9 Ways to Start an Online Business from Zero for Beginners - Anyone can learn how to do business online, including you. Anyone can successfully start an online business as long as they use the right guidelines. By reading this guide, you have started the first steps of your online business success.In this article, you will find out how to learn online business for beginners. Starting from determining the product to be sold to marketing the product. How to learn business for beginners? Read on in full below.
Online Business Ways for Beginners
Starting an online business is not easy, but not impossible. There are at least nine main steps in starting and learning a free online business. Here are nine steps how to do an online business:
1. Find the Problems Facing the Market
Products are a vital component of an online business. With a product that fits the market's needs, you still have the potential to win the market. What happens if you provide a product that the market doesn't need? Most likely fail!
The above statement is not without evidence. According to CBS Insight research, 42 percent of start-ups go bankrupt because they fail to identify market needs. Why did they fail? Because the products they offer are not successful in solving consumer problems.
Remember, by buying your product, the first thing on the consumer's mind is that their problem is solved.
So when starting an online business, whatever type of business it is, the first thing you should think about is whether your product is needed by the market? Can your product solve consumer problems?
1.a. Identify problems faced by consumers
How to find the product that the market needs? The first step you have to take in learning to do business online is find trouble! Yup, that's right, you have to look for and identify what kind of problems the market is facing.
No need to worry about running out of trouble. There are hundreds or even thousands of problems that consumers face. You need to do field observations to find problems that many people actually face.
For example, based on your observations, there are many business people around you who want to go online but don't know how. For that, you can sell web hosting
1.b. Look for business opportunities anywhere
To find the right problem, you have to be open to all possibilities. Don't get hung up on your own assumptions. You need to observe on the internet, social media, review forums, marketplaces, to Facebook groups.
Apart from that, you also need to talk directly to market samples. You can hold a simple interview to get direct insight from the people facing the problem.
1.c. Choose problems with business potential
In the previous step of learning online business for beginners, you have searched and identified the problems facing the market. You could find dozens or even hundreds of problems facing the market. Now it's time for you to choose which problems you can solve.
Not all problems have the potential to become an online business. You need to cross out the problems that have no business potential. Then choose a problem that has business potential and you have the solution.
2. Market Research
After choosing a problem that has business potential, now is the time to start focusing on research in that field. Why do you have to do market research first? Because this is one of the best ways to find online business ideas.
You need objective data as the foundation of a strong online business. Through this market research, you can get these data. So you can make decisions based on objective data, not just assumptions and opinions.
2.a. Keyword research
The easiest way to check online business trends is to do keyword research on search engines. What do people look for when searching for the problem in search engines? From the search results, you can find what kind of solution they need.
In addition, you also need to check the search trends, what keywords are related, how large the search volume is, to the location of the origin of the search. You can run this keyword research using the keyword tool. There are several keyword tools that you can use, from Google Trends, Ubersuggest, Semrush, to Ahrefs.
2.b. Check trends on social media
In addition to trends in Google search results, you also need to check trends on social media. Social media is a place where people can share their complaints, including reviewing products or services.
Type keywords related to the problem you found in the social media search field. You will find various posts of people regarding the matter.
2.c. Join the forum
Consumers usually also have their own forum or group to discuss the products they use. For example, consumers of makeup and skin care products have forums such as Female Daily. Another example, consumers of the best domain and hosting services have a Web Hosting Discussion forum.
2.d. Create a survey
Once you've found your findings on search engines, social media, and online forums, you can create a survey. The information you get from these various media is only a superficial problem.
Through surveys, you can get even more detailed information. In addition, you can also ask things that you do not find in the media above. With surveys, you can also ask for suggestions and input from potential customers directly.
3. Competitor Analysis
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”
Presumably the above adage is suitable to be applied when you start an online business. In order to beat your competitors, you have to study them first. You can do product research and apply SWOT to find out what their strengths are, how they approach consumers, and what their weaknesses are.
With this information, you can create products that can compete with competitors. To analyze the competition with competitors, here are the steps:
3.a. Group competitors
You can group competitors into three main categories, namely main competitors, secondary competitors, and tertiary competitors. The full explanation is below:
• Main competitors: they are businesses that have the same target market as yours or businesses that have products that are similar to yours.
• Secondary competitors: they offer the same product, but target different markets. For example, you have a guest house business, then your secondary competitor is a five-star hotel.
• Tertiary competitors: they do not directly compete with your target market. However, they produce products that are still directly related to yours.
Grouping your competitors helps you to focus. Your main priority is to win the competition with online businesses in the main competitor category.
3.b. Visit competitor's website
After grouping your competitors, you can start to focus on several competitors, especially your main competitor. Visit their website and pay attention to every detail. Here are some questions that can help you identify competitor websites:
• What do their product photos look like? How do they display the product and its details?
• What does the product description contain? How detailed is the information they provide?
• What does the call to action (CTA) look like on their website?
• Do they provide newsletters? If so, what benefits do they provide to subscribers?
• How do they display social media on the website?
• How fast is their website loading?
• Is their website optimized for mobile devices?
• Do they have a blog? If so, what is the blog content like?
• What kind of customer service methods do they provide? Do they provide 24-hour help?
• Try their support service and see how long it takes them to respond to your message.
• Do they have a special promotion page? If so, what kind of promotions do they offer? How often do they have promotions?
• What are the main menus on their website?
• Do they display customer testimonials on the website?
• What payment methods do they offer?
• What delivery methods do they provide?
The list of questions above are only some of the important things to consider when analyzing competitor websites. You can add questions that match your competitors' needs and websites. In essence, you have to create a website that is much better than competitors.
3.c. Visit competitor's social media
In addition to the official website, you also need to analyze your competitors' social media. Here are some questions that can help you analyze your competitors' social media:
• What social media do they use?
• How actively do they post on social media?
• Are they responsive to customer comments on social media?
• What is the concept of their post on social media like?
• Do they leverage influencers on social media? If so, who are the influencers?
3.d. Look for competitor reviews
Analyzing competitors' websites and social media is not enough, you also need to check their customer reviews. From product reviews, you can get important information about the advantages and disadvantages of direct competitors from customers.
Here's a list of questions to help you analyze competitor customer reviews:
• What makes customers satisfied with products from competitors?
• What do customers complain about from competitors' products?
• Are competitors' products too expensive for customers or are they just right?
• How long does it take for competitors to deliver goods?
• What features are most important to customers?
• Are customers satisfied with the customer service from competitors?
• What do customers expect from competitors' products?
• Is the competitor's product sufficient to solve the customer's problem?
3.e. Identify competitor's market positioning
After analyzing websites, social media, to competitor customer reviews, you can conclude your competitor's market positioning. Market positioning is the image or image of the product in the customer's perception.
For example, although they both sell cars, Lexus and Avanza have different market positions. On the one hand, Lexus positions its car as a symbol of luxury. On the other hand, Avanza positions its car as a family car at an affordable price.
To make it easier to identify competitors' market positioning, you can use the question template below:
• What are customers looking for in a competitor's product? Are they looking for low prices? Or are they looking for certain benefits regardless of price?
• What are competitors highlighting to win the competition? What features and benefits do they highlight most often in their advertisements and promotions?
• What is the uniqueness of competitors' products?
In order to get as much information as possible, you can sign up for their newsletter, subscribe to their blog, or even buy their products. That way, you can identify in depth what stands out and what is lacking from competitors.
3.f. Compare competitor prices
Price is still one of the most important factors that consumers consider when buying a product. According to Stax Insight, 50 percent of consumers consider price as one of the main factors when buying a product.
Therefore, you must compare the prices of all your competitors' products. What is the average price of the same product in the market? At what rate, consumers are willing to spend money to buy the product.
4. Find a Business Model
Your research does not stop at the target customers and products to be sold. Next, you need to choose which business model is the most profitable. Because even if you sell the same product, the way to sell it can be different.
To better understand, let's just talk about an example. Let's say you are interested in selling a tablet specifically for reading ebooks. If you have sufficient capital, you can stock up some physical products to sell through the website or marketplace.
It's different when you don't have capital. You need to work with a supplier who sells tablets, then sell the tablets through a dropshipping system. That way, you don't have to worry about product stock and inventory.
Another scenario does not involve selling physical products. If you feel comfortable being a blogger and working with brands to promote products, then you might be suitable to be involved in affiliate marketing schemes or become a publisher via Google Adsense.
With an affiliate program, you will get a specific link or code that potential customers use to shop. If a potential customer purchases via a link or uses a specific code from you, then you will get a commission from that transaction.
Whatever your choice of online business model, in the end you still need to prepare technical things to run an online business. In the next section, we will discuss how to showcase your online business through websites and marketplaces.
5. Determine the Target Market
The market research and competitor analysis that you have done above will be the basis for the next step, which is to determine the target market. Your target market is a group of people with similar characteristics and are likely to buy your product.
Each product has its own market. For example, even though they are both watches, Rolex and Casio have different target markets. Rolex is more targeting the high-class market, while Casio is targeting the middle class market.
With a more specific target market, you can develop products that suit market needs. In addition, you will also find it easier to develop a marketing strategy.
5.a. Group target market
At least you need to group your target market based on two main factors, namely demographics and psychographics.
Here you are indeed required to estimate who your potential customers are, but that doesn't mean it can be arbitrary. You can use the data that has been obtained in the previous steps to determine the general characteristics of your potential customers.
5.b. Create a Specific Buyer Persona
With the data above, it's time for you to create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is the ideal image of a buyer for your product. Usually, to be able to create a buyer persona, an interview session with several consumers is needed. That way you can get a more real picture of what your customers are like.
There are two types of buyer personas, namely positive and negative buyer personas. A positive buyer persona is someone who is most likely to buy your product. On the other hand, a negative buyer persona is the opposite of a positive buyer persona, they have no potential to buy your product.
For example, high-end clothing brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Versace. Their positive buyer personas are people from the upper economic class, while the negative buyer personas are people from the lower middle class.
By limiting the target market to certain groups, you can focus on mastering that target market. In addition, you can also more easily develop a marketing strategy that suits the target market.
6. What Products Can You Sell Online?
After doing market research, competitor analysis, and determining the target market, now all you have to do is decide which product you are going to sell. So, what products can you sell online?
This question can only be answered based on data from market research, competitor analysis, and your target market. Make sure the product you make is in accordance with the needs of the target market.
Here are some examples of the types of products that are commonly sold online:
• Physical or digital products – Mobile phones, furniture, snacks, medical devices, souvenirs, ebooks, or software.
• Services – Booking tickets, booking hotels, shipping goods, or online marketing services.
Whatever the choice, the product or service you offer must have a unique selling proposition (USP) to be able to compete with competitors.
7. Create a Website
Starting an online business is not finished if you have not created a website. Just like selling offline that requires a shop, an online business also needs a "shop". Why a website? Why should you create a website for your online business?
Because customers want it. According to a Verisign survey, 56 percent of people don't trust online businesses that don't have a website.
What happens if customers don't trust your online business? Yes, they are definitely looking for other alternatives. Remember, there are a lot of competitors out there who can grab your customers.
If you don't want customers to run to competitors, you have to convince them that your online business really exists and is not a scam. Well, one of the most effective ways to convince customers is to have an official website.
By creating an official website, you will have a domain. Simply put, a domain is a unique website address and it is impossible for two domain names to be exactly the same. So you can easily direct consumers to visit the official website that you have created.
Creating a website for an online business is easy. You don't need to master programming or coding to be able to create a website. How to? You can use WordPress to create an online store website.
8. Market Products with the Right Strategy
Now is the time to market the online business that you have built. Online business marketing cannot be careless. You need the right strategy to be able to market your online business to the right target market with the right marketing message. Here are online business marketing strategies that you can apply:
8.a. Take advantage of Google My Business
The first thing you need to do is register your online business on Google My Business. Google My Business is an online business application that is useful for making it easier for potential customers to find out complete business information. From the business name, company address, company phone number, company email address, operating hours, company website, office photos, to customer reviews.
As trivial as it may seem, Google My Business has many benefits. From businesses appearing on Google Maps, customer reviews, to communication media for customers.
In addition, leveraging Google My Business is a great way to promote your online business to nearby potential customers.
So make sure your business is listed on Google My Business. For a full explanation, you can read the article How to Register and Verify Google My Business.
8.b. SEO Optimization
To be easily found by potential customers on Google, your online business website must be on the first page of search results. You have to compete with thousands or even tens of thousands of other websites to get the first rank on Google.
So how do you get your website to appear on the first page of Google search results? The trick is SEO optimization.
8.c. Maximize social media
It is mandatory for online business owners to use social media as a marketing channel. Considering that the Indonesian people are indeed people who are active in social networks.
Therefore, one of the best ways to promote your online business is by making use of social media.
However, you can not carelessly use social media for online business.
Managing social media without a strategy is like working without a plan. It is not clear what targets to achieve, who to reach, and what problems to solve. Running social media marketing without a strategy will have a negative impact on your business. Therefore, the first step in social media marketing is to develop a strategy.
In addition to the three strategic steps above, there are many other steps.
9. Keep Loyal Customers
You can just keep targeting to get new customers. But don't forget, old customers are just as important.
In fact, making promotions to get new customers is more expensive. Especially when compared to taking care of your old customers. The cost of acquiring a new customer can even be up to 25 times compared to maintaining a relationship with a loyal customer. Like Niagahoster, which provides domain and hosting promos to its customers.
If you focus on driving transactions from existing customers to only 5 percent, you can increase your profits from 25 to 95 percent. Amazing, right?
Want to know ways to retain online business customers? Let's check one by one below:
1. Dedicate Customer Support to customers.
A study mentions "not being appreciated" as the reason customers don't want to buy a product anymore. Though there will be times when your product or service is less than excellent. There will also be times when your customers have questions or complaints about the brand.
If you can't handle customer complaints, be prepared to lose loyal customers. Therefore, you should invest in customer support for your brand.
2. Loyalty cards.
Loyalty card is one way to invite customers to continue to buy and use a brand. Loyalty card systems generally provide certain points that are saved up to a certain value. Then, customers will get free gifts or products.
This system is quite effective to use for the B2C business model. Retail products or daily necessities usually adopt a lot of loyalty cards. Because, that's the kind of product that repeated purchases.
If you are interested in adopting a loyalty card system, make sure you give your customers lots of options to earn points. Not only buying, you can give points for reviews or share content about brands.
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is email containing commercial content or messages sent to customers or potential customers, such as information about products, ongoing promos or events, etc. Not all customers follow a brand's social media. They also don't necessarily check your website or brand marketplace. Therefore, contacting customers via email is a more effective way.
Communication via email or email marketing is an effective and personal way. In this way, you can promote the latest products to specific customer segments.
5 Things to Avoid When Starting an Online Business From Scratch
Many people start an online business, but not all of them are successful. Instead of profit, many people have to be willing to bear the loss because their online business is out of business. So, so that your business doesn't suffer the same fate, here are 5 mistakes to avoid when starting an online business from scratch
1. Choose a business that you don't control at all
With the online method, you can start any business that is in your head. Many people choose a business only based on big profits, without having knowledge or interest in that field. It is true that the business can run, but usually a business like this will not last too long. Not only because the benefits are not as expected, but also because we don't enjoy what we do.
2. Poor planning
For starters, you must first make a business plan. Why is this important? Business planning will keep your business on the right track. Before opening a shop, you must first know the product you are going to market, how to market it, whether it will be sold online or offline, what promotions will be carried out, the obstacles that will arise as well as how to overcome them, the capital and profits you will get. All of this can be answered with proper research and calculations. Unfortunately, many people are lazy to do research. The calculations are random. As a result, when the business starts, they are overwhelmed because many things are unexpected and they are not prepared to deal with it.
3. Wrong in managing finances
Managing finances is important in a business, especially if you are a beginner. You have to carefully calculate how much capital you spend on this online business, the advantages and disadvantages. Miscalculation, not only profits will disappear, your business is even threatened with bankruptcy. In addition to miscalculations, another mistake that is often made is, they mix personal and business finances. As a result, the calculations that have been made carefully become messy. Because all the money that comes into your personal pocket, you do not have a clear record of how much capital was spent and the profit. Worse yet, because of messy calculations, you can no longer distinguish which money is for personal and which is for business, so you spend it unconsciously for personal gain.
4. Insist on doing everything yourself
At the beginning of the business, we do have to do everything ourselves. Starting from taking care of production, packing, to shipping everything is done alone. This is natural, because as a novice businessman, we have not been able to pay people to help us. But over time, the business we started will grow. Orders are getting more and more so we can't handle everything alone. In times like these, many people insist on doing everything themselves because they don't want to spend money to pay workers. Although at first glance beneficial, this stingy nature is actually very detrimental. Besides being tiring, you also have the potential to lose customers. How come? So it goes, since you are working alone, you have to handle all orders alone. Because there are too many, it is not impossible that many orders will be late. Things like this are trivial, but can make customers disappointed and eventually turn to competitors. If left unchecked, you will lose lost customers.
5. Wrong choice of business partner
Starting an online business is not as difficult as opening an offline business. But sometimes we need a partner to start so that everything becomes easier. Now it's the matter of choosing this business partner that you should be aware of. This is because, the name of the business, will not always be easy. There are just obstacles and problems that arise, whether it's from production, delivery, or customers. At times like this, your relationship with your business partner will be tested. The right business partners will support and strengthen each other. But if the business partner you choose is the wrong person, they will actually be a threat. Instead of supporting, they choose to blame, even casually walk away and let you handle everything alone.
Tips for starting an online business from scratch for beginners
With the opportunities that exist, online business is sure to make a lot of people interested in doing it. Indeed, online business has good prospects in the future, but there are still many who do not know how to start from scratch.
Are you one of those who are interested in doing business online? Don't worry. We will give you a complete guide to starting an online business from scratch with 4 easy steps.
This way, you can definitely start your dream online business smoothly, whether it's an online clothing shop, selling on Shopee, a food business, a home business, etc. Check out more information below.
1. Identify the Skills or Types of Business that You Like
First and foremost, make sure you recognize your abilities. This applies if you want to do business online by offering services such as freelance. If you have good writing skills, then become a freelance writer.
This also applies when you are interested in becoming a dropshipper or affiliate marketing. Before deciding to run the business, make sure you can do product promotions, because that is the key to business success as a product intermediary.
Another context, if you want to open an online shop, make sure you also sell products that you really like. For example, if you really like food, then try opening an online shop that sells products in the form of food.
2. Market Research and Analysis
After recognizing your own abilities, the next step is market analysis. Identify what consumers really need today. Then determine what kind of consumer groups will be the target consumers/clients of your business.
Finally, understand the advantages and disadvantages of business competitors, then take advantage of existing gaps to become your business opportunity. Let us apply this theory to an example. For example, nowadays people prefer CV templates over creating them.
From there, you can take advantage of it by offering freelance services to create a CV or sell CV templates. Then, you plan to target fresh graduates as your target clients. On the other hand, previously there were certainly many CV making services or selling CV templates.
Then, you analyze competitors who have good reputations and find loopholes that are relatively expensive. The solution is to offer a CV with the same quality as competitors but at a low price.
3. Choose a Trusted Third Party
A business will not be able to stand alone, but requires cooperation from various parties. One of the important parties to support online business is a third party such as suppliers, producers, goods/service collectors such as freelance sites or marketplaces.
To start an online business, you must be able to map out which of the third parties is the most trusted. For example, make sure you register on a freelance site that is crowded with clients and has good transaction securities.
Another example, map the product that you will promote as a dropshipper or affiliate marketing. Choose a business that has a good product reputation, a legitimate company, and high sales prospects. Do not carelessly market unclear products in the market.
4. Formulate a Business Model
The previous stage is the stage of collecting materials to be formulated into your own version of an online business model. At this stage, it's time for you to be creative and determine three things: the product/service you offer, how you make money, and a business promotion strategy.
For example, the existing data shows that people of X like to buy clothes for K-pop merchandise. Then you come across the idea of opening jastip when you visit South Korea. Next, determine what percentage of the profit you take from the jastip business.
Also make sure to specify the payment system, whether at the beginning or at the end. Finally, you have to promote this business so that it reaches the ears of the X community. This last stage is the difficult one.
If community X is a digital user, then you can learn digital marketing, for example promoting personal social media accounts. In addition to learning marketing strategies, you also need to strengthen personal branding, which is an important factor for a business.
Done, now you as a beginner already know how to easily start an online business. Meaning after this, you just have to put it into practice for your dream online business.
How? Do you already understand how to start an online business from scratch?
Hopefully the explanation above can be a useful free online business study material for you. This online business learning article for beginners is expected not only to be reading material. But, it also helps you start an online business to success.