3 Things Online Businesses Must Consider to Grow and Thrive

A successful business is always built from the ground up, and the most promising ventures are the ones that innovate. Innovation can define our goals and craft our strategies in ways that allow us to grow and thrive even in the most chaotic of times. It's exciting to realize our potential beyond what we've settled into as the status quo.

When it comes to ecommerce, building an online business is one thing, but conquering your industry is another. However, trends indicate that adopting these three promising strategies will help you meet and surpass those goals.

1. Get your marketing strategy right

With the immense potential available to entrepreneurs in the digital realm, businesses now have access to even larger audiences, making the ability to scale far more feasible. An average social media user spends around several hours per day learning from, or connecting with, like-minded people. That's why business coach Scott Oldford, author of The Nuclear Effect, identifies marketing as the top pillar of scaling a seven-plus-figure online business.

Related: How to Know if an Online Marketing Expert is Actually Credible

As Oldford details in his book, a winning marketing strategy requires getting the basics right. Who does your business or service cater to? Identify your target audience, whether it's based on age, gender or geographical location. Alter the content you share on your business's social media handles so that it appeals to your audience. Always be open to constructive criticism and feedback from customers. Most of all, learn to adapt to changing circumstances. If your Google Ads campaign isn't gaining enough traction, understand why, fix it, and try again. The secret to building a winning marketing strategy lies in your ability to listen, adapt and improve. Most of all, you need to adopt a positive mindset.

Oldford adds that entrepreneurship is the greatest game of personal evolution. It isn't just about mansions and fancy cars. You need to build a strong marketing strategy, start scaling your business and build your online empire. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

2. Lend a human face to your brand

It's all too easy to overlook and neglect our intrinsic need for one-to-one contact in the modern world. Human touch sometimes gets lost in the sheer force of numbers on social media, but as VIP Laser owner Pierina Montano advised in a recent conversation, you ignore it at your peril if you're serious about building your brand. She also emphasized that making a personal connection with your customers is intrinsic to growth, both online and off, and that she uses social media to educate and engage with her patients, which has helped her reinforce the personal connection.

Interact with your customers through video calls on Zoom, or set-up chat groups where you can interact with them on a one-to-one basis. You can create stories on Instagram, go live on Facebook or even host interactive Q&A sessions via social media to help build that crucial personal connect. Not only will this help build bonds, but people will also care more about your brand or the work that you do when they associate it with you.

3. Focus on customer service

Customer service is your organization's foundation, so make sure it's stable. Everything has gone digital, but it's a mistake to think that customer service stops at engagement, explains Anthony Haddad, CEO of Yummy Marketing, who I had a chance to catch up with while writing this article. If anything, that is where customer service begins, and you have to translate that into your brand experience. Haddad reminds that your customers want to know that they have your support, and they are wary of lack of accountability now that most business has moved online. Whether avoiding having customers spend hours waiting in a queue or on a repetitive IVR system, effective customer service can make or break your business.

Ensure that your customer service team is courteous, polite and proactive. Be available and ready to support your customers, address their queries or intimate them in case of delays. Never compromise on customer service, and make sure that you hire more people to look after your growing clientele. Investing in customer care will strengthen client retention, one of the cornerstones of growth. Lastly, the devil is in the details, so make sure that your quality control is impeccable.

Related: Service Businesses Need a Digital Revolution: Here's How You Do It

Each of these strategies fits into an overall integrated strategy combining tried-and-true methods with the innovation to broaden your reach in a digital world, which experts agree is the best approach to making online growth a reality.