So you have this great idea for a store but you don’t have the money to buy a new store and you don’t even have a car to get the if you do. With the great big steps provided by hosting companies and internet companies, we’re able to successfully run online stores. For every successful online store you need a few special and necessary touches. Follow this list to start up your own online business.
ADSL line
First off you need to be connected to the internet to get anything done. Contact any ADSL or hosting company and they should be able to provide you with a great package. Before you pick your ADSL package, you should think about the quality of service you will receive from your ADSL company. They might be cheap but you need someone who is consistent with their services, pay that little extra for quality service.
Website
Websites are getting cheaper and easier by the day. Instead of using difficult coding templates you should train yourself in the basic CMS’s such as WordPress, Blogger or Joomla. Once you have your site up and running you need to buy a domain name and buy a hosting package, preferably from your ADSL company.
When your site is online you should pay a designer to create a brand image for your site so that people will recognise your brand wherever you comment or interact. People need a symbol to connect with your online presence so that they can identify your interactions online.
Once online
Once online you should constantly create brand awareness and advertise your business. Join social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter to create a fan base/client base. Facebook alone has at least 850 million unique active users per month and you would greatly benefit from this if you utilise the advertising services on Facebook.
Once you have your social media platform accounts you should start advertising your products and services on all of them, manually and automatically if possible. The manual approach would be publishing your own tweets, statuses and images as with automatically you use the platforms own advertising services to promote your business. You should keep a steady ratio of 1/5th’s promotional tweets, pins and Facebook statuses’ and 4/5ths interesting and intriguing content. You want too keep your followers engaged and you definitely don’t want to spam your followers and eventually force them to leave.
Since Ruan Smit upgraded to an uncapped adsl line his time on the internet has increased threefold and he’s able to actively interact with his clients, you should definitely make the move and upgrade your internet service to get more one on one time with your clients.