Your first steps in online success

There are many ways to promote a business online. But before you can get started,
you should familiarise yourself with how these digital channels work, which options
are best suited to you, and how to set up a clear plan or strategy that will help you
achieve your goals and assess your results.

Hey! It’s time to chat about goals.

Every business has different objectives. It’s good to know exactly what you want to
achieve online, as it can help you set the right priorities and put your plan into
place. Because you don’t want to feel too overwhelmed. 

There are lots of clear ways digital can help your business. Such as, building
relationships on social networks, selling online, finding new customers. Or even
keeping existing ones.

It’s good to start by asking yourself a simple question: why, exactly, do I want to
be online?
Imagine you own a hair salon. Your ultimate goals could be: to cut more people’s
hair, sell more premium services than the standard haircut, and sell more of the
products you offer.

But before anyone can walk through your door, they have to know you exist.

This is a great goal that digital can help with. 

One easy win is listing your business in local online directories. So, when people
look for hairdressers on search engines, or online maps, your business will show
up. 

Then you might decide to build a website to share information about your business.
This could be things like, your opening hours, your location, your prices and the
services you offer. Maybe even photos and videos that could entice new customers
to walk through your door. 

You could set up a social media page- like on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter where
you could post photos of your creations, offer special deals and really connect with
your customers. 
As you start achieving these goals, and more people become aware of you. Your
goals may naturally evolve and you might want to shift your focus toward turning
visitors into paying customers.
You could add new features to your site. Things like online appointment scheduling,
a “reviews” section where people can say nice things about you, or even an
ecommerce store to sell your hair and beauty products online.

Now that you’re using digital to attract visitors, and turn them into customers, you
could start expanding your business by investing in online advertising. 
Whatever your ultimate digital goals are, or where you currently stand, your
priorities will naturally change and grow with your business.
Now to make sure you’re meeting your objectives, it’s really important to measure
your progress along the way. 

This is called “analytics”. Analytics lets you know what’s working well, and what
could be tweaked. 

We’ll dive into this more later, but with digital you’ve got lots of options for
measuring your success.
So let’s recap. Before you dive into the digital world, think about exactly what you’d
like to achieve. Then, prioritise different online opportunities to help you accomplish
your goals.
In the next few videos, we’ll help you plan. First, by looking at different ways you
can establish a digital presence. 

Next, the different ways to market yourself online. 

And lastly, how you can measure and improve your digital endeavours.

Key learnings
Taking your business online offers a lot of opportunities, but with so many options,
it’s easy to spin your wheels and lose focus. Setting specific goals can help as you
begin to navigate the digital world.

Next steps
Whether you’ve got an online presence already or not, do some thinking and write
down the three biggest goals you want to achieve by getting more involved in
digital.

You’ve got lots of options for building a digital presence, including things like local
listings, websites, mobile apps and social media.

If you get these basics right, it could make a world of difference.

Let’s say you’re a hairdresser for example, your first step to finding customers
online, and being found online, might be to list your shop in local online directories
like Google My Business.

Then when someone searches Google for hairdressers in your area, you’ll appear in
the results — no website required! 
You could also start a Facebook page to give potential customers a glimpse into
your business and what you can do - like photos or videos of some happy
customers with great hairstyles that you’ve created.

If this is all a bit much, don’t worry. We’ve got loads of videos here to help you
explore social media in more detail. 
There’s a lot you can do without a website, but at some point, you might want to
build a home of your own on the web, a one-stop-shop where your customers can
find everything they need to know about you online.

Great, let’s get going!

The most important thing as you start to plan your site, is to think about what you
want people to do there. For example:
Do you want them to ring you? If so, include your phone number prominently on
every page.
Perhaps you want them to find your physical shop? Well, include a map and driving
directions.
Maybe you want them to make appointments online? That’s a feature you can build
in.
Or lastly, you might want them to actually buy products from you online— by
placing an order or submitting a payment. That’s called e-commerce, and there are
a range of options—from simple to more complex—that we’ll discuss in more detail
in other videos. 

Websites aren’t the only online homes anymore. These days many businesses
create mobile apps for customers which they can keep on their smartphones or
tablets.

Apps open up all kinds of digital doors - for example, you can create loyalty
programs or automatically send reminders about upcoming appointments. 
Right, to be clear: If you want people to find you on the web, you need to stake
your claim online.

That can be a listing in a local business directory, a presence on social media sites,
a simple website or one with e-commerce, a mobile app—or all of the above.

Whatever you choose, this is the place where people find you, get to know you, and
hopefully become your customers.

Key learnings
Let’s take a look at all the options for launching your business online, step by step.
We’ll cover:

 local listings
 social media and video
 websites and mobile apps.

3. Marketing your online presence

OK, so you’ve established your online home, and now you’re looking for ways to
bring more customers to your virtual front door.

Let’s discuss some great strategies to do just that using search engines, other
websites, social media and email. 

So let’s talk about you, how are you going to get customers to find you online?

There are a few ways to do it using digital.

If you offer relevant services and products, search engines will show your business
in the search results.
Now, there are two main ways you can use search engines, and we’ve got lots of
info to share on both.

The first is search engine optimisation, or SEO , which helps you promote your
business in the unpaid search results.

The second is search engine marketing, or SEM , which lets you buy ad space in the
search results.
SEO is all about getting your site in front of the right people who are searching for
your products and services.

Now, there are lots of ways to do this, we’ll explain them in detail later on, but the
key is knowing what words people actually type in - the keywords. They are the
most relevant words to your business.

Understanding these will help you improve how you show up when these words are
searched. 

SEM , on the other hand, is when businesses pay to advertise to people searching
for specific keywords online.

Most major search engines use an auction system, where lots of different
businesses compete to show their ads by bidding on the keywords they’d like to
target.

Search is a great way to reach people, but we do lots more on the Internet. We
read news, check sports scores, browse recipes, watch videos and generally browse
lots and lots of interesting content across the web.

Alongside all of this content you might see ads. This is called display advertising.

Display ads appear everywhere online, and come in many formats like text, images,
video, and ads you can click on and interact with.

They can be a great way to get your message out there and you’re able to choose
the people you want to see your ads, and the websites and pages you’d like them
to appear on.

Social media sites - like Facebook, Twitter or Google+ - give another option for
boosting awareness of your business, and they’re especially useful for building
relationships with customers.
On most networks you’ll create pages or profiles for your business. You can then
connect with lots of people by starting meaningful conversations and sharing
content you’ve created whilst growing your business’ online social life. 

Before we wrap this up, let’s not forget one more pretty important way businesses
can use digital: email marketing.

We’re not talking about junk email, or “spam” that clutters up your inbox, but
sending relevant information and offers to people who have already said they’d like
to hear from you. 

You can get people to sign up, or “opt in” to receive emails from you. Then the rest
is up to you. You can send coupons to people who have made an appointment on
your site, advertise special events, or promote sale items. 
Knowing all the ways you can find people online—and knowing how they can find
you—can help launch your business big-time.

The more types of digital marketing you try, the more opportunities you’ll have to
reach your most valuable customers, wherever they happen to be in the digital
world.

Key learnings
You’re online, so now it’s time to bring in the customers you want. We’ll review how
to best help them find you, using some tried-and-tested online marketing avenues:

 search engines
 other websites
 social media
 email.

Next steps
Write down the ways you attract visitors now, and how you’d like to find them in
the future. Then for each, list the types of customer you want to target, and ideas
for the advertising messages you’d like to show.

Hey! By now, you know how important it is to figure out what you want to get out
of digital, how to establish your online presence, and start using digital marketing
to drive people to your digital home. 

But it’s also important to make sure that your digital plan is geared toward the long
haul. Let’s go over a few ways to do that: setting realistic expectations, tracking
your results and adapting to changes in technology and your industry.
The first thing to remember: don’t expect too much too soon. It can take a bit of
time to set up your digital presence and get noticed online.

So if you’re a hairdresser launching your very first website, your online shampoo
sales probably aren’t going to go through the roof straight away.

It takes time for search engines to find you, and for you to implement and improve
your digital marketing plan. So, try not to set unrealistic goals you’re unlikely to
meet.

A crucial part of any online plan is to measure what you’re doing and make sure it’s
working. This is called ‘analytics,’ and it can show you how people are finding your
website and what they do when they get there. 

We’ve got lots of videos that dive into the details of analytics, but generally,
knowing where your online visitors come from can help you figure out which of your
marketing campaigns are working and which ones aren’t.

If you know what people do once they’re on your website, it can help you figure out
if your investment in digital is working.

For example, in your hair salon, you don’t just want people to find your homepage,
you might want them to do lots of things like: watch your clever how-to videos,
make appointments, get driving directions to your store, or actually buy something.

By tracking what people do on your site, it can help you understand what’s working
and what’s not—so you can make changes and continually improve what you’re
doing.

A final point to mention. It’s important to remember that the online world is
constantly changing.

New tools, technologies and tactics pop up pretty much daily. So a good plan
combines the basic concepts that don’t change that often, with forward-thinking to
keep up with the latest and greatest.

Similarly, when things change in your industry, make sure your online world is kept
up to date.

Are you offering the latest hot trends in hairstyling? If hair dyes become the next
big thing, you can quickly update your adverts to show customers what you can do.

To set yourself up for success online, you need to look before you leap. And don’t
stop looking! A good plan will consider three things:

First, know your online goals - and set yourself realistic expectations.

Next, use analytics to track and measure what you’re doing and how it’s working.

And last, always keep up-to-date and adapt to changes in technology and the
industry you work in.

If your plan tackles all these things and you stay flexible, you’ll be well on your
way.

Key learnings
To go digital and do it the right way, you need a well-thought-out and flexible plan.
In this lesson we’ll talk through:

 setting realistic expectations

Next steps
Write down the digital goals you believe you can accomplish within six months.
Next to each goal, estimate the costs, time and resources you’ll need to achieve
them. Then, ask yourself: are you dependent on any one technology? That could be
a sign that you could be more flexible