Internet Marketing

You can truly expand your business fast if you offer a full-fledged and valuable membership site free to your prospects and customers. This is a killer way to build your email list and to really get close to your audience. You see this happening in a micro way with Facebook groups, and how small business owners are using them to build community.

Let’s look at the many benefits of offering a totally free membership.

Grow Your Business

People like free stuff so if you offer a free membership community for your audience, they’re going to jump on it. This is especially true if you already have a following and customers. They like to feel as if they’re VIPs and in the know.

Build a Community of Fans

When you have customers, they may or may not buy from you again. They might not remember to look for you, so it’s not even that likely they’ll buy from you again – unless the price is right and they happen to see a new advertisement or mention of you. If they’re a member of your community, they’ll see it.

Identify New Target Markets

Something interesting happens in a private community among like-minded individuals. They start sharing about other things. They share their lives in an intimate way with the other members. It starts feeling like a safe place to share. When they share, you learn about more ideas and products you may want to create, or lookalike audiences you can target.

Build Your Brand

Having a popular membership site will help you build your brand because more people will know who you are. Give your members the incentive to promote your membership too. For example, give them points for getting people to sign up and for sharing that they can use toward products. That will help you build your list free.

Promote Paid Products

Since they are getting the membership free, you can promote all your paid products to them when they’re using your platform. Since they’re not on Facebook, LinkedIn, or another platform, all the distractions are gone and they’re going to be more likely to take advantage of your offers.

Offer Paid Upgrades

Even if you have a free membership site, it doesn’t mean you can’t offer a more exclusive one that offers more time with you – such as one-on-one video conferencing or something each week. If your free membership is hopping, people are going to want to find out about the exclusive options too.

Build Your Email List

Everyone who gets in your membership is being signed up to your email list. Because it is such a high-value offer, they’re not really going to think anything about giving their email to be part of a membership. It’s easy.

The thing about audience engagement is that you’re the one who must define what it means to you as you set your goals. True audience engagement is essential for what you define. For example, if you mean to get more responses to social media posts, with real conversations happening, that is engagement. And if you want to get more shares for your memes, that’s engagement too.

It’s up to you, but it means that you not only have an audience but also that they do what you want them to do and remain committed afterwards. This doesn’t happen by itself; it happens by design, and part of it happening requires that you set goals for audience engagement.

1. Grow Brand Awareness

The reason you want to grow your brand’s awareness is that it will help more people know about you and your offerings. The more people who know, the more chances you have to make them part of your audience. The more audience members you have, the more opportunities you have for audience engagement.

To grow brand awareness, you’ll want to create content such as white papers, webinars, blog posts and other content that is designed with the goal of brand awareness in mind.

2. Build an Active Community

The very best way to grow and improve engagement is to have more people to engage with in a community environment. When you build an active and vibrant community, engagement will happen more easily because they feel special and part of a group or tribe.

A great way to build an active community today is through Facebook Groups. You can also use software like Ning.com and Delphiforums.com to help you build an active community. You’ll need content for your active community too, such as memes, challenges, infographics, and more.

3. Drive Traffic to Your Website

You’ll want to work on driving traffic to your website because the point of engagement is to get traffic to your website, and then get your visitors and hungry buyers to sign up for your email list so that you can engage with them in new ways. You can use your community and the content that you use to build brand awareness to help you drive traffic to your site. But the site must be set up properly to ensure that you have calls to action which are clear and understandable to your visitors.

4. Generate Leads and Sales

As you grow brand awareness, build an active community, and drive traffic to your site, part of the point of engagement is to generate leads and sales. You can then have engagement with your prospects and customers too. These are the people who will help increase engagement on all your platforms.

When you set these four goals, remember that they’re only goals. You will also need to develop a strategy that allows you to approach these goals, with measurable objectives and tactics that increase your chances of succeeding.

3 Easy Ways to Increase Your Social Media Engagement

Once upon a time your social media marketing strategy was probably largely focused on sharing links to third-party content with your audience. Well, those days are over, and if you want to stand out in the crowded and noisy online environment, you need to focus on content marketing storytelling.

We all love a compelling story. Whether it’s an adventure, comedy or fairy tale. Stories influence people’s emotions, which we as marketers know can then influence buying decisions and brand loyalty.

According to Jennifer Aaker, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University, stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts.

Here’s a great example of how a passionate story inspires, promotes and increases loyalty and social media engagement. SoulCycle is a trendy spinning studio that entices people to try out a fairly pricey class by using an emotional narrative.

This is also an example of brand positioning, but SoulCycle used it as a content piece across online platforms and on studio walls:

So how can you incorporate story telling into your business marketing efforts? Here’s 3 easy ways to get started with:

1. Lights, Camera, Engagement

One of the top ways to tell interesting stories is with video. I recently attended Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, and this was probably the biggest takeaway: you need to be focusing on video if you want to increase your social media engagement.

I know some people hate being in front of a camera, but there are a few ways to make it easier.

For example, if you’re a life coach, you could create short videos answering common questions your clients face such as Am I in the right career? How can I be happier in my relationship?

It feels much more comfortable and natural to speak about what you know, and you might find yourself actually enjoying it.

You could sit in your office, outside with a cup of coffee… whatever puts you at ease and creates a nice aesthetic for people to look at.

If you’re still shaking your head, how about creating videos that feature other experts (who aren’t competitors) or using imagery and text to tell a short story? A life coach could share graphics with inspirational quotes set to music or shoot a beautiful sunrise and ask followers: What are you grateful for today?

Whether you’re using Facebook Live or creating 15-second clips to share on Instagram, use the platforms your target audience does and start shooting!

2. Lose the Links on Facebook

It’s now common knowledge that Facebook limits the reach of your post if you include a link. When you share a post without a link, your engagement is much higher. We’ve seen his happen and have changed our Facebook marketing ways accordingly.

It’s not just Facebook who doesn’t want to see a bunch of links-it’s your audience. People like to engage with a brand and have authentic conversations, not just be fed a steady stream of links to relevant content.

You can limit your links by creating videos with calls to action, focusing more on problems and solutions your product and services offer, and asking your followers questions they’ll want to answer.

3. Add More Humanness

I kept hearing the word “humanness” at the conference. It relates to the simple idea of creating a more authentic story by being yourself to connect with your audience.

Warby Parker is an affordable eyeglasses company that focused their brand positioning around humanness. They never marketed to their audience by saying something like “We sell cheap eyeglasses for the whole family!”

Instead, check out the story they used across all of their channels:

“Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: glasses are too expensive. We were students when one of us lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. The cost of replacing them was so high that he spent the first semester of grad school without them, squinting and complaining. (We don’t recommend this.) The rest of us had similar experiences, and we were amazed at how hard it was to find a pair of great frames that didn’t leave our wallets bare. Where were the options?”

Remember, telling a story is not intended to be a sales tool! Your end goal is of course to grow leads and sales, but your intent should be building strong relationships with your customers and online community. If you do that well, the rest will follow.

Don’t have a way with words, or the time to juggle all of your tasks, let alone focus on growing followers and engagement?

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

We are almost on the corner of the year 2018. But, I am sure it’s not late talking about next years’ biggest digital marketing trends. Somewhere between a robust plan of action for Q1, 2019 and making digital marketing strategies, it’s good to know about how the market will shape up in the year 2019.

Below are a few trends which will rule the digital marketing all over the globe.

Video Marketing

One of the most effective digital marketing techniques next year will be video marketing. According to a report, 80% of the online content will transform into a visual representation. It will give an overview of the product and services with a tint of entertainment and humor.

Since the adoption of smartphones and social media platforms video is preferred as one of the best ways of marketing a product. A short video not only communicate a message effectively, but it is also capable of giving your campaign an emotional environment.

AI – The Future of Machines

According to a report from Adobe, soon machines will be decisive enough to make strategic marketing decisions. Isn’t it mesmerizing? Imagine all you have to do is to store all your data in a machine server and you will get suggestions for your marketing strategies. It’s not over yet; these strategies will be in sync with your customer behavior patterns. AI will change the face of marketing immensely in the near future.

Automated Chatboxes

I am sure you must have encountered a chat box while surfing on the internet. Chat boxes are one of the most widely implemented applications of Artificial Intelligence. Not just they display results at a faster rate, also chat boxes are humorous and offer a personalized experience to the clients. Moreover, in a recent report from IBM, 85% of all the customer service interactions will be done by machines by the end of this year.

Voice Search

You must be hearing about Alexa and Google Home these days. If not, read about it. A research report says, 65% of smart speaker owners say that they don’t want to go back to a life without a voice-controlled assistant. Smart speakers will change the ways of data surfing.

Have you tried searching content through voice commands? That’s where digital marketing comes into play. All the SEO you do on your website must rely on voice commands as well.

The fall of the Kingdom- Internet vs. TV

In this millennial generation, where a person spends more time using a phone or surfing internet television is merely a device to connect gaming modules. According to study, people will spend approximately 2.5 hours online and 2.7 hours spending their time on tube. This leads to a change in advertising pattern transforming from television channels to internet sites.

Content – The Trustworthy Soldier

We read articles, blogs, newsletters, and what not, on a daily basis. But what if you don’t find genuine content which you can trust? Content is not just about facts and figures, it must be easy, clean, and lean. In the year 2019, content will have the same importance which it had earlier. It makes a data set trustworthy and genuine though any media.

If you still seek any information regarding the same, connect to us and let our experts help you with some deep-dive insights on digital marketing trends in 2019.

One thing that I’ve learned in my lifetime is that customer service is a super important issue as it is impossible to be successful, long-term, without it. A business that focuses on great customer service will certainly increase their trust level with their customers and sales. It’s by far the most valuable thing that any business owner can implement.

Good customer service is about how you interact with people and respond to their needs and comments. Even though it can take some extra time and resources, good customer service will always pay off and reap rewards as time goes on.

Delight Your Customers

Having satisfied customers is really important today in a very competitive market and will keep your clients coming back for more. They will also refer your business to others personally and on forums etc. I’ve heard a number of studies that suggest providing better-than-good service, actually leaving your customers “delighted”.

When you provide the kind of customer service that delights on a consistent basis, you’ll be producing long-term customers. Customers like to rest assured that they can expect a great product and great support each and every time they come to you for an order. So it’s suggested that business owners make delighting their customers the #1 goal.

Excellent Service Helps You

Great customer service will help a business in many ways, some of which are:

• Break down the barriers of purchasing. With a great reputation and consistency in delighting your customers, many who were hesitant to buy before will now confidently make their purchase and come back repeatedly.
• Someone that has a very positive shopping experience, which includes: before the sale, the sale, and after the sale, will likely make another purchase as their need arises.
• Customers or clients, who are confident will spend more on a product or service than those who are not. They will pay a bit more and rest assured that the transaction and delivery as well as the after purchase support is superb.
• Positive word-of-mouth and reputation building take place. Every successful business owner relies greatly on referrals and a good, solid reputation.
• A long-lasting trust is built up and is consistently growing. As long as the customer service remains excellent the business will grow. If the service is neglected it will be seen by fewer visitors and sales.

Exceptional customer service is shown in many ways, for example: going out of your way to help those in need, exceeding their expectations, and understanding what it is they’re looking for.

Treating clients with respect in every way is super important. Answering their comments, complaints, and returns gracefully, and following up on feedback consistently is also very important. Always being ready to help and really investing your time and efforts into your business, website, and customer service will reap the rewards of success every time.

Are You Trustworthy

Trust means so much and people will only stay loyal if they are getting treated fairly. There are plenty of other places the customer can go to get what they need, so exceptional service is essential to keep them coming back.

By providing excellent customer service a business naturally develops a trusting relationship leading to loyalty and increased sales. When it comes to a business, nothing will matter if there is poor customer service. I guess that I only need to look at myself as a customer and treat others as I would like to be treated. As the studies suggest, it’s best to make a habit of leaving your customers “delighted”.

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If you’ve spent any amount of time online looking for legitimate ways to work from home and make money online, you’ve probably been exposed to hundreds of different business models. Some of these business models are legit and others are not.

Due to social media, the search engines and online advertising, a new issue has developed. I like to call it the “Shiny Object Syndrome.” This syndrome has left some people depressed, others in financial ruins, and it’s even chased others away from our industry altogether.

What is the Shiny Object Syndrome?

It is the promise that there is an easier, faster and cheaper way to make money online. It is a promise of done for you marketing. Just sit back, do nothing and collect a paycheck. It is the promise of “push button” profits. It is the promise of easy money.

The Truth

I’ve found that no legitimate online or offline business is fast, free or easy. Businesses cost money and take time to launch, grow and stabilize. Sadly, most people don’t want to hear this.

Many people looking to make money online are in a tough financial situation and they are looking for that magic pill to solve their money problems today.

These ads promising “instant riches” do well because they appeal to people’s greed. Many people want something for nothing. What these folks don’t realize is that these “easy riches” do not exist.

My Advice to You

# 1 Find a Need in the Market Place

All successful businesses offer products and services that people want or need. There must be a legitimate demand in the marketplace for what you are promoting, whether it is a product or service. The demand can already be in place, or you can create a new demand by developing a new product or service that is unique.

# 2 Offer a Solution

Entrepreneurs provide solutions to their client’s problems. We are solution providers. Our job is to identify a need and then offer a simple solution. The solution must provide value and solve your client’s problem. If you can do that, you will make sales.

# 3 Put in the Time and Work

All businesses cost money to start, nurture and grow. More importantly, all businesses take time to grow. It takes time to learn the skills, learn from your mistakes, and figure out how to do everything you need to be doing. Once you start a new business, make a minimum two-year commitment and do nothing else during that time. Focus is key.

# 4 Avoid Shiny Objects

Put on your blinders. Avoid Shiny Objects at all costs. Focus on what you are doing. If you go down the path of chasing shiny objects, you will lose momentum, lose credibility and keep starting and stopping.

10 Legitimate Business Models

Some legitimate online business models, if done right, include:

1. Network Marketing
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Blogging
4. Selling Items on eBay or Craigslist
5. Video Editing
6. Work as a Freelancer
7. Social Media Manager
8. Information Marketing
9. Sell Your Own Product or Service
10. Editor

Of course, not all of these business models will be a good fit for everyone. You have to pick something that aligns with your strengths, personality, skills, budget and available time.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that the Shiny Object Syndrome is alive and well, all over the internet. Your job is to find a legitimate way to make money online, get started, make a minimum two-year commitment and never look back. Do that and there is a good chance you will be successful.

Ask a mid-sized business or question a massive conglomerate and they will unequivocally answer that SEO is vital for their brand. It is especially so for all digital properties. It has become a universal truth in the world of commerce and trade that be it Social Media Marketing or search engine optimisation, the demand is vital.

When SEO is implemented, it improves the visibility of a website and betters the searchability. This is the primary offering of SEO. But is that all? Do companies and firms know that there is much, much more to it? We offer clarity on the real value of search engine optimisation by explaining five reasons. Irrespective of the size of a trade, SEO can take a business to the next level. Here are the benefits you amass by optimisation a brand.

• A trusted source in the eyes of Google

Facts state that any person who has access to the internet will go on Google at the least once per day. When the majority of internet users are on Google, it automatically means that a brand that is considered trustworthy by Google will see increased traffic on the website. This benefit is not just limited to Google but other search engines too.

Good quality search engine optimisations, top-notch website design, and organic searches turn a company into a trusted source by Google. The more your site is regarded as a trusted resource by the giant search engine, the more visible it becomes which leads to greater conversions rates.

• Builds a foundation of credibility

The second reason why a trade should invest in SEO is the credibility it produces. When the trust and reliability of a brand are up, thanks to SEO, it grows more discoverable to users. How does a brand establish authority in any search engine? The apparent answer is on-page optimisation of content and elements. But there are a few more factors that accrue expertise:

1. Positive user behaviour
2. Machine-learning signals
3. Quality backlink profiles

Becoming an established authority boosts the ranking of a business more than anything else. But influence cannot be created in one night. It is something that is earned slowly and steadily. Using digital optimisation, offering superior product and providing reliable service are three pillars to building customers trust in a brand and thus authority in a sector.

• Create a greater user experience

Every business owner wants the most perceptibility of their website and the best organic ranking possible. What they fail to accept is that the two can be gained by improving the user experience. Google can now identify between good user engagement and lousy experience. Therefore, a positive website browsing experience is pivotal to success. If the user cannot find what they need, in the time they want, the performance of a site will suffer.

An ideal example of excellent user experience affecting the value of a brand is SERP. Search engine results pages are Google’s way of giving answers to a user’s questions directly on their page. A company that incorporates great SEO will have excellent user experience and thus more likely to be ranked high.

• Better traffic and engagement through local SEO

The web world is dominated by mobile traffic. Searches have become more localised. A small to mid-volume company can leverage this to their success. By utilising local SEO practices that are targeted towards people and client near your business, firms can increase conversions rates. The goal is to focus in your town, city or region and raise awareness at that level.

To do so, the website content has to be optimised with local citation and backlinks. Listings that mark the business’ location and sector are critical, registering at Google My Business is vital and building social media marketing profiles essential to promotion. All these help people find your business efficiently and swiftly which takes you one step closer to profitability.

• Understanding SEO makes business adaptable

The very reason a business survives and thrives is adaptability. A company that cannot change with time will not last for long. Today’s markets need to succeed in the real world and the virtual one. Understanding SEO and applying it helps you stay on top of challenges.

The reason being the World Wide Web is a continually altering environment. When a firm takes the pain of keeping up with SEO practices, they remain in the loop of any significant deviations that take place in this world. When you know the Web, you can employ strategies that keep the business ahead of the competition and thus profitable.

It is not costly; it is an investment!

The best things in the world come with a hefty price point. The good news with SEO is that it is exceptionally low-priced when compared to other marketing tactics. Furthermore, as is apparent from all the benefits explained above the return on investment is incredible. When done right, search engine optimisation can hold water for a long time. The more an industry invests in it, the better the results it gets.

The best SEO services are those that show an impact and quantifiable results in the very first year of action. Digital SEO is the one prominent digital marketing company in Chennai that can deliver on this promise and more. When we take on the job of optimising your website and content, we take actions that show successful outcomes for years.

As the market evolves, our SEO policies evolve. Our experts follow the latest trends and implement the corresponding changes to your website to deliver the greatest user experience.

Swing by our site to know how we make you a better contender in your market. Alternatively, you can call us to understand how we save businesses time, effort and money through SEO.

Are you looking for some effective online marketing tips to make your business more profitable? If so, you are reading the right article. First, keep in mind that online marketing is a lot easier than conventional marketing. In this article, we have some easy web marketing tips for you. Read on.

1. Know your Target Customers

Knowing your target customers or clients and having a list of ways of targeting them are the two most important things. What you need to do is do deep research to find out about your target market. Alternatively, you can hire someone else to do the same for you.

Here is what you need to find out. The demographics, buying habits and the likes and dislikes of your customers. Once you have found these details, your next move is to find a way to target them.

2. Optimize your website for SEO

Today, most businessmen know that their website should be optimized for search engines, which is important for better search engine ranking. If you are new to SEO, you can easily learn the basics.

Basically, if you want to optimize your site for search engines, what you need to do is have the right tags, titles, keywords, meta descriptions, alt texts, and quality content. There are software tools that can help you with this.

3. Run Google AdWords (PPC) Campaigns

Google AdWords is another way of getting visitors for your site. This is a form of online advertisement that you can run by paying Google. Google will show your ads on relevant places on the Internet. Google AdWords is a faster way of getting a better search ranking.

For some relevant search terms, your website URL will appear on top of the page. So, chances are that visitors will click on your link instead of other links below.

4. Advertisement Congruence

If you run ad campaigns for your website, ad congruence is an important thing. Ad congruence is a situation when your business advertisement and the home page of your website look similar. In other words, both will have the same message.

If your landing page content is entirely different from the advertisement, your visitors will get confused and may click away. So, make sure you consider this point.

5. Write Quality Blog Posts on a Regular Basis

With a blog, you can improve your SEO drastically. Each blog post should be longer than 500 words and should include relevant keywords, which is important to trigger a positive response from major search engines. Moreover, high-quality content can help your customers as well.

6. Get Backlinks From Authority Sites

As far as SEO goes, backlinks play a great role. If you don’t know, backlinks are the links to your site on another website. If you have a lot of backlinks, Google thinks your content is valuable and it gives your site a rank boost.

The Takeaway

Online marketing has given a new approach to businesses so that they can make more money. With these tips, you can increase conversion rates and make your customers keep coming back for more. Hope these tips will help you as well.

Many people go into business thinking that they will succeed, but too often it only results in mistakes and this leads to a bad reputation. If you would like helpful tips on what it takes to build positive business relationships and maintain a good reputation, then you will need to read the article below. Continue ahead to learn this important business skills.

To improve the reputation of your business, always follow up on any issues with your customers. This is especially the case if your business is larger. The customers need to feel important. Try using a system that’s automated and can work with a customer. You can also ask them to provide feedback on their recent interactions with your business.

Make sure that at least several of your business web pages are optimized for your business name. You want Google to recognize your business homepage as the authoritative Internet site about your business. You want to have the number one search position for your business name, not number two or three behind a Wikipedia article or some blog. Make sure that your website is the first listing someone sees when they Google your brand.

Try using a social network like LinkedIn to help your reputation management. This social network can rank a bit higher than some of the other ones. It is also an important tool for B2B companies. This is because many people like to search for professional services on LinkedIn instead of search engines.

If you make a mistake, apologize quickly. Most people realize that everyone is human and mistakes do happen. If you are able to rectify the mistake do so quickly and address it on your website or social media site. If you are unable to rectify the mistake, apologize and go on with your business.

Before you start marketing to your customers, make sure that you are aware of the demographic you are targeting. This will help you figure out how to connect with them. Your tone, content and verbiage are supposed to differ in accordance with the type of people you are trying to appeal to.

Stay on top of the news and other information that has to do with your service or product. This will help to keep your brand fresh, and it gives you an edge against your competition. Take a few minutes each day to run an online search to get the newest facts about the industry you’re in.

If you own a company, you should always treat your employees well. If you don’t, it will come back to harm you in the end. If others spread the word that you aren’t a good boss, then a lot of potential customers might refuse to have anything to do with your business.

Watch what you say. This applies to both online and offline interactions. Avoid having any discussions about illegal activity or making derogatory comments. You also want to avoid having yourself and your business tied to images that are explicit or inappropriate. Also, try to avoid doing or saying anything negative that will be on a news station. Potential investors and customers may see these things as red flags.

Survey your current customers. You may have customers that have suggestions that may help you build your company or improve your products. This can be done in several ways. You can send a survey to everyone on your mailing list or you can simply place a suggestion box in your business.

Some people are simply impossible to please reasonably. If you believe your customer has an irrelevant or untruthful complaint, do what you can to make them happy. As a business owner, sometimes you have to suck up your pride and think about how your customer or client is always right.

When people give you negative reviews, you should try your best to address them without admitting any fault. As soon as you admit responsibility for things, you will look incompetent in the eyes of your customers. It is best to apologize for their dissatisfaction, and not for any incident in particular.

Do not attempt to hide the mistakes you have made. Customers will realize. Give in to the fact that you made an error and offer a sincere apology. If you are humble, they’ll forgive your firm.

Try to follow up with your customers soon after they make purchases. This will make it more likely that they will express concerns with you rather than sharing them all over the Internet. You can use this as an opportunity to resolve the issue before it gets out of hand.

Make sure that your personal social networking pages are completely private to everyone except your friends. While this may seem like you are being irrationally mysterious, the result will be negative people having less of your information to run with. Business pages should always be available to everyone that wants to take a look.

Make the most of social media to build a solid online reputation. Be sure your company name plays prominently on your social media pages. If you have a couple of dozen fans on your Facebook page, get a custom URL that includes the name of your company. This is also possible with LinkedIn. Having your company name in your URL will help get your social media page ranked higher in the search engines.

As you can see from the above article, it is simple to maintain a good business reputation when you have the necessary skills to succeed. Keep these helpful tips in mind as you navigate your way through the business world. Always remember that your reputation is everything, and if you do, there should be no reason why you can’t succeed in business.

You might not think your service can be sold online but here’s 3 reasons why you might be wrong!

We’ve all seen how rapidly e-commerce has taken over but many service-based small business owners and entrepreneurs are still gun shy about taking their business to the next level online.

Whether you sell a physical product or provide a service you could benefit from online sales.

In this post we’ll look at the barriers presented by e-commerce for service providers and how many perceived obstacles are easily and affordably addressed by planning your approach like a pro (or with one) and using third party tools that make the whole process much easier.

Want to use sponsored posts on Instagram to grow your business? Try our post: 3 Beginner Steps to Building Your Business on Instagram Using Sponsored Posts.

Here’s 3 common barriers business owners face when contemplating adding e-commerce to their business tools:

1. You Don’t Sell a Product

Many businesses sell a service that can’t draw a clear line between the user and the service.

Whether it’s consulting, speaking, coaching, or any other industry where you are the product, the perception is that e-commerce isn’t something you should pursue.

In reality you do sell something, but you’ll have to be an out-of-the-box thinker if you want to use e-commerce to build your business and your personal brand.

Are you a consultant? Consultants tend to adapt to the project and use their experience to guide business owners or other service providers through a lengthy process that evolves as the problems are discovered.

Sometimes there are consistent problems that are encountered and that’s where you will see your opportunities.

If you see that company after company is hitting the same wall and you have helped previous clients get past it, then that solution can be a product you can sell.

Get creative! Many successful apps started because someone like you saw an opportunity no one else was addressing and pounced.

This can be said for other service industries as well. It’s not the only approach though; if you’re a coach or a speaker you’ve got potential for e-commerce as well.

Speakers and coaches undervalue themselves habitually. Your value is clear to many other businesses who have hired you so understand that your personal brand makes a big impact.

Take that knowledge and monetize!

Write a book, have shirts and mugs printed, or look at any other way to turn your knowledge into tangible items. These could be promotional items or anything else you think of.

You’ll then not only be making money through sales but building your brand at the same time.

The big point here is not to limit yourself to your service and to recognize the potential of your knowledge. If you’re having issues with this, we have a great mentoring program that can help you discover the hidden potential for e-commerce your brand offers.

2. You Don’t Have the Time

This is the biggest reason most people don’t get into online sales.

The setup, the maintenance, and the eventual product shipping all look like major time commitments.

The new reality of e-commerce for small businesses is these things take very little time.

The setup can be quick or take a long time and the barrier will actually be you. Being overly picky about design elements or quirky functionality always hold businesses back.

Always put the emphasis on your business servicing the user.

Really all you need to do is make sure your website can take and process an order and the information and products are presented clearly with as few steps as possible for the user to complete their purchase.

Maintenance can vary and often it’s a good idea to start things yourself and then hire a third party or freelancer to handle the maintenance.

Sometimes there isn’t much required other than logging in a few times a week, though once you see it all working you’ll likely be inclined to check all the time (in a good way).

Shipping is as easy as applying an app to print shipping labels and then having the item picked up for delivery or taking the items to the post office.

Look at your potential profit margins and see what selling could mean for your business. You might be surprised at how much revenue you’re missing out on!

3. It’s Too Expensive

This is a major obstacle for many service-based businesses because they’ve seen how expensive it used to be to get into e-commerce, but it’s not anymore.

We looked at the barriers such as making your service viable and how time can factor in. Both indicate loss of revenue for the existing business if you split your time and start up some e-commerce.

In reality it’s unbelievably cheap to start selling online.

Whether you choose Woocommerce for your WordPress website, open a Shopify store, or opt for Big Commerce you won’t have to break the bank to get up and running.

With Woocommerce the expense is whatever your professional web developer costs. This system works with WordPress so if you’re already up and running with WordPress then you’re cost will either be your time in trying to set it up yourself or the cost of getting it done professionally.

Shopify and Bigcommerce both make it much easier but they’ll also either need to be installed as a subdomain of your existing website or you’ll be setting up a whole new one.

These two have near identical pricing starting at $30 per month and this includes your hosting. They take care of everything such as credit card processing and there is no shortage of apps to handle functionality not native to their platforms.

Taking this approach will be time consuming though.

If you hire a professional developer for any of these systems, make sure they really know the platforms beforehand because they differ greatly right down to the programming languages they’re built with.

Of course, there are plenty of other options to consider such as 1ShoppingCart or even Infusionsoft and Magento, which are considered to be higher-end options for large-scaled shops.

Ultimately, the short answer to the question is: no, it’s not too expensive. This is because the price range starts with FREE.

The real cost is your time and the only risk is wasting it.

If you do elect to explore e-commerce as an option, put a lot of time into the planning. Not just one day of grinding out ideas but weeks of spit balling and brain storming.

Look around at what others in your industry have done and even more importantly what they’ve not done and plan everything out properly.

Hiring a professional business mentor to guide you can be the best decision you ever made. You’ll be walked past the typical hiccups and hurdles and on your way to launching your e-commerce project much faster and with much less effort.

More and more service-based businesses are seeing the potential of e-commerce so the quicker you jump into the ring the better. For many, the e-commerce even takes over as the primary revenue driver.

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.