When asked how to grow business online, popular responses include: build 'it', 'they' will come, or 'build a better mousetrap and they will beat a path to your door'.

'They' referred to potential clients and 'it' meant your business.  

It's hard to believe, but veteran business owners still give this advice.

Countless business owners have gone on to act on this advice, and build 'it', only to fail within a few months.

Why?

'They' never came.

'They' made purchases or took up your offers/services, though inconsistent and without feedback.

The steps above (build, package offers, referrals, and feedback) refer to a system known as a funnel. As business owners who want to grow businesses, a lack of effective and targeted steps, places the business on the road to failure.

Let’s consider some important elements for online business growth and what you can do.

From the time you start to exchange things or services for money, in a consistent and systematic way, you have a business or a busy-ness (you get busy).

Every business goes through stages, known as a business life cycle. The four recognized stages of a business life cycle include, startup, rapid growth, maturity, decline, rebirth and the death phases.

According to a famous statistic by Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 people who read this report and have a business will complete the death phase of their businesses life cycle before the end of the next 18 months. A Startup Genome Report uses the term, ‘self-destruct’ for failed businesses. This means that the failure of a business in a majority of cases is due to wrong choices made by business owners.

Among the 20% who succeed or the 80% who fail?

Your business may be on the road to decline or the latter stages of the business life cycle.

Is there hope?

A lot can be done. We have distilled below the elements that should inform your decisions related to your business. This should help you improve the chance of being among the 20% who succeed.

This structure has been organized into systems which should add a turbo boost to your business for revenue growth. Also, it can help paint a realistic picture of where you are and what can be done, regardless of the years you’ve been in business and the stage of the business life cycle.

Assess your business for the presence and effectiveness of these systems. Where absent, implement them today.

Where present, evaluate them further for efficiency and make adjustments where necessary.

1. Conduct or Update Market Research

Always start with the basics.

Failure to conduct market research is a fundamental mistake that most business owners make when starting out, and even way into their business.

To get an idea of the market (ideal clients) needs and wants, search for answers to questions such as,

• Do people need your proposed service?
• Who may be interested in my service/offer (ideal audience; demographics)?
• How are others in my (proposed) niche offering their service/products (an estimate would do)?
• Is the potential audience satisfied (check for complaints on related forums or competitor offers)?

To follow along, download this worksheet for personal use. Provide your answers in the blank spaces given.

2. Map Your Customer Journey

Map your potential customer journey from before, during and after using your services.

Here we talk about funnel mapping, which is simply a system to encourage regular purchases of your services or offers.

All through the top, middle and the bottom of the funnel or system, processes have to be in place to ensure consistent influx and retention within your funnel.

A look through buyer funnels from other clients in your niche can make a huge difference in your income at the year-end or meeting your revenue goals.

3. Visibility and Awareness

Get potential clients and their friends and extended friends to have you and your services at the top-of-mind.

Achieve the topmost visibility possible with consistency in using any or all of the following,

• Brand Positioning through White Paper Writing- establish authority
• Content Marketing - establish your business as an educator in your niche
• Social Media Visibility – get visible and make potential clients on social media aware of your business. You don’t have to post manually every day. Automated solutions can help you post content and save time for other business-related activities
• Video Marketing - Repurpose content into video format for maximum reach
• Podcasts - audio talks on related topics or solutions to potential problems of your target audience comes in handy
• Press Releases/Public Relations/Media Kit  – provide comments or posts to reach out to media houses
• Email Marketing - notify and educate subscribers of new posts, reports, offers and sales. Focuses offer/service email sequences and abandoned cart sequences are effective.

4. Regular Monitoring & Tweaks

A business must have goals, short-term and long-term.

Regular measurement of important metrics can help you know what’s working and what’s not. These assessments can make a huge difference in your annual revenue.

Also, awareness of your cash flow is critical. This includes financial statements, regular follow-ups on failed payments, consistent checks and balances of expenses and income are indispensable.

The cheatsheet below contains recommended, free or freemium resources for monitoring and other aspects of business growth. For convenience, you can download the cheatsheet here.