taste of a few families a few decades ago, now has an expensive brand attached to his work and sells it across a national population.
#2 Level playing field against established brands.
You can get ahead with superior branding and a better digital voice. The internet provides an equal opportunity playing field to all business owners. Social media channels are available for free and the only real cost lies in communicating your message to your audience.
Following discussions with a handful of small and large scale businessmen who want to expand operations into digital territories I have come to understand that lots of businessmen want to commence internet business operations but are afraid to do so purely because they aren't really sure how to do it. Well, the answer to that goes like this. It’s only when you start that you will get anywhere. True, kick starting a Facebook or twitter promotion might seem overwhelming in the beginning. But the hard part is only in the beginning. Once you get your first Facebook campaign sorted out, the second and the third ones aren't so hard.
Buying things online is a different ball game compared to buying stuff offline. The first to offer an online service sets the rules. The first online service of that industry becomes the norm. Unless your competitor does it better than you (then you only have yourself to blame), your customers are going to look at you as the guy whom they can get their stuff from online.
#3 You can get into your customer’s pocket (Mobile devices)
Smartphones are all the rage now. Or to be precise, they were all the rage a couple of years ago. Today the smartphone is a standard. Nearly everybody who lives within earshot of a decent city owns one. The smartphone has become such an important thing in today’s modern society that some people judge other people based on the smartphone they use. How shallow!
In the internet space, your customer’s smartphone is your foot in the door to selling your product. Through this smartphone, you are able to sell services directly to his phone. The smartphone eliminates all barriers to communicating with your market. Come to think of it, by exploiting the opportunity your customer’s smartphone offers, you are able to send him an email about your latest product offers, you are able to advertise your website on the apps that your customer uses, you can even direct a potential customer to your eCommerce website where he could make a purchase. At the end of the day you have been able to sell something to someone through their internet enabled mobile device. And the best part, your customer had it so easy. He didn't even have to get off the chair he was sitting on at home throughout the whole buying decision process thing.
#4 Business growth through customer engagement and what fans can do for you.
If your business has no fans you must be doing something terribly wrong. Knowing that the internet has torn down nearly all barriers to communication between a business and its target audience, and you still haven’t taken steps to facilitate engagement with the people who make up part of your business ecosystem probably means you aren’t taking this whole thing about fans very seriously.
I advise you to think again. Gone are the days when customer was king. Now, your fan base is one of your most effective marketing channels. Word-of-mouth spreads like a wildfire within fan circles. Your fans are the guys that build up excitement about your product even before you’ve started selling. Fans are what make you sell out your offering even before launch. Ever heard of pre-ordering?
Pre-ordering is how you get people to make a booking on your product offering even before you decide on a launch date. Cool, isn't it? You can sell out your stock even before you put it on the shelves of your store outlet.
Pre-ordering is just one of the benefits you get out of keeping a great fan base going. Fan bases are also great for getting feedback on everything about your organization. These are the guys who have fallen in love with your business and will not hesitate to tell when you’re doing something that’s not right. However, take care to not mistake trolls for fans. Trolls are the guys who get a thrill out of putting people down. You get the good trolls and the bad trolls too, but in general stay away from the internet trolls. They will distract you from your business vision. And that’s not what you need today.
Anyway, fans. yes, fans. So basically fans are the guys who cheer you on while your business is battling it out in the commercial arena. These are the guys who see the direction your business is heading in and they too believe in your business’s vision. And the best part, if they believe in your vision, they’ll help you spread it. Good fans are contagious. They’ll help you get more fans. They’ll help you spread your message.
A great way to open up your business to accommodate an enthusiastic fan base is good PR (Public Relations). Nothing beats good press when you want your brand to shine. But when your business is still in its initial growth stages, good press takes time, effort and a great deal of charming people who matter in the press circles. An alternative to that is to open up your own media channel. The simplest form would be to commence a blog. You can use a blog to write about what you are trying to achieve through your business. And your desired achievements should be something that your target audience appreciates and shares the same belief in.
Once you have a decent blog in motion and you are churning out compelling content that is relevant to your business and audience, you should consider using social media channels to reach out to more like minded people. There are tonnes of them on the internet. if you haven’t already tried to create a fan base for your business or products you sell, you should seriously consider it and get started as soon as you can do so. Don’t worry much about costs, because you get lots of low cost or free options on the internet. All it takes is spending a little time to understand what tools to use to achieve what ends.
#5 Advertise your offering across a population of 3 Bn internet users
The internet is to marketers what the ocean is to fishermen. it all depends on whether or not you know where the fish are. Last year, Dan Levy (Director - Facebook Small Businesses) was heard saying ‘if you have a mobile phone and a Facebook page, you have a mobile marketing strategy in your hands’. The only active ingredient to that recipe is you. It all depends on how well you can use your Facebook page to sell your offering or enhance your brand image.
The internet has an estimated user population of nearly 3 Billion people, give or take a few hundred thousands. So the question is where are these people who are on the internet and how do you get to them and how do you communicate your offering to them. Today, the answer lies in social media networks. Humans, by nature are social beings who like to socialize and mingle with other fellow beings save the exceptional odd one who prefers to live in solitude. The internet, through it’s sophisticated yet simplified methods of communication has allowed people, ordinary people, to keep in touch with friends & relatives who live as far as on the other side of the world as easily as keeping in touch with friends & relatives who live across the street at very nearly the same cost. With the internet, distance ain't a thang anymore.
Fortunately for business organizations, most of these social media networks have opened their platforms to advertisers. This means if you have a quality product or service offering, you can advertise your wares on those social media networks. Some of the most commonly used social media platforms includes the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and so on. Facebook is the most popular of the lot. The sheer number of people on Facebook makes it the most preferred social media marketing network on the internet. As of last count Facebook numbered more than one billion active users.
The biggest advantage that Social Media marketing has over conventional marketing methods is the measurability of it. Social media platforms such as Facebook and search engine advertisers provide in-depth metrics as to how successful their online campaign is and the ability to identify which advertising tactics work better than others. This helps advertiser fine tune their advertising campaigns for better performance even while the campaign is running.
Again, your target audiences smartphone is your biggest friend. If your target audience possesses a smartphone and is active on social media networks, you can advertise your offerings right into their pockets.
#6 The increasing availability of Drop Shipping.
Drop shipping is like having a Stork deliver babies to your doorstep. you don’t have to do any of the work, and your baby gets delivered to your doorstep (pun intended).
On a more serious note, drop shipping is one of the newer tricks to the whole e-commerce scene. Sellers don’t need to hold stocks anymore. Through arrangements with distributor agencies, courier agencies and freight forwarding companies sellers are able to collect orders from customers and have them delivered through their distribution and delivery partners. This is good news for sellers and retailers. Instead of having to accommodate and account for stocks, sellers can simply focus on marketing and sales and let distribution specialists to handle the logistics part of internet businesses.
Since this is yet an emerging trend in the whole e-commerce industry scene, you may have to check whether your local freight forwarder is equipped to handle express drop shipping. Sooner or later drop shipping is sizing up to become the norm in internet businesses so it will be worth your while to talk to your local agent who handles your business’s shipping and delivery services and make an arrangement that it mutually beneficial to both parties before your competitor does so.
#6 & 3/4 - You are your own boss
This one is the best reason to do business on the internet. You answer to no one. You get to decide on your working hours. You get to decide where you work from. You get to decide what you wear to work. You decide how much profit you make on the stuff you sell. You get to decide what you sell. you get to choose whom you want to sell to. And the best part; your business is unique, just like everyone else’s on the internet.
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