Picking an online business model is only half the battle. The other half of the battle is getting started on your journey with your online business model. In this little tutorial, I want to talk about where to get started, and what you’re going to need.
Almost every business model needs a strong foundation built for it. Just like building a house, if you don't have a strong foundation for it then it will crumble. The same thing will happen with your business if you don't build a strong foundation for it.Click To Tweet
So, let’s talk about what a business foundation is.
A Business Foundation Consists Of Three Things:
- A (or multiple) email list builders – These are squeeze pages, optin boxes, and things like that. You can build full squeeze pages or just have optin boxes in your content or in popups on your site.
- A follow up email sequence – Once you get someone on your list, you need to have a sequence of emails that welcome them into your business, educates them about your business, and offers them what you have for sale in your business.
- A blog – A blog is one of the most powerful and diverse marketing tools available to you. You can use them for many things like content marketing, creating content that builds a relationship with potential customers, list building, and so much more.
Now depending on your business will depend on how you set up each of these things and how you use them.
Here Are Three Examples For You To Show You How You Could Set Your Business Foundation Up:
Example 1: You have an affiliate marketing business model, so maybe you set up a squeeze page with a free offer so you can build your email list in your niche. You then have a follow-up sequence that gets everyone who joins your email list to know who you are, trust you, and buy things through your affiliate links. You have a blog where you post content that you use to make sales, get traffic with content marketing, position yourself as an authority, etc. This would be your business foundation for your affiliate marketing business model.
Example 2: You’re an expert in the dating niche and you sell your own products that help people with their dating. You would set up a squeeze page offering the best dating tips to those who subscribe. Then you would have a follow-up sequence that gets your subscribers to know who you are, build a relationship with them by giving them the best tips, and finally to start selling your products to them. You would then have a blog where you constantly post content you create as a dating expert and use that content to sell your products, use in your content marketing to get traffic and use it to build your list, among many other tactics.
Example 3: You have a t-shirt business where you sell t-shirts that you create and design. On your website, you would have an opt-in box that offers people a 20% discount on their first order. Then you could have a follow-up sequence that talks about your brand, and why you created it for people, and then you could offer your t-shirts in additional emails. You could create a blog where you share information about your company, show behind-the-scenes information, etc. You could then use that content in your emails, as content for social media, or anything else you wanted to.
Now, these are just examples, but these examples should give you a good idea of how to build your business foundation, but let’s talk about the tools that will allow you to easily do all of this.
Here are the tools you will need for each piece of your business foundation:
List builder – Depending on how you’re building your list will depend on what you do, but Thrive Leads is the best tool for building squeeze pages, having popups, creating opt-in forms, etc.
Email sequence – Not only will you need to write your email sequence, but you will also need an autoresponder to collect your leads and deliver your email sequence to your leads. I recommend that you hire a copywriter to write your emails and I recommend that you use GetResponse for your autoresponder.
Blog – WordPress is what most people use to create a blog. You should use the script and install it on your website and not the free hosted version. Once you have your blog installed you can pick a theme (design) for it, and any plugins (add-ons that allow your blog to do things that it doesn’t do by default) that you will need and immediately begin posting your content to it.
Hot Tip: There are so many tools out there, that you could literally get yourself totally lost and never get anything accomplished if you don’t just pick the tools you need and move forward. Do some research, but don’t waste time “tool hopping”!
Now, I can’t think of a niche or a business model that doesn’t need a business foundation, but it will be different for each business model. Take a look at your business model and make a plan for your business foundation. Decide how you will build your list, what your email sequence will include, and what you will use your blog for and how you will use that blog in your marketing.
Once you have your business foundation all set up and ready to go I do recommend creating a traffic strategy and getting some traffic to it all. Make sure you have analytics installed and then look at your numbers and see how everything is working for you.
What is your opt-in rate?
Â
Are people opening your emails?
Â
Are people clicking links in your emails?
Â
Are you making money from those clicks?
Â
Are people interacting on your blog?
Â
Are you getting traffic with your blog?
Those are all questions you can answer by looking at your analytics. If any one part isn’t working for you then you can work on “tweaking” it until it does work or hiring a professional to come in and help you.
Whatever you decide to do, you must put the work in to get your business foundation setup and working and then you have to make sure it works, or all of your efforts will be in vain. It’s great to have a foundation setup, but if it’s not working to build your list and make you sales then it’s not a strong foundation and you will want to work on making it strong so your business can succeed.
Now that you know exactly how to get started with your business model there’s nothing holding you back. Create a plan and go get started!