How to start and run a digital business
Welcome, fellows! In today’s article, we will touch on the topic of digital business to find out how to start your startup, what are the risks, and what else you need to know. Let’s start right away.
Creating a digital agency requires a deep knowledge of your niche. So, the first thing you need to do even before thinking about your company’s name is to choose a niche and analyze the market you will be working in.
Do not limit your possibilities
Whether you choose a marketing, graphic design, or web development as a basis of your agency, do not be limited to one category. You should always think about your future and your potential customer because the client who comes for website design may ask to develop that website and make a marketing company. Think about it ?
Calculate all costs
They mainly depend on whether you are going to open your agency remotely at home or in the office. If you need to hire somebody for the team, spend money on the gear, rent a room, create a legal entity, etc. You need to be ready for spontaneous expenses to come up. Keep it in mind when you are only starting and always be prepared with a “safety bag”.
Analyze your audience
The structure of your agency depends on which services you provide. The list of your services depends on whom you are serving. You need to have a clear vision of your audience and their needs to be able to fulfill the need. So if you know who your clients are, then you know what to create and offer them.
Keep an eye on your competitors
It’s very important, as competition gives us a lot of knowledge about your audience, statistics of the products you make, and the services you provide. You can dig even deeper and find out what your competitors aren’t doing to satisfy their client’s needs and try to offer them your solution. Generally, competitors give you much benefit if you use their experience wisely.
Create an outstanding brand
First impressions matter, so it’s crucial to create a branding that will make your visitors feel something. Emotions are effective. As Amy Milton (Cambridge University psychology lecturer) says: “When emotions are involved, we remember with more confidence and detail.” So you need to create meaningful branding that will tell your customers about your mission and will last in their memory for a long term period.
Get the first customers
Likely, the most difficult part of handling your digital agency. Depending on your niche, you have several methods of giving a start to the business. To the effective ones, we can refer freebies, LTDs (Lifetime Deals), or USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that can be offered only by you. With freebies you make people get to know about your brand and create an auditory that can be then converted to customers.
Talk to your customers
Part of your marketing should be talking to customers and getting feedback. Thank them for the purchase, give them a bonus, tell them how they can do great things with your product. It all will encourage your clients to spread a word about your brand. Work hard on making a good reputation.
Engage your audience
One of the most effective methods of this is to show the process, tell the insights and features, teach how to get the maximum benefit of using your product/service. The more your potential customer knows about you and your product, the more likely he or she will make a purchase.
Write text that sells
Considering that 95% of the content consists of text, we can surely say that copywriting is crucial in your digital business. Effective copywriting arouse customers’ interest in your product or service. So, make it a priority to write a good text or hire a specialist for this.
Find more clients
After you have set up all the basic things in your agency, it’s time to think about engaging new clients. You need to take all the changes that can come up on your way. Here are some examples of customer engaging methods: create a blog, record podcasts or visit someone else’s one, make tutorial videos, be active in online communities, run target marketing, create referral systems, collaborate with others in your niche, etc. There is an endless amount of advice, you need to find the ones that work best for your business.
Use upselling and cross-selling to boost your revenue
Well, let’s first find out what each term represents and find out how exactly they can help you with your sales. Upselling – is offering the customer the alternative of the product they are going to buy. Often, sellers use better products at a higher price for upselling. Cross-selling – is offering the customers to buy additional products that can be useful in a bundle with the product they were going to buy. Let’s sort this out in examples:
If your customer is going to buy an illustration pack for $29, you can offer him or her to check out your cool packs that are more expensive.
Or if your customer is going to buy a Mobile UI Kit, you can offer him or her a bundle with UI Kit + Illustrations pack + Icons pack. The peculiarity of cross-selling is that the buyer will save money when buying a bundle than if he bought these goods separately.
The team extends as your agency progress
But hiring the right employee can be challenging. So you need to always keep in mind some basics of how to expand your agency correctly: function first, employee second. This means that the first thing to do is to analyze the structure of your company, find out weak or fast progressing parts of your services, and try to support them with a new employee. In this case, you know how exactly a specialist can help your company.
Great products gain loyalty
What’s the secret of successful digital products? The answer is – a love of the creator to his creation. This means that you don’t have to limit yourself with the progress that you have done, the updates you have made and the features you have added. Always look for something new to improve your product. A great product should live forever and there is no end to its perfection.
Make your company loved by customers
Interaction with your customers can help you a lot with building a good reputation in their eyes. In the tight competition with other business owners in your field, the decisive factor could be great customer service. People love to talk to people, so try to avoid chatbots if your company isn’t quite big yet and you don’t have hundreds of conversations a day. Always be a friend to your customer, listen to him, concern about his problems, and help to solve them in the most convenient way. And remember, customer feedback is also a great tool to improve our products and services. So always keep close contact with your audience.
There are tons of different minor things that you need to consider while running a digital agency, but in this article, we have talked about the most important ones. Remember that every company has its own path that should be built as it is created and developed. The only thing that limits you on your way to approach the goal is your creativity, do not hesitate to use it to its fullest.