Want To Launch Out Of Lockdown? Try These Top Tips
Lockdown has been an utter disaster for businesses and economies over the country, and indeed the world. Consumer confidence has faded now too, as experts believe there to be a financial recession on the horizon which is likely to be global in nature and include many different countries. So many businesses have gone out of business, and well laid plans have gone to ruin. Those who wanted to start their business in 2020 have run into an uncomfortable position whereby they simply can’t proceed, especially if they were launching into the travel and tourism industry, or perhaps the high street. These plans have been put back. As have existing businesses’ plans to grow and change. If you’re planning to launch out of lockdown then these tips can help you. They’re generic in nature, and can help you start to get the right kinds of ideas percolating in your head. Afterwhich, you can look to more bespoke methods unique to your industry.
Drum Up Interest
Before you launch you want as many people as possible interested in your product or services. This means you can have more of a running start. The best thing about this is that you can do a lot of it yourself. First, you need to build a business presence on social media. There is lots of information out there regarding Facebook and Twitter marketing, but getting yourself set up is the first step. Then you need to start shouting about your business to anyone who will listen. If you run a blog, use it. If you don’t, consider setting one up as part of your website to help drive traffic to it. You want people talking about it, whether by word of mouth or online. Once you’ve drummed up interest you’ll land a lot easier when you actually pull the launch trigger.
Get Those Reviews In
It’s incredibly important to ensure you get early reviews, especially if you are product based, but service based offerings can apply too. Ask leading magazines and blogs for a review, and give them a product. The publicity generated from it will be worth so much to you and your business. You might have a little bit of fear around this, and that’s fair enough. No one wants a bad review. But if you do get a bad review, use the feedback. It could be invaluable. Then ask for another review. Rinse and repeat until the good ones start flowing in. You can shout out about these reviews on your social media pages and use them to push your products into the marketplace.
The Perfect Website
You need to ensure you develop a perfect and professional website, this is even more important if you are planning to trade online and online only. You might be tempted to do this yourself, but if you’ve got the funds you’d be much better off hiring an actual developer. You can hold them to account. Take a look at your competitor websites and see what they’re doing. Can you spot anywhere to make a change or improvement? Make sure the website is entirely logical. This means it needs to be easy for people to find a product from the landing page and purchase it. You don’t want to drag people through dozens of pages before they can buy. Buying needs to be easy too. Let people use debit and credit cards. You could even let people use Apple Pay, its far faster and way more convenient. If you offer expensive goods, consider a pay by instalment option. It might get more sales as people can split the costs. Your website landing page needs to be inviting. Think of it like a shop front.
Promotion!
A lot of businesses launch with a promotion. Money off, a sale, buy one get one free, etc. It’s all been done before, and for one key reason. It works. People will flock to you, and if they like you, they’ll come back. Be careful though, you need to ensure you still make a profit so make sure you crunch the numbers as best possible. Also, you don’t want to become one of those businesses who always have a promotion running. If you do that, it loses its impact pretty fast. Then when you do have real ones, or new ones, it won’t drum up the proper trade. Really think about it before launching. You need to ensure you have the warehouse space to facilitate a promotion, the staff, etc. It isn’t always easy, especially if you’re turning over a lot of orders.
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