Starting your own business requires a considerable amount of startup capital. For starters, you need to create or purchase products and then there’s the packaging and logistics to get items to customers.
Additionally, there’s the marketing aspect to consider. It’s also a good idea to invest in embroidered workwear to create striking employee photos for your website that prove you’re all about delivering professional service.
With all these financial aspects to consider, it makes sense to opt for budget-friendly solutions where possible.
Setting Up Your Online Business On a Budget
Our experts can’t teach you how to create the perfect product that will set your business apart—that’s all on you! However, once you’ve got that sorted, the next step is to create an effective online presence. Fortunately, we have a few tips to get you started.
- Use a Free Website Builder
Many startup business owners believe they need to spend a fortune on creating websites and selling platforms to compete with more established competitors. It’s important to understand that this isn’t necessarily the case.
The first step is to choose the right platform to create your business website. Check for free website builders to get you started. Many of these website builders have all the necessary tools to effectively create all the aspects of your e-commerce business.
A few top options to consider include the following:
- WordPress
- Jimbo
- GoDaddy
- Mailchimp
- SITE123
- Create a Simple Website
Another misconception is that you need a professionally designed website with all the bells and whistles. This can be quite costly in your startup days. Rather opt for a ready-made theme from the website builder you’ve selected.
When you’re just starting out, creating your own website using free tools and plug-ins will cost you a fraction of the price! And it’s more than suitable for the early days of your business.
- Use Social Media to Drive Traffic
One of the quickest ways to get your brand out there is to engage with social media audiences. After all, isn’t that where your customers are most likely hanging out?
Setting up profiles on social media platforms that resonate with your customer base is a very cost-effective way to attract new customers. Also, platforms such as Facebook have business ads that can be designed to target your specific target audience.
- Use an Email Marketing List From the Beginning
In the early days, you may not have many customers or even website visitors. In fact, many people who visit your website may not return if they’re not immediately ready to purchase. This isn’t because your website or product is inferior. Rather, because of an information overload online, people often forget the URLs and website names. So, when they’re ready to go back and buy your product they may not know where to find your brand online again.
The best way to keep in touch with these once-off visitors is by adding them to an email marketing list. In this instance, you don’t want to wait until you have a popular brand to create a marketing list. Do it from the day that you launch your website. Give all visitors the chance to sign up for email notifications. You’ll empower visitors to stay in touch with you, your brand and your products.
- Create a Content Marketing Plan
Content marketing is a popular and effective method to attract a specific target market. The easiest way to do this is by adding a blog to your website. Blog content should be relevant to your product and your target audience.
By using relevant and interesting topics, you’ll be sure to draw people to your website and your brand. Some tips:
- Be sure to share links to each blog post on your social media pages.
- Include photos of your employees showing off your products. Remember, consumers find images with people more memorable than photos that only contain products.
- For visual impact, let employees wear custom work shirts in online photos and videos to promote your brand. This helps show off brand colours and people can become more familiar with your company’s look and logo.
- Use Google Analytics to Find Your Target Market
Planning your future marketing strategy can be challenging especially when you’re not sure if you’re reaching the right audience. Instead of investing large sums of money on strategies that may not be working, rather start with Google Analytics.
Adding this very effective tool to your website and social media platforms will help you get crucial information about potential customers. Information that you’ll be able to gather include:
- See how visitors find your website—this tells you which platforms are working better than others.
- Track what people are doing on your website, so you can identify the popular products.
- Know how the guests are visiting your site—if the majority of your clicks come from mobile devices, it tells you that you need to ensure that your website is super-mobile friendly!
- Identify pages on your website that get more traffic than others—if one particular blog post is getting more views than others, it’s a good idea to expand on the topic discussed in that post.
Final Thought
By opting for more cost-effective options to create your online presence, you’ll be able to use more capital for creating and packaging your product. Save where you can, and you’ll have the best start for your online business!
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