25 easy ways to grow your online business

25 EASY WAYS TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author. DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented in this eBook represents the views of the publisher as of the date of publication. The publisher reserves the rights to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions. This eBook is for informational purposes only. The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibilities for any liabilities resulting from the use of this information. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author and the publisher cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any similarities with people or facts are unintentional. AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER: Joan Yankowitz may receive compensation from some of the entities listed in this eBook for referrals, as their “thank you” for sending you their way. However, Joan Yankowitz never recommends any service or product solely for the reason of receiving commissions (and neither should you) – Joan Yankowitz knows her reputation is on the line.

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Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................... 4

1. Build Your Email List .............................................................................. 4

2. Contact Some of Your Customers Personally ........................................ 5

3. Organize Your Desk .............................................................................. 6

4. Set Yourself a Challenge ....................................................................... 6

5. Get a Standing Desk ............................................................................. 7

6. Set Goals ............................................................................................... 8

7. Network ................................................................................................. 8

8. Stop Doing Tasks You Hate ................................................................... 9

9. Create Your Own Products .................................................................... 9

10. Prioritize Your Marketing Strategies .................................................. 10

11. Know Your USP ................................................................................. 10

12. Start Outsourcing .............................................................................. 11

13. Take a Day off ................................................................................... 12

14. Interview Other People in Your Field ................................................. 12

15. Take a Regular Look at Your Finances .............................................. 12

16. Raise Your Prices .............................................................................. 13

17. Collect Your Buyers’ Emails ............................................................... 13

18. Create Consistent Social Media Profiles ........................................... 14

19. Don’t Try to Market to Everyone ........................................................ 14

20. Highlight Benefits, Not Features ........................................................ 15

21. Add Visuals to Your Content .............................................................. 16

22. Don’t Overspend ............................................................................... 16

23. Take Advantage of Cross-Selling ...................................................... 17

24. Join a Mastermind Group .................................................................. 17

25. Sell More to Existing Clients .............................................................. 18

Bonus! Top Digital Marketing Resources ................................................ 19

About The Author .................................................................................... 20






Introduction Working online is never easy, and there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done that you need to. So use this as a resource that you can constantly refer back to. Your business is a work in progress; there are always ways to improve the way you do things. Pick a tip, implement it and see how it helps. Once you’ve mastered it, move onto the next one. Now let’s get to it. Here are 25 easy ways to grow your online business!

1. Build Your Email List We’ll start with the obvious since it’s the advice you’re most likely to have already heard online: “the money’s in the list!” People keep saying the same old thing because it’s true. You might be thinking you should focus on getting search engine traffic, or hits from social media. But the bottom line is that, although this works, you can never fully control whether Google chooses to place your site at the top of the search results, or whether Facebook chooses to show your updates to all your fans. An email list is something you have a lot more control over. If your site disappeared from the search engines overnight, you could still make a living from your email list. Plus, email marketing is a more direct way to get in touch with people than social media or search engine marketing. People are far more likely to hear what you have to say (even though you do still need to work hard to earn their trust).






Remember, the best time to start your email list was yesterday. Failing that, start today!

2. Contact Some of Your Customers Personally Building a successful business, whether online or offline, is all about building relationships with others. Building relationships with your customers means that they will keep coming back to buy more from you. And building relationships with other business owners means that they could just help you grow your customer base. If you want to improve those relationships, start making an effort to contact some of your customers and business contacts personally. Some ideas include:

Sending your top affiliates a birthday card.

Emailing a top customer thanking them and asking if they have any product requests.

Emailing a blogger who you admire and giving them your positive feedback.

Yes, this is time consuming, but you can set a doable goal try two emails per week. You’ll really notice the results!

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3. Organize Your Desk You spend so much time sat at your desk every week, but have you ever put much thought into how your desk layout makes you feel? Numerous studies have shown that certain items on our desks can have a psychological impact on our work. Here are a few tips:

Messy desks encourage creativity.

Tidy desks encourage conformity.

Decorating your desk with personal items can improve productivity.

The same goes for decorating desks with plants.

4. Set Yourself a Challenge All online business owners have times when they just stop moving forward. You might find yourself procrastinating more and in need of something to give you and your business a kick start. A challenge can do just that! A challenge means setting a goal for a short period of time...say 21 days or 1 month. During that time you’ll do something above and beyond what you normally do – like posting on your blog every single day, interacting with 20 people on social media, or writing 2,000 words. Not only will the challenge push you to achieve more, but it’s also a great time to test how much of an impact these activities have on your business. If you have a blog, make the challenge public! Invite people to join and you’ll be building your brand and community in the process!






5. Get a Standing Desk Although not directly related to online business, your health is extremely important. Unfortunately internet marketers often sit down for large portions of the day. There are a huge number of risks of sitting down too much, including:

A higher risk of dying sooner from any cause.

An increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Negative effects on the metabolic system.

Difficult to reverse even if you exercise regularly. This is why you should consider buying a standing desk. That way, even though you need to be at your desk for large periods of time, you can help combat the effects of sitting down all day. You should also incorporate regular exercise into your daily routine. Even if you think you’re too busy, remember that getting away from your computer to exercise will actually help you to be more productive when you get back.

Want to keep fit and work at the same time? The Executive Stand Steady standing desk is comfortable, affordable, and compatible with your existing desk.

Stand Up While You Work and Stay Healthy!



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6. Set Goals You can only improve your business if you have a clear idea of where you want it to go. This usually means setting goals. Sure, you can achieve success without goals, but that’s kind of like stumbling upon some buried treasure without a map. You’ll have much more chance of finding that treasure if you know where you’re going! You should set both short-term and long-term goals, and make sure that every goal you choose is “SMART”. That means it’s specific, measurable, actually attainable, realistic, and has a time limit.

7. Network Networking can bring your business to new levels that just wouldn’t be possible by doing it all alone. Your contacts can introduce you to powerful people, share your content, help you come up with new ideas or even become friends! There are a number of ways to network more in your business:

Attend live events

Make personal contact with some of your customers

Email bloggers you admire just to say hello

Have conversations on social media






Arrange to meet your online colleagues in real life

Chat with others in marketing forums

Comment on other people’s blogs

Respond to comments made on your blog. Make a goal to spend just 10 minutes a day doing activities like this and you’ll improve your business network.

8. Stop Doing Tasks You Hate Improving your business isn’t just about improving your profits. It’s also about creating the ideal business for you. This is why you should take steps towards avoiding all the tasks you help. Everyone has to do things they don’t always enjoy in their business, but the more your business grows, the more opportunity you’ll get to eliminate them completely. There are two ways to go about this:

You can outsource those tasks to someone else. (Start small if your budget is limited and keep increasing the amount you outsource as you go).

You can eliminate those tasks from your business. This second option isn’t always feasible with day-to-day admin tasks, but if you’re not enjoying something, it could be a sign that your business needs to move in a new direction.

9. Create Your Own Products Having your own products is one of the best ways to increase your earnings as an online marketer. It’s one thing to promote other people’s products as an affiliate; it’s another thing when you promote your own products.






When you offer your own products, people see you as more of an expert. They start listening more to what you have to say, and they’re more likely to buy when you promote other people’s products. You can also set these up products to sell 24/7 on your website, so it’s possible to make money while you sleep.

10. Prioritize Your Marketing Strategies Things are always changing in the world of online marketing, and there are always new strategies to try. Unfortunately, however, we are all limited on time and it’ll never be possible to try out every single marketing strategy there is! That’s why it’s important to prioritize. This will help reduce overwhelm and help you get on with the things that really need to be done. How do you prioritize? Start by thinking about what brings you in the most money. This might mean focusing on your email marketing efforts. If you subsequently want to try a new marketing strategy (such as social media), schedule it so that you don’t spend more time on it than necessary.

11. Know Your USP The great thing about the internet is that there is opportunity for everyone to get out there and create names for themselves. The bad thing is that, because so many people are doing it, it can be hard to get noticed! This is why you need to know your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – the feature that makes you different from your competition.






It could be that you’re the cheapest (although this isn’t usually the best way to go!), or that you promise to make things as simple as possible for your customer. Some real life examples include KFC’s unique blend of herbs and spices, or Apple’s beautifully made products. People are willing to pay for more expensive products because they have that something special compared to their rivals. How do you figure out your USP? You’ll need to sit down and do a lot of brainstorming. Think about you and your clients – and how you can combine what you have to offer with what they need. There’s your USP – and it might change in the future.

12. Start Outsourcing You’ll reach a point in your business when you simply can’t continue to do everything yourself. And, if you try, your business won’t grow. That is the time to start outsourcing. If you don’t have a big budget, you don’t have to outsource too much straight away. But just remember that every dollar you spend on outsourcing is an investment in the future of your business.






13. Take a Day off If you’ve been struggling with a new project, or are finding it super hard to focus on your work, then just take some time off. There’s nothing wrong with taking an entire day off from time to time. Stop beating yourself up about not working all the time! Even business owners deserve time off, and you may just find you come back refreshed and full of new ideas after some time spent doing other things!

14. Interview Other People in Your Field Interviewing other people in your field, and giving your readers and customers access to those interviews, can benefit your business in a number of ways:

You’ll build relationships with the people you interview

Your customers will love you for providing so much value for free

You can get these interviews transcribed and turn them into reports

It’s an easy way to get unique content for your business

You’ll also learn from the other person’s experience. You don’t need to do voice or video interviews. You can also send out text questions and get the guest to respond in text form.

15. Take a Regular Look at Your Finances Working for yourself online means that it’s up to you to keep on top of your finances and report them to the taxman.






However, it’s important to look at your finances on a regular basis – don’t just leave it all up to a week before tax time! Knowing your finances doesn’t just help you prepare for the tax bill (which is important in itself.) It also helps you keep track of your business. You’ll see which products are selling best, where you’re overspending, how much money you have free for outsourcing and so on.

16. Raise Your Prices One simple way to improve your profits could be to raise your prices. You might be worried that higher prices will turn customers off, but this isn’t always the case. Your price point can have an unexpected psychological impact on customers, and sometimes you might find that higher prices can lead to more sales. Of course, it’s important to test this out for yourself. If you are selling time for money (e.g. by providing a service) then raising your prices makes even more sense. For example, if you go from charging $10 per article to $20 per article, you’ll only need to do half the work for the same amount of money!

17. Collect Your Buyers’ Emails If you sell your own products (and you really should!) then make sure you’re collecting your buyers’ email addresses. Building an email list full of prospects is great, but building a buyers mailing list is even better. By collecting their email addresses, you can market to them again in future. And remember, it’s far easier to sell more to your existing customers than it is to find new customers! The good news is that most online shopping cart systems have functions that allow you to collect email addresses automatically. These work with the most popular email marketing services.






If not, you can add buyers manually, but make sure you use a double opt in process that requires buyers to confirm that they wish to be added. Although you can legally contact your customers by email once they’ve bought from you, it’s best to avoid annoying them by adding them to email lists they don’t want to join!

18. Create Consistent Social Media Profiles Creating a consistent brand across all of your social media accounts helps to make sure you’re instantly recognizable to your customers. If your Twitter username is @bobsonlinestore and your Facebook page is called “Bob’s Bargains”, then customers might not realize that both pages are for the same business! This is why it’s important to create consistent social media usernames and profile images. Once you’ve taken the time to do this, people will be more likely to engage with you on the platform of their choice. And when they see your name and face popping up all over the place, they will start to trust you more, be more likely to open up your emails, and more likely to buy from you.

19. Don’t Try to Market to Everyone Trying to make your business appeal to absolutely everyone really isn’t doing you any favors!

Want to Easily Build Your Email List? AWeber can help you to easily collect your buyers’ email addresses. Try their simple-to-use Email Marketing tool risk-free today.








Instead, choosing a smaller target market means that you can really get to know them and understand what they want from your products. So, if you haven’t already, take some time now to work out your ideal customer.

Where do they live?

How old are they?

What do they do with their time?

Knowing the answers to these questions can greatly increase the response you get to your products.

20. Highlight Benefits, Not Features Just because you run your own business online doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any good at copywriting. Unfortunately, however, copy sells, and it is important to try and perfect certain techniques to improve your conversions. One simple trick is to start telling customers about the benefits of your products, rather than simply listing the features. For example, if you’re selling a new kind of microwave, here’s how the features and benefits differ…

Feature: Uses 20% less power than previous models.

Benefit: Saves $10 on the average monthly power bill.

Feature: Quicker at cooking than previous models.

Benefit: Spend 25% less time in the kitchen!

Feature: Voice activated controls.

Benefit: Easier to use than ever before, even when you’re busy doing something else.

So next time you’re trying to sell something, think about ways you can turn it around and think about the benefits instead of the features.






21. Add Visuals to Your Content Although words have always been important in online marketing, visuals are playing a bigger and bigger role. If you want to grow your business, you should definitely start incorporating visual elements into your content. For example, images on Instagram get more than 1 billion likes every single day, Pinterest saw a 1000% increase in visitors in the space of a year, and more and more of us are using smartphones and tablets, where visuals really stand out. In addition:

Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than words.

70% of search results are videos.

Photos are “liked” twice as much as text updates.

Videos are shared 12 times more than text and links. So, starting today, make visuals a key part of your online content strategy!

22. Don’t Overspend Although it’s important to spend money to get your business off the ground and growing, be careful not to overspend. Many newbies make the mistake of spending a lot of money on marketing training, always thinking that the next thing they buy will be the one that takes their business to the next level. This kind of thinking will only hold you back.






Make sure you keep on top of your bookkeeping so you know exactly what position you’re in each month. If you’ve got extra money at the end of the month, then you can afford to spend it on a new program or marketing training.

23. Take Advantage of Cross-Selling Many marketers leave money on the table by failing to cross-sell to their customers. How many times have you been asked, “Do you want fries with that?” only to go on and buy more than you had originally intended? That’s smart marketing at work! The way you apply this will very much depend on your line of business, but here are a few examples:

If you’re a writer, you could offer to write a tweet to complement each article for an extra fee.

If you have a shopping cart, make sure you display a “customers who bought this also bought…” section.

If you sell digital downloads, make sure to cross-sell related items on the download page to encourage your customer to buy more.

24. Join a Mastermind Group You can choose to do everything alone, but you will succeed at a much quicker rate if you speak with likeminded individuals. This is why joining a mastermind group is such a good idea. You will be in the company of other people in a similar area of business who can offer new ideas, critiques, accountability and friendship. You will probably also form powerful relationships for future joint ventures.






Mastermind groups are different from open forums. They are usually charged for due to the private nature of the information being shared. However, it’s usually more than worth the fee for the progress you’ll see in your business if you take the time to really join in.

25. Sell More to Existing Clients You’ve probably heard it many times before: it’s far easier (and cheaper) to sell to existing customers than it is to find new ones. If you want to improve your business, focusing on existing customers can pay off big time. Here are some ways you can sell more to your existing customers:

Make sure you are growing your buyers email list so that you are able to contact them again in future.

Take time to build relationships – give your customers free information and help them out when they have questions.

When you release new products, offer existing customers an additional bonus that the general public doesn’t get.

Occasionally, create sales only for your existing customers. It’ll help make them feel special!

Listen to their needs and create new products based around what they need.

Create an entire product funnel, starting with low cost items, getting more and more expensive.

By implementing these 25 easy ways to grow your online business, you can quickly increase your profits and take your company to new heights!






Bonus! Top Digital Marketing Resources

Check out the Digital Marketing Resources we highly recommend in the following categories. These valuable tools will help you take your business to new levels.

Advertising Resources

Affiliate Marketing Resources

Analytics & Tracking Resources

Blogging Resources

CRM Resources

Domain Resources

Legal/Accounting Resources

Mobile Marketing Resources

Payment Resources

Productivity Resources

Public Relations Resources

SEO Resources

Social Media Resources



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Web Content Resources

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Web Video Resources

Website Development Resources

WordPress Themes Resources

About The Author

Joan Yankowitz publishes Digital Marketing Secrets Club, a free membership site that provides businesses with valuable digital marketing articles, tools, and resources, as well as discounted eBooks and videos to help you increase revenue and profits.

Joan is also the owner of JBShort Marketing, a company that specializes in helping businesses build a meaningful digital presence. It’s free to join Digital Marketing Secrets Club! Members Only: Get 15% off your next purchase. Use Code: Buy15. Join Digital Marketing Secrets Club today or login!



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25 easy ways to grow your online business

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