Profitable Holistic Business
HOW SOON BEFORE YOU HAVE A PROFITABLE HOLISTIC BUSINESS
Article: Angel Quintana
Photo: Angel Quintana
Growing a holistic business online doesn't have to take long. Even if you are just starting out, attracting new customers or looking to sell more holistic products, the way to a profitable holistic business always starts with a marketing plan. No one gets into business and thinks, I hope to be profitable in the next 3 years. While that might end up being the case on some occasions, for the most part, a holistic business can be profitable as soon as the marketing plan has been established, revised, and remains consistent.
A marketing plan is a signature system where the end goal is to generate sales. The goal is to do something long enough to see if it produces results. So often, entrepreneurs start out doing one thing and if it doesn't produce a result in a week or a month, they stop doing it. However, this isn't entirely an accurate way to measure the results.
To measure the results of your marketing efforts, you need to look for progress and progress comes in many different forms. In some cases, perhaps your private community has grow by 20 people in a week or your mailing list grew by 5 people that day. Do you really know where those new people came from? The best advice I could give you is to measure your marketing efforts on a case by case basis or what is referred to as A/B Testing.
A/B Testing allows you to look at your numbers (or analytics) through a new lens. Instead of deciding something in your marketing efforts isn't working and eliminating it, why not try out a couple scenarios to see if it produces new results before throwing in the towel. There are a couple examples to drill it home.
EXAMPLE #1:
Analyzing an Advertising Campaign
Say you started an advertising campaign and you let it run for 30 days and you didn't generate any new sales. To discontinue advertising would be premature because advertising does 1 of 3 things: it increases brand awareness, increases sales, or acquires new potential customers.
If you measure the results from brand awareness, that may have not generated any new sales, but it's getting your audience to know who you are or what your holistic business is all about.
If you measure the results from increased sales and realize it didn't produce any new sales, it could mean that the advertisements need to be redesigned or that your landing page or website are not doing it job correctly and should be revised.
If you measure new potential customers, this might mean you acquired a couple new email subscribers and perhaps none of them purchased from you, but did you have a follow-up system in place?
You see, with advertising as a marketing strategy to growing a profitable holistic business online, it takes time, revisions, and a follow-up system.
EXAMPLE #2:
Analyzing Your Mailing List
Let's say you introduced a couple new products in your e-commerce shop, but you didn't generate any new sales. Your marketing strategy was to send out a newsletter introducing the new products, but no one purchased. Instead of discontinuing sending out a newsletter, why not re-evaluate who is on your list and determine if they are the right people for your business instead. A lot of the people who join our mailing list are usually past customers (customers who have already purchased from you in the past), and the others are usually those who wanted a Free Goodie, which is how they ended up on your list.
If you look closer, it could be that your Free Goodie on your website doesn't match what problem you solve, and that could result in some confusion. Testing out a new Free Goodie and checking your analytics next month might show you a powerful change in your customer base and hopefully some new sales!
In closing, a profitable brand has to do with TESTING. Testing is the easiest way to find out what is working and what is not, but most importantly as a business owner you must dive deeper to discover what the metrics are really trying to tell you. Was it really that advertising isn't working or was it something that was off on your marketing strategy. Take notes and make some minor adjustments, but never toss a marketing strategy out the window until it has been properly tested. To learn more about how to increase sales online join The Club.