Businesses fail all the time, in fact, more businesses fail than succeed in a year. An interesting thing is, most of these failed businesses had the potential and could have survived their first year, ultimately becoming a success story. If only the owner had prepared and planned well beforehand and had worked on the common reasons for failure. As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
The common reason for failure actually includes a combination of various other reasons, like lack of basic business knowledge, lack of experience in the field, insufficient market research, weak marketing strategy, poor cash handling, insufficient knowledge of the product, and many others.
The current pandemic and emphasis on social distancing has made a way for online businesses and pushed most businesses to consider online platforms for generating sales. Many businesses are now moving towards e-marketing and offering services to online audiences for better.
The online market is somewhat different from a traditional market, but bizarrely very same. Your online store has to be visible, the further away from the entrance point of the market you are fewer chances you have of making sales. Similarly, your store should have a nice display and showcasing your best products to impress prospective clients. Therefore, having a nice website that offers pleasant user experience is a must. You have a competition to beat, advertising and discount offers can help grab the attention and convince the potential customers to give you their money.
Despite the fact that online businesses have the opportunity to reach a bigger audience or target their audience more specifically, many still fail. Truth is, 90% of online businesses fail within the first four months of being launched. If you want your business to stay afloat even in the worst times like a pandemic, you need to watch out for the top 3 reasons online businesses fail.
1- Insufficient Market Analysis
As mentioned before, online businesses have competition and all the competitors are more or less battling to grab the same audience, but competition is good, it means you have a demand for what you are offering and people are willing to pay for your services, you just have to up your game and do better than your competitors.
You need to research and analyze the market, what color the logos are, what product range your competitors are offering, which platforms they are on and how they are engaging, what keywords they are targeting, how they are priced for the products and services.
If you fail to do this analysis, you will be jumping into the water headfirst without measuring the depths.
2- Business Plan Failures
When you are thoroughly done with the market analysis, use this information to create your own business plan. You need to have a business plan written and signed by all the partners before you actually start to work on building your business.
Other than cash flow management plan this should include if your business needs a website, mobile app or both, vendors you will be engaging with, the skill sets and services you would need to outsource, the number of staff you will be hiring, the number of salaries you will be paying, the sum you will be spending on marketing per annum, your pricing strategy, and legal and taxation matters.
This will also give you an insight into the timeline your business will follow to grow, so your business plan needs to be as realistic as possible. Account for unexpected occurrences that can disturb the cash flow.
3- Digital Marketing Strategy
As your business is online, you will require online marketing to promote your business. A digital marketing strategy can practically make or break the deal. You need to design a digital marketing strategy keeping in mind your targeted audience and their online buying behaviors. You have tools like paid advertising campaigns on search engines, and social media or organic reach through SEO. Currently, SEO is taking the Malaysia Online Market by storm. There are other options like email marketing and social media marketing. You can do your own research on the topic and spend hours, days, and months learning about designing a digital marketing strategy or consult a team of experts to help you out.
Altitude has worked with tons of startups and established businesses and has helped them figure out a marketing strategy that will generate tons of revenue. We Would love to do the same for you. We are offering to do website audits using professional SEO tools, and a team of digital marketing experts will be dedicated to helping your business grow in the online world and make a mark. Allow us to be a part of your journey, we are here to help and just a click away.
