Small Business Success Online: Proven Pathways to Prosper

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In the fiercely competitive world of small business, success doesn’t emerge by happenstance. It’s a well-thought-out journey that necessitates strategic decisions and unwavering efforts. In this article, Enlitly dives into time-tested strategies that pave the way for small business success online. These actionable insights can serve as a compass for your business’s growth and resilience.

Establish a Strong Brand Identity

The cornerstone of small business success is a robust brand identity. A compelling visual representation and a unique value proposition make your business memorable and credible. Therefore, spend time and resources on formulating a brand identity that resonates with your target audience and distinguishes you from the competitors.

Create a Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy

Optimizing marketing efforts without depleting resources is critical for small businesses. Focus on a marketing strategy that leverages digital channels for maximum reach and engagement. This approach helps manage expenses while reaching a broader audience, thus enhancing brand visibility and customer engagement.

Design a Resilient Online Presence

A robust online presence is vital for your ecommerce business, essential for capturing a wide audience. Effective online marketing strategies, coupled with active social media engagement and a well-optimized website, amplify brand visibility. These elements collectively act as a magnet for potential customers, driving both awareness and conversion.

Master Effective Communication

The glue that holds a business together is effective communication. Whether interacting with customers or managing an internal team, the ability to communicate clearly and efficiently is vital. Open and consistent communication fosters a culture of trust and collaboration, critical elements for achieving business objectives.

Re-Evaluate Your Marketing Strategy Periodically

The only constant in business is change. Therefore, periodic re-evaluation of marketing strategies is essential for keeping the business agile and responsive to market needs and changes. Always be prepared to pivot your marketing strategies to align with current business objectives and market conditions.

Forecast Earnings and Revenue

Being savvy about your numbers is essential for business longevity. Understanding how to project revenue and forecast earnings enables better planning and decision-making. Utilize accounting software and business intelligence tools to gain actionable insights, which in turn guide operational and staffing decisions.

Leverage Modern Technology

The infusion of technology into diverse areas of a business operation is not merely an option but a requisite for scalability and optimization. Sophisticated tools, such as customer relationship management software, offer actionable insights and streamline tasks. Staying updated with the latest technological advancements is thus a strategic imperative for sustained business success.

Streamline Operations With AI

Embracing innovation, particularly automation and AI, provides a competitive edge. These tools reduce manual tasks, drive efficiency, and allow for a focus on core business functions. The adoption of automation tools and AI not only enhances operational efficiency but also ensures that the business stays ahead of the curve.

Sustain a Healthy Cash Flow

Maintaining a healthy cash flow is an elemental aspect of a thriving business model. By diligently monitoring various revenue streams and effectively controlling operational costs, a business positions itself for sustainability and growth. Furthermore, the implementation of a contingency plan provides a safety net, ensuring the business can navigate unforeseen financial challenges while remaining competitive.

Achieving small business success in ecommerce is well within reach for those who approach it with a strategic mindset and a commitment to sustained effort. From establishing a compelling brand identity and mastering revenue projections to embracing automation and fostering effective communication, each facet plays a crucial role in determining your success. Implementing these proven strategies will help your business not just survive but thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

For an all-in-one platform for books, courses, memberships, and communities, visit Enlitly today!

How to Start an Online Coaching Business

how to start an online coaching business

If you’re wondering how to start an online coaching business, you’re not alone. Many people are interested in starting a coaching business. A coaching business can be both fulfilling and lucrative. It provides the freedom to work from anywhere. Here are eight simple steps to get started:

Step 1: Determine Your Online Coaching Niche

In order to start a coaching business, you should first identify your niche. This means selecting the area in which you want to specialize. It can be health, career, life, business, or relationship coaching. Evaluate your skills, experience, and knowledge to find your niche.

Step 2: Conduct Market Research for Your Online Coaching Business

Market research is important to understanding your target audience’s needs and expectations. Identify the problems they face, the solutions they’re looking for, and how much they’re willing to pay for online coaching services. It’s also important to research your competitors and their pricing models.

Step 3: Create a Business Plan for Your Online Coaching Business

A business plan is crucial for your coaching business. It should outline your business objectives, target audience, marketing strategies, and financial projections. Make sure to include your unique selling proposition, pricing models, and revenue streams in your business plan.

Step 4: Establish Your Brand Identity for Your Online Coaching Business

Your brand identity is how you present yourself to your target audience. It includes your business name, logo, website, and social media profiles. Make sure your brand identity conveys your coaching niche, values, and unique selling proposition clearly and effectively.

Step 5: Develop Your Online Coaching Programs

Based on your niche and target audience’s needs, develop coaching programs that address their pain points and provide solutions. Determine your online coaching packages’ pricing, duration, and delivery mode, whether it’s one-on-one coaching, group coaching, or self-paced courses. Consider creating a combination of pre-recorded videos hosted on a course hosting platform like Enlitly and conduct live sessions via Zoom. Hosting pre-recorded videos behind a private wall will save your time from repeat activities.

Step 6: Build Your Online Presence for Your Coaching Business

Building an online presence for your coaching business is crucial to attract your target audience. Build a website that showcases your brand identity, coaching programs, and testimonials. Establish social media profiles on platforms where your target audience is active. Your course hosting platform should have a website building feature as well. Note that not all platforms will have this feature but luckily Enlitly offers site-building features and readymade sales page templates to help you create your website, all along with course hosting.

Step 7: Launch Your Online Coaching Business

Once you have completed the above steps, it’s time to launch your coaching business. Start by reaching out to your network and offering your coaching services. Leverage social media platforms and Facebook groups to reach a broader audience. It’s important to track your progress and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Step 8: Maintain Your Online Coaching Business

To sustain your coaching business, you need to continually improve your coaching skills, stay up to date with industry trends, and refine your marketing strategies. Measure your business’s performance regularly and make necessary adjustments to achieve your goals. Remember to utilize email marketing to build a business asset. Enlitly also offers email marketing features to help you stay in touch with your audience.

In conclusion, starting a coaching business requires dedication and hard work. By following these steps, you can establish a successful coaching business that helps your clients achieve their goals and realize their full potential remotely. Start your coaching journey with Enlitly today.

Why my emails land in spam

This is the most common question we hear from creators.  

First thing first – Don’t keep switching your email service provider just because your emails are landing in spam. It has to do less with email service provider and more with your domain.

So, here is what you should do when you use your own domain email!

1. Set up DNS settings for your domain. This will let Gmail Yahoo etc. know that you have authorized your email service provider to send email.

You should be looking for below settings:

    SPF – This will tell receiving server that you have authorized your email service provider to send emails.

    DKIM – This will tell receiving server that the incoming email is authentic, and the email hasn’t been modified on the way.

    DMARC – It ensures that no unauthenticated users will be able to send email from your domain, thus protecting your brand and the trustworthiness of your domain. 

These settings indicate that emails are coming from authenticated source. 

2. Warm up a new domain email 

Your domain email needs to build reputation. This builds up when more people reply to your email and less mark you spam.

To warm up your email (aka build email sending reputation), there are a few options:

a. Ask your subscribers to reply to your emails. Start with 2, 4, 8 , 12, 20 emails per day.  

b. Easy way is to use apps like Warmup Inbox. This is our referral link. This is what we use and refer to our clients. 

After warming up, keep your email activity consistent. Avoid too much gap in sending emails.

3. Check spam keywords before sending email

There are certain keywords that makes the email land in spam or promotion folder. You can try testing your email text before sending it.  Glock app is one such app. We haven’t tried it yet, but we know that it exists. 

4. Personalization

Personalize your Subject line or email body using personalization tags. E.g. {{$first_name}} 

5. Clean Your Email List

Clean up bounced and inactive emails and those who marked you spam. 

Hope it helped. If it did, like and share this article.   

Choosing profitable niches for online courses

Find a profitable niche

Choosing profitable niches for online courses

Finding a profitable niche for your online course can help you generate substantial income. In this article, we will share the process of finding a profitable niche. If you are looking for a list of topics that are profitable, this is not the place.  This article will guide you on what to teach, how to find a trending topic, and why you need to find what your learners’ value even after you find a profitable niche.

It’s worth noting that some of the best-selling online courses are those accompanied with proper marketing. So, even if you find the most profitable niche, without a proper plan, the online course will not be profitable.

How to find profitable Niches for online courses

Teach what you do is the best advice. There are 1000’s of online course topics that can be taught but you need to understand the topic thoroughly to be able to teach it. If you are still wanting to know what some of the profitable niches are, you can do some secondary research.

The first step is to narrow down to an industry –If you search online, you will find many third-party research reports which will tell you growth in a certain industry. For example, the e-learning industry is poised to grow from $107B in 2015 to $325B by 2025. This shows the growth in the e-learning sector. These secondary research reports are based on extensive surveys and analysis. It is not 100% reliable but it is a good data point to do industry-level analysis

The second step is to find what is trending – If you start looking for a general trend, there are simply too many topics. Narrowing down your focus to one Industry will help you get better results. For example, if you are looking to teach something in coding, look for technology trends. Twitter trends, Google Trends, Buzzfeed, Buzzsumo, Quora are a few places to see what is currently trending in the market. For example, as per google trend, 5G is trending in technology, so teaching a topic related to 5G can be a profitable niche.

Third, Subscribe to newsletters and magazines related to your chosen industry. The more you know about what’s trending in an industry, the better decision you will be able to make when it comes to choosing a profitable Niche.

Fourth, look at the data provided by e-learning platforms. This data is based on the past performance of their customers. It’s based on how some of the online courses have performed in the past. While it is not a guarantee for future results, it does give a good data point to start with. Usually, a quick blog search on these platforms will reveal such data analysis.

Narrowing down to a profitable niche

By following a 4 step process outlined above, you will be able to find a topic that’s trending in a given industry. You still need to understand if your audience is willing to pay for the knowledge that you bring to the table?

To find the answers to this question, you must do some market research and understand your audience.  And so, reach out to your audience and know what will make them pay for your online course. 

Note, that your broader audience can be different than your perfect audience. E.g., your broader audience can be “Music lovers” and your perfect audience can be “Rock Music lovers”. To find your perfect audience yet, consider reaching out to a broader audience. From there, learn more about your audience to understand their needs and narrow down to your profitable niche.

Get our guide to creating a successful online course.

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