HOW TO LAUNCH BUSINESS IN TIMES OF CRISES USING MINIMUM BUDGET

The Internet is loaded with information which may be confusing and even hindering your success. Over the last years, Facebook raised its fees and Instagram was captivated by advertisement. If lacking specialized knowledge, you may be indeed questioning yourself about what amount of money advertisement only requires. And before that, you should certainly have set in place your object of advertisement, that is your business.

How to make money from successful advertisement? How to avoid fatal errors and how to save thousands of dollars on the wrong advertisement? Is there any form of advantage you could pursue? How to set up the right marketing strategy yourself?

Digital marketing opens up limitless possibilities. And still, how to benefit from it with no unwanted or unexpected expenditure? Many would say that in order to be successful you need to be creative or educated up to the needed standards and skills. Probably true, although we personally doubt it. The only thing you need in practice is your true desire to pursue your goal, which you could easily master by following our advice.

We have set up a couple of stages you may need to go through in order to start a successful business from scratch. Or even, to sell a product that you do not possess of.

Stage 1: Find your product

Do you want to offer services, products, trainings or anything else? Do you want to work for yourself - are you bored to death by the tedious office atmosphere? Are you sick of complying with your job requirements? …Then, what can you choose? What to offer customers?

The first thing you can do is finding your passion – what is the thing that you love doing and what brings you pleasure (think of let’s say “cooking”). After this, compare your passion with the existing market demand. That is, what do people want, what do they search for? Then, research if there is customer interest in your passion. The best option you may encounter is that your passion coincides with the market demand.

Example: you love cooking, it brings you pleasure and there exists customers’ demand for recipes and interesting menu proposals such as healthy, vegan, or other menus; the customers are also looking for video content, etc. If the case, then this is your golden chance. All you have to do is take advantage of your passion and explore it. This way, you will make real money no matter whether you are preparing restaurant menus, setting up cooking courses, addressing your audience with a recipe e-book or creating video content with interesting recipes.

What to do however if your passion does not correspond to the market demand, i.e. if there’s no customer interest or search? Do not worry! There also exists the option that you have no passion and you do not really know what you want to do/ what to engage with, or what attracts you most. If the case, you may enter Facebook and observe the advertisement that most frequently pop-us.

The Facebook algorithm knows you indeed well and shows you the topics you seem to be most interested in. That way, you may easily direct your attention to the things you like best, and the only thing you have to do is indeed pay attention to your Facebook advertisement.

In the last two cases (i.e. if your passion does not correspond to the market demand, or if you have no passion), you may investigate what the market needs are, and what customers look for. Thus, you may start searching for an ideal product to launch to the market.

Stage 2 – Product research

No matter which of the three options above, and regardless of whether you have or have no passion, you will need to answer whether your passion coincides with your ideal product category. You have to see whether the customers are interested in a product, how high their market demand is and how much they need it. In the conditions of the present crisis however, you need to keep in mind that customers’ needs have shrunk. That is why, you need to trace their desires and needs. An easy way to trace customers’ demand is by using Google Trends. To do this, you have to pick up a specific country or city, for which you would like to objectify your search. Then, you will receive a result in percentage. With its help you could easily understand how wanted your product is, and if customers search for it in Google.

 

Launching an e-commerce store with no goods and money – an easy test whether the product or service you have chosen is sought on the market.

After you have studied your product or service, you will need to find out your customers interest. An easy trick for trying this is to use a low-budget ad in the social networks. This way you could follow your customers’ behavior and analyze whether the product has a potential, and if there is real market demand. Then, you may order the product and assure the availability of goods at your premises. Yes, this test is probably not applicable to your whole product range, but it still is to a major part of it. Once you become overwhelmed by questions, order placements, etc., it already is your turn. So, the idea behind this is that by the moment you order the product, you would have in practice already sold it.

And here comes a really interesting question: how to sell something you which do not have at your disposal? Example: you are contacted by a number of customers having an interest in your product and ready to buy (by this time, you will need to have calculated the time you need to have the product delivered to your premises).

 So, what you could do is contact the customer via mobile (one of the best options) to explain that due to high interest, the product is presently unavailable, but in a week or two (depending on the time you need to deliver it) you can fulfil the order. Due to the unplanned delay in delivery you could offer a 10% discount if the customer agrees to wait. So, you could place your discount to the first ten customers, sell with no discount to the next ten, and every day follow how many customers there are so that to hit the right time to assure the product. If there is customers interest from the very beginning, then you can safely ORDER. This means that your customers want this product. It is ideal for them and if there are a number of orders in the first couple of days, there will be many more to come.

Stage 3 – Winning and losing business in times of crisis

Which is the best market niche? Where to focus on? How to spend less money but still build a successful online business?

We are living in a world where we never know what “tomorrow” brings. No matter that “today“ may be the most common and monotonous daily routine with which you are utterly bored, it can completely change tomorrow.

This may make you even dream that the former tedious life comes back, since it no longer looks so much boring and pointless. In times like these, the business decisions you take should be flexible, easily adaptable and able to pass through ups and downs.

So, what do your customers need in times of crises? What do they really find essential? What can you offer? How to attract their attention so that they spend the money saved with you? Moreover, how to attract them so that they buy from you not only once but do come back and spend their money again?

Now consider what people in times of crises look for and what they need. You can hardly expect that they purchase extra home or garden décor.

In sum, the leading market niches in times of crisis are:

• Health and training. Never forget that many people are doing sports and they take good care of their physical and mental health. In times of crises and busy schedule, health and training as well as food supplements are a hot topic. What could you offer?
• Food and cooking. Yes, this is yet another of the leading niches since no matter what type of crisis comes, people still eat and develop interest in new and exciting menus, cooking movies, etc. Never forget that even in times of crisis, the people who are committed to healthy eating will maintain their eating habits.
• How to make money. This is yet another of the top niches since in times of crisis everybody needs an extra income on top of their salary. This is one of the best sought topics in Google.
• Even in times of crisis people are willing to build on their knowledge. They are using video lessons, home-based courses, books, etc.
• Cosmetics. How come? Well, let us start from the easiest explanation – every woman takes everyday care of her face. As people say, a woman can be hungry but never ugly.
• Babies and children. No matter if crisis or not, there are new babies coming to life and everything related to them is really well sought no matter if we speak of food, clothes, bed linen, cosmetics, books, lessons, courses.

Stage 4: Who is my ideal customer?

You cannot describe your ideal customer in terms of gender, age, occupation, etc. You rather learn who he is and what his real desires are, what he wants or does not want from you, and how to best offer it. What proposal can you make to your ideal customer in order to prove that you are his best choice? To put it in other words, you need to find the right people that need your services. You need to learn what your ideal customer needs are, you need to pay him good attention so that he feels well informed. Customers really appreciate this and once happy with your service, they will come back to you again.

Your presentation approach is really important. So, you need to take good care about how to present your product and how your customers would like you to present it so that it may come to them even before they are aware that they need it. You need to present your product benefits, the reasons why your customers need it, and why they need to buy from you. The customers usually look for the product benefit rather than simply buying the product itself.

One of the easiest and cheapest ways for testing your market niche is doing it online. This may be piloted with the help of a landing page, which can assist you in building your initial audience. You may do this almost immediately, with minim effort, skipping the long hours of building content. The landing page approach allows you to design a professional web offering with minimum initial investment. It can help you spot your buyers interest and provide you with initial contacts, with whom to later engage.

Should you intrigued by the idea you may read our article on HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE BY SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE ONLY

Stage 5: Advertisement

You do need serious advertisement if you wish to place a product on the market well. Here however, we are not going to discuss the ads costing thousands of dollars but the ways in which you could place the right advertisement on the right place depending on your online business.

How to trigger your website traffic in order to increase profit and set as your primary goal that every second customer buys from you, and not only buys but comes back to you and buys again. Here follows some piece of advice:

1. Be active in the social networks, explain well and talk to your potential customers
2. Use headings and subheadings for your webpage so that to facilitate page scanning and reach bigger audience
3. Pay attention that you always use quality photographs showing smiling faces
4. Use the Facebook algorithm to your advantage – you can easily see your competitors’ ads and use an idea or two
5. Use brand name advertisement in Google
6. YouTube advertisement – take advantage of your competitors’ audience by placing advertisement on their videos. Thus, you will introduce the audience which follows and watches videos to your proposal and win better chance that they visit your website or profile
7. E-mail marketing has always been in the top 5 digital channels for digital entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and freelancers. . If you are interested in learning more about E-mail marketing take a look at our article HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE BY SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE ONLY
8. Spy tricks in Facebook – do you know that you can spy on your competitors in Facebook. By using Page Transparans you can see where and how your competitors place their ads to appeal to their audience. By using this as a newcomer, you may come across a new advertisement method.
9. Try to always keep your customers satisfied and maintain contact with them so that they always feel secure and flattered that they have purchased from you.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Besides its challenges, the COVID pandemic brought about greater digital opportunities. These trigger the interest of digital entrepreneurs, freelancers, and offline businesses alike. With the help of an appropriate software, you can earn income online by simply validating a new business idea or by opening up a new online e-marketing channel. If you are interested in learning more about immediate options for home-based work, take a look at our article “Home-Based Online Job”.