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This is a guest post by Aljaz Fajmut.
Five out of ten businesses fail, and while there are numerous reasons for why a business folds, it’s imperative that you do succeed online. In 2018 and onwards, how well your business adapts to the online world is what can make or break you. This year, brick and mortar store Macy’s took a hammering because online retail giant Amazon knows how to play the online game better. It’s that simple: adapt or die.
The thing is that the online world is vastly different to the offline one. Key to success is a willingness to do things differently by taking the unconventional approach. Follow these four unorthodox ways to grow your business online in order to survive and thrive.
1. Create A Facebook Group
Creating a Facebook group for your brand is a great way to reach more people online.
You’re here to grow, and what better place to grow than on Facebook, home to billions of users? Customers are your lifeblood, and this is where they are.
I could spend the whole article tossing out reasons why you should create a Facebook group for your brand — more personal engagement with prospects, harder hitting call to actions targeted at the right people, valuable feedback, the chance to hold contests and announce offers, the chance to go viral, the opportunity to build trust — but I’d be here all night.
Many unknown entrepreneurs such as Dan Meredith have been able to scale their business by creating a Facebook group that raises awareness of their brand. What he — and many others like him — did was smart; he created two groups, a free one and a premium one. In the free group, members get access to content, tips, videos, promotions et cetera, while the in the paid group, members get access to even more content, and the creator gets to monetize it.
There is a mega amount of value in both groups, both for him and the group members, and both are powerful platforms that put businesses in touch with their customers who are then converted into tribes. And once a customer is part of a tribe, they’re pretty much yours forever. From now on, you can advertise all your new products directly to your group, who are your biggest fans.
Anyone can create a Facebook group, but not anyone can get a Facebook group that builds that all important traction. The number one thing to do is to pump out regular, awesome, valuable content that encourages group members to add anyone else who would find the group useful. It’s as simple as this: help people.
Tip: don’t add random incentives for people to add all their friends. The last thing you want is a group packed with disengaged users who are wondering what the heck they’re doing there.
Bonus tip: once your group grows, add trusted admins to help you regulate it and invite experts to post amazing content. Give them a platform to share their brand and business, and they’ll do the same for you.
2. Start Offering Payments In Cryptocurrency
When it comes to payment options, now is the time to think outside the box
Cryptocurrency is a hot topic at the moment, with everyone from our best friends to our grandma trading it (just mine?). However, cryptocurrency is not just something to be traded; it can also be used to pay for stuff. In fact, more and more major US retailers are now accepting payments in bitcoin. And because there are literally heaps of digital coins out there, we expect it won’t be long before retailers accept payments in currencies other than just bitcoin.
The thing is that your rivals haven’t caught onto the whole cryptocurrency bandwagon just yet. Everyone is holding back, waiting for someone else to take the lead and wondering if it’s just a fad that will blow over. But get this: had you invested $100 in bitcoin in 2010, it would now be worth $100,000,000. This isn’t a fad that’s going to go away.
If you offer payments in cryptocurrency, you’re encouraging shoppers who are sick and fed up with banks controlling everything and want a decentralized economy to come shop with you. They want to be able to pay for goods and services with bitcoin, and if your online business starts accepting payments in cryptocurrency, you’re staying one step ahead of your competition.
Crypto is essentially now synonymous with Internet innovation. It’s the future. Jump on this before your rivals.
3. Provide Value For Free
In the offline world, giving stuff away for free seems tantamount to insanity. In the 1980s, before everyone had an email address, a suggestion that a business would give stuff away for free in exchange for something was straight up ridiculous.
Welcome to the online world, where businesses are giving away value for free left, right, and centre in exchange for a customer’s email address. The idea is that you ethically bribe customers with a free gift provided they subscribe to your email list. Once they’re on your list, you can then start offering them more value, plus latest offers, discounts, and alerts on brand new products.
If you can grow your email list into the thousands, you’ve basically got a load of customers in one place. All you need to do is email them consistently, provide valuable content, build trust — and sell.
It’s a win-win situation. But why a free gift? Well, nobody really likes to just hand over their email address to anyone, let alone a business we’ve never heard of. We need a good reason to do it. If you can entice people with something awesome that’s totally free, and which — in the customer’s mind at least — is worth way more to them than getting their email address is to you, there is a good chance they’ll partake of this exchange.
For example, you could offer a free eBook, a cheat sheet or anything else you can think of.
All you need to do is set up a strong squeeze page with your offer and a clear call to action for people to sign up, as well as a reason for why they should sign up. What’s so amazing about this free gift and what else can they expect?
Example of a squeeze from GQ
4. Use Artificial Intelligence To Turn Prospects Into Customers
We’ve all had prospects who should have become customers but who, for one reason or another, didn’t. Perhaps they couldn’t find what they were looking for, or maybe our customer service let them down. Either way, we lost them.
In the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, there is no excuse to lose buyers in heat anymore. Add chatbots to your site to personalize the customer experience. Chatbots are on hand to talk to your customers 24/7, and thanks to their algorithms, they are able to learn more about the customer than you ever could. Thus, they can point them in the right direction, therefore keeping them on your page when previously they might have bailed out.
AI can also segment your email list according to past buying habits. Let’s say you’ve got customers who bought a specific item. Your email autoresponder and its AI can target these specific customers with an email that offers them a deal on related items.
These are four unorthodox ways to grow your business online. Some of them might seem a bit implausible (giving stuff away for free), others will take time to implement (the Facebook group), while others sound downright scary at first (robots and cryptocurrency), but all can work if you’re willing to commit. Moreover, they all represent the future.
Do you have any tips of your own? Share them in the comment section below!
Author Bio: Aljaz Fajmut is an internet entrepreneur and founder of Nightwatch — a search visibility tool of the next generation. Follow him on Twitter: @aljazfajmut
