How To Run An Online Business (Answer 850million +1)
How to run an online business returns 850 million results – a popular question then. I wonder how many results that’ll return next year or in 10 years? The top result is from Entrepreneur.com and they offer the following advice:
- Find a need and fill it
- Write Copy that sells
- Design and build an easy to use website
- Use search engines to drive traffic to your site
- Establish an expert reputation for yourself.
Of course you could start, as most people do, with affiliate marketing – promoting established products and services online for commission. That way 1, 2 and 3 are done for you. That leaves 4 and 5.
I’m a member of the Digital Experts Academy and Six Figure Mentors – both of whom provide an education on how to run an online business. This gives me the benefit of being part of a wide community of online business owners, all running their businesses their way.
How To Run An Online Business – You Choose…
I was able to catch up on a couple of recorded case studies recently in which 2 very different online business owners gave their take on how to run an online business. They were both very inspiring and both very different. Their different approaches to number 4 on our list (driving traffic- the lifeblood of an online business) were interesting.
The first featured Marie, a young mother from Australia who is having huge success with her SFM business. She (logically enough) targets young mothers who would like to be able to work from home. Her approach is to promote SFM.s education and business system through that lens and she does it quite differently from most.
Her approach is to spend a lot of time researching her target audience. She doesn’t have a particular advertising platform like Facebook, Adwords or Youtube in mind during the research phase. Instead she looks for whatever advertising opportunities might present themselves.
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That could be asking a blog owner if she could sponsor an ad on their site. It could be asking if she could send an email to their list of subscribers or place a banner ad or write a guest blog. Sometimes she’ll find a Facebook page that’s highly relevant to her approach and audience and ask if they would post one of her articles. She has even paid for that page’s owners to boost the post.
She’s not directly offering her audience advice in how to run an online business. Instead she shares tips on childcare for busy mums. Then she mentions that she is able to work from home because she learned how to run an online business – from home.
So rather than generating masses of traffic from paid advertising and letting the numbers do the work she concentrates very much on getting the right message to the right people the right way.
The Right Message To The Right People – The Right Way
The second SFM case study on how to run an online business was very different. This one looked at two brothers, both in their twenties. These guys, like Marie come from a corporate background. One of them has an accounting degree so naturally enough the numbers were the main attraction to online business at first.
He looked at the ROI that’s possible through targeted online advertising that leads to high-ticket sales funnels – again, the SFM and DEA version of affiliate marketing. Unlike Marie, they started with a fairly chunky budget so started spending on ad campaigns early on.
This meant spending a lot of money to learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s safe to say since their SFM business is now generating $30K per month – they worked a few things out! Looking at advertising as an investment rather than as a drain on finances being the biggest lesson.
So whilst the guys have identified their particular ideal audience – their “vein of Gold” through research, they did it a different way. The campaigns themselves were that research. They’d start with a broad audience and dig deeper as the results started to flow.
Entrepreneur.com’s 5 steps on how to run an online business covers the main points. We can see though that there’s a lot of flexibility in exactly how you go about doing it.
Learning from others is hugely valuable. Aside from the on point training, resources and tools that SFM membership offers, it’s one of the main attractions to their community style platform
Find out more about SFM by registering for a free webcast on the link below
