Launching Your First Online Business: An Ultimate Guide

Launching your first online business can be a daunting task. Everything is new and hard to accomplish. You may not even have an idea of what to sell online. And even if you’ve figured it out, more questions pop up.

How sure am I that this idea will work?

How do I go about building a website customers love?

How can I run profitable  marketing campaigns?

Just Google it?

Now…

If it were that easy, every aspiring digital entrepreneur will be running an online business. But that isn’t the case. We have far more students of business gurus than online business owners. So how can you learn to launch your first online business and take real action?

We’ve done the hard work of curating the most important information on how to go from zero ideas to launching your first online business. Take your time to see how these 3 steps will help you start the process of launching your online business today.

1. Research and Development

This is where you grow and nurture ideas into viable business plans. Many new entrepreneurs fail because of their flawed approach to launching an online business. One aspect of their flawed approach is the ideation process. You’ll learn how to come up with ideas and test them to see if they’re worth your time and effort.

2. Infrastructure

Brick-and-mortar stores and other physical businesses worry about location, rent, and distribution. It’s no different for your online business. Instead of store shelves and a cashier counter, you have your website and content. Web hosting/marketplace fees replace store rent and being visible on platforms your target market frequents satisfy location and distribution. 

Now, for those selling products, logistics like manufacturing and distribution become more prominent in launching your online business. Figure out if your manufacturer has storage space so you don’t get overwhelmed when sales start to soar. This is why we’ll keep you prepared by showing you the ropes with social media, search engines, marketplaces, and distribution. 

3. Sales and Marketing

So now you’ve set up your website, how do you get people to visit your store?

There are basically 3 ways to get clients. You start by

• Pitching them through calls and email.
• Creating educational content through blogs and podcasts to generate leads.
• Running Ad campaigns to land leads and sales. 

Cold Pitching

What you sell, coupled with your financial standing, will determine what type of marketing process you follow. If you’re a freelancer or an agency owner, sending cold emails and calls would serve you well. One drawback of cold pitching is its low sales percentage. Here’s a video below to help you get clients through cold pitching.

Content Marketing

You can create Search Engine Optimized content in the form of blog posts, podcast episodes, and YouTube videos to generate leads and sales. It has the highest percentage of sales when done right but takes time to mature. 

It’s also cheap to build if you outsource the work and will only cost you time and effort if you do it yourself. It’s the safest and best method for newbie online business owners because you learn important skills like work ethic, consistency, and digital marketing. 

Ad Campaigns

Contrary to what most marketing gurus say, writing Ads and running Ad campaigns is a hard skill to learn. But this doesn’t mean you can’t learn it anyway. It’s just that it’ll take you some time and effort. There are good digital marketing courses you can take to successfully launch your first online business. If you have the funds, hire a copywriter who has gotten results for businesses for the one you’re launching online. 

If you can’t afford them, start scouring the web to find courses and free content writing on ads like Facebook Copy, Google Ads, email campaigns, and more. Learn about funnels, influencer, and email marketing. You’ll most likely lose some money in the bid to learn to advertise but when you do, it’ll be worth the investment. This of course is a better option if you’re launching an e-commerce store.

Taking the Right Action…

The guide above has covered all you need to start your first online business. Launching your first online business is going to be tough for longer than you expect. You haven’t done it before and there are many factors at play when it comes to entrepreneurship.

However, you can only fail if you give up. Don’t be discouraged because entrepreneurship can also be one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do. So stop reading and take lots of action right away.