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According to a report by Entrepreneur, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate that by the end of the 10th year, almost 70% of small businesses fail dramatically, showing only a 30% success rate. The same report states that nearly 20% of companies cease to exist in the first year itself, which is, without a doubt, a matter of grave concern. Although these numbers are not specifically about digital agencies, businesses of all types and sizes function similarly. To ensure that nothing holds you back on your road to success, you must be aware of the mistakes most businesses make. There are multiple reasons for the failure of a company, and you must be mindful of at least the common ones.
If you live under the impression that all you need to focus on is arranging funds for your business, perhaps you need to bring a slight change in your attitude. Financial security is not everything; you need to pay attention to a variety of other factors. Remember, most of the biggest companies in the world started from a garage. Be it Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google or Hewlett-Packard, all these tech giants started in a garage but dominate the market nowadays.
So if you aspire to own a digital marketing agency, focus on the following areas.
Figure Out Why Businesses Fail
Before taking a single step in this direction, please give yourself a considerable amount of time to identify the mistakes that most businesses make, leading to their failure. Investing your time in this direction will help strengthen your understanding of running an agency. When you take a deep dive, you will come to know how factors like poor leadership, improper planning, and inadequate market research end up crushing a business. Remember, every wannabe entrepreneur enters the market with high hopes, but not all succeed in transforming their dreams into reality. Those who taste success use their intelligence to the fullest and do things differently. Therefore, before you enter the choppy waters, make a checklist of all the mistakes that you must avoid at any cost.
Invest In Planning
Once you know what to avoid, you should then indulge in extensive planning and figure out the areas that require your attention the most. Talk about the kind of investment you want to make or businesses you want to target; you must have a clear picture of everything that you want to do. Taking mental notes is not enough; your plan has to be on paper. Remember, planning is the key to success.
Develop a Business Concept
Discover the market requirements, and figure out how your offerings can meet them. Until you are fully aware of the market needs, it won't be easy for you to create solutions to meet them. Define your unique selling proposition (USP). A powerful USP explicitly enunciates a particular benefit that your customers will obtain by relying on your products and services. It's a kind of benefit that they won't receive if they engage with the services of your competitors. In other words, it is something that distinguishes you from the rest.
Besides, having a clearly defined portfolio of services helps in taking you a long way. For example, you can include Web design & Development, Mobile Application Development, SEO Services, PPC Advertising Solutions, Social Media Marketing Services, Content Marketing, Email Marketing Services in your portfolio.
Focus on Market Research
The next step you need to take is investing your time and energy in conducting market research. While conducting market research, you have to consider several factors such as sketching the market opportunity, discovering your target customers, collecting as much information as possible about your competitors, and doing a SWOT analysis.
When it comes to knowing your potential customers, you should have information right from their age group and occupation to their interests and hobbies. The more information you have, the better a strategy you can create to reach them and engage with them. In addition, it also plays a significant role in bettering your offerings.
As getting a better understanding of your potential customers helps you strengthen your marketing and sales strategies, engaging in competitor analysis enables you to enhance your approach and improve the quality of your products and services. Besides that, conducting SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is equally crucial. Having a clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses allows you to become better at what you do.
Another imperative thing that you need to perform while doing market research is to measure your market potential.
Establish Your Business
Rent an office, determine your staffing needs and then start building a team that can deliver on promises. From hiring human resource professionals and accountants to sales professionals, digital marketers, and web designers and developers, you must fill all the necessary positions with experienced and talented people. Besides, you must have all the essential policies and processes in place to avoid and spot inconsistencies.
Set the Right Business Model
No matter how innovative products or services you offer, if you fail to have an appropriate business model, your hard work might not translate into success ever. In other words, to progress continuously, you must have a business model offering a reasonable price, compelling messaging, and a perfect delivery channel.
To choose a perfect business model, you need to focus on your customer needs and discover how they buy the products and services you plan to offer. You also have to take into account your USP and consider different revenue streams.
Promote Your Offerings
For acquiring clients, you have to promote your business like anything. And to create awareness about your business, you have to rely on innovative digital marketing techniques. Building a compelling website and investing in SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and content marketing can strengthen your online presence and help you acquire clients. You have to continuously invest in marketing and advertising to stay ahead of the game.
To conclude, once you start serving your clients, you should focus on quality, meet deadlines, clear up their doubts, and never hesitate to go above and beyond to meet their expectations.
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