Evolving in business and achieving success does not happen over night. It takes time, resources and patience. I am not saying that, it's impossible to succeed in business within a shorter period of time but the fact is that only few businesses have witnessed such dramatic success.
A good example of a business with immediate success in less than 24hours as I can recall is a guy from Cricklade, Wiltshire, England called Alex Tew who created the Million Dollar Homepage pixel advertising platform. He made more than half a million dollars within 24hrs of lunching the business. He spotted his trend and made better use of it within that time. Online marketing has become more competitive and fierce than at the time of his success.
Did he invent pixels? No! He merely benefited off pixels by developing a unique and marketable business model.
Let's take a look at LinkedIn. This is a company that was created in 2002 and lunched in 2003. It took a few years them to gain their edge in the industry as social platform for professionals. In 2006, it had 20million viewers and as of now, it's acquired approximately 260million users in 200 countries.
This is say, that it takes time, technical know-how and resources to build up a successful and viable online business.
As a Digital Marketing student of Google Squared, we covered a topic classified as Disruption and Change where we looked at Tesco, created around the 1950s, more or less as a modern grocer at the time and how gradually it's come a long way to becoming a Top Premium Supermarket. But it's evolution has not stop yet due to the fact they are continuously learning from their successes and failures. They are growing and diversifying as time goes utilizing Digital marketing evolution and trends to their advantage. It's success is purely based on strategic business innovation and modeling.
Let's come down business. Digital marketing has come to stay in the present millennium and if you have a good business model and very serious with a good sense of direction, then, there are only a few reasons that could led you to failure provided you are not involved in a saturated business genre and a business activity without a forecast and a plan.
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than that spent doing nothing" You will make mistakes along the way but you will learn from those mistake. "The greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid to make one"
Therefore to become successful online, you will need to identify a need in a specific market and have a viable product for the specific market. In other words, a good online business marketer is about finding a "niche market" and having the acumen to market it online. Reinventing and modeling is what one needs to think of. Once money starts to pour in, you can then start to look at inventing and diversifying.
A good example will be Google Ltd. In the past it was not inventing but now Google is "coming has come out from the cold". With the money it is making, it is able to invent software, build computation tools, robots and much more.
In this digital age, it's become possible for almost anyone to become successful online where as they possess the right digital marketing mix. You need not have a product to make a living from online. Gone are the days of monopoly when only people with substantial amounts of dough could start up a static business.
With as little as $100.00, one could could setup an online business from their bedroom without the need for huge inventories. You could get involve in "affiliate marketing" or "drop-shipping" and the sky will be the limit as to how much money you can make. Digital disruption has made this become very possible. But then, you will need to involve in a business that you know what the customers rather than try to sell to the customers what you want or think the customers want. Knowing your customers, their needs is key and parcel of the digital marketing mix.
There is technology evolution that could possibly change the Digital Marketing game. We can see that; more people are linked to much on their mobile devices than 10yrs ago. Social media is on its toll with the likes of Facebook competing with Google in terms of users experiences and acquisition. I personally think that; there is a lot of junk within social media because of lack of laser targeting and precision and also owing to the reasons that, millions are daily participants are from Countries where Credit cards, Bank cards and Paypal still remains a dream.
Even in the developed countries, kids and youngsters spend much of their time on social media websites without any buying power with about 75% on their mobile devices. You also have users coming from Africa, South America and Southern Asia which i will still classify 75% of the traffic as junk. I am not saying that; one cannot generate good sales and business through social media. The fact is that, you will need to think on your feet and take much into consideration if you were to run a successful ad.
With the surge in social and digital media, many businesses are preparing to bury print media. I laugh when I hear people say, there is no more money to be made from print media. It's nonsense. If you know your customers and market, then you will have to embrace print media. Why? A good number of working class, use the train and public transport to get to work due to traffic congestion in certain parts of the world and a good example will be London. Good, these commuters are always reading the Free Metro Newspaper, Times and Telegraph on their way to and from work. I personally think that this is a good avenue to market your products and services when starting up in business with minimal start up capital. Advertising on these newspapers with a link to your website cannot be ignored. You will be marketing and branding directly to a class with a good spending fire power.
A good start-up business will need to think about; what is the competitive advantage of the business being created? Are you going to sell cheaper than your competitors, is your product/services a niche, are you about improving customer satisfaction on product and services already in existence, what makes your product and or services that will permit you to beat the competition, are you about removing the middle man, etc. What is it that makes your products and services different.
Taking demography, customer persona, time differences and buying power is key to success, not only with social media platforms but also with SEM.A third of online users will prefer to buy locally as compared to 7yrs ago when no cared the location of the product or services.
However, Google remains the God of Digital Marketing. They have developed and introduced almost all the methods, resources and techniques for every business irrespective of being a start-up or not become virtually successful. If you can read and write, start from Google Webmasters and there will be no reason to regret or sigh.
