Anyone who has launched their business has been on a long hard road, full of challenges, hardships, and averted disasters, but there is really nothing like that moment when you finally launch. Champagne is popped, deep breaths are taken, and you can look forward to sleeping through the night for the first time in months. However, anyone who has been down that road will tell you that it doesn’t end with the launch. No sir, you are just getting started, and there are plenty of challenges and exciting times ahead.
Because everything on that road to launch is so complex and so challenging, it is easy for entrepreneurs and business owners to adopt a kind of tunnel vision. It’s all about getting to that launch point, it’s all about going live, and you can lose track of everything that needs to be in place to make sure that you can keep moving forward.
What’s more, anyone launching a business from March 2020 to right now has had to do make sure that they have been ticking every box while living through a global pandemic. How on earth are you supposed to live and breathe your new business when things are so impossibly difficult and chaotic in the world outside your front door?
Of course, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has not merely been limited to our personal lives, it’s had an immeasurable impact on economies around the world as markets have struggled to reckon with its cost. The chances are that we will be feeling the consequences of the pandemic for months, if not years to come yet, and that is one of the things we’ll get into in just a moment.
But getting back to that launch point: You made it. Congratulations. But now is not the time for sitting back and resting on your laurels. Now is the time to build for the future. Here’s how you can get started.
You Are Going To Need To Be Flexible
If there is one thing that the pandemic taught us, it is that it is foolish to think that we can anticipate everything that is coming our way. We have seen it all over the world as governments have made plans for easing lockdown restrictions, only to have to reinstate them just as tightly, if not more so. We have seen it when businesses have tried to reopen only to find themselves closing their doors once again. We have even seen it in sports, where leagues have announced that they are following a strict COVID-19 protocol only to announce that their players have tested positive.
We all need to remember to be flexible in the months ahead, to remember that setting dates in stone is not the best idea and that contingency plans can help offset any lasting damage. Stay on your toes!
You Are Going To Need To Get The Word Out With Marketing
Any start-up entrepreneur who knows what they’re doing will have spent a lot of time doing their market research before launch, and we are sure that you will have seen just how tough things are out there right now. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are doing their best to keep their heads above water, and that means that there is an incredible amount of competition across every conceivable platform to be seen and to get your brand out there. If you are a new company, it is so important to strike while the iron is hot and that is why you need to think very seriously about partnering with a marketing agency.
Now, traditionally the conventional wisdom has been to target as many different channels and sites as possible to try and find the biggest possible audience, but with digital, this approach can actually have a detrimental effect.
If you spend your time and your resources shouting about your business on a channel that doesn’t draw in any of your target audience or potential clients, then you are going to see minimal results. What you need is a more considered, careful approach that can guarantee that the people who see your advertising are actually interested. That is where programmatic advertising can be fantastically effective.
Programmatic ad technology automates buying of ad space across hundreds and thousands of premium ad space and serves ads to the right people at the right time. War Room is an advertising agency that has built out its own programmatic platform and its team of specialists brings the expertise for customized strategy and optimization to achieve great results for their clients.
You Will Need To Think About Your Location
It was not so long ago that an office was a marker of success for new businesses. After all, you want to make sure that everyone is in the same space to foster a free flow of ideas and creativity, you want to be in an area of your city that speaks to the reputation you are trying to build, and you want to have a location where you can bring in clients and potential partners to show them what you can do.
However, the last twelve months have made a lot of businesses, both big and small, take a good long look at whether or not that office space is a worthwhile investment. Now, with the vaccines continuing to roll out and countries around the world laying out their strategies and timetables for opening up again, it seems like a broad return to the office is not too far away. But it’s also worth remembering that point we made earlier about being flexible (not that we want to be too doom and gloom about things).
You should also think very carefully about whether the amount of money it costs to keep and maintain office space could actually be better used elsewhere. We have all had to adjust to working from home over the last year, and while there are obviously some drawbacks, there are clear advantages too. Don’t commit to an office just because you feel like it’s the done thing.
You, Will, Need To Make Sure Your SEO Is Up To Scratch
With your paid ad strategy all taken care of, it is time to take a good look at what you can do yourself or on a team to create good housekeeping habits for your website and online presence. The sooner you create a routine, the easier it will be to keep. That means making sure that someone is responsible for managing and maintain your social media channels and creating a strategy. It means making sure that you are updating content on your site on a regular basis.
It also means that you need to keep a watchful eye on your Search Engine Optimization. Is your website relevant to the people who are visiting it? For search engines like Google to rank you higher in the search results, you will need highly relevant content that offers value to your audience.
Much like a good marketing campaign, this isn’t something that you can do once and then forget about. Google is constantly refining the way it displays results, and you need to conduct regular audits of your content to make sure that you have the right keywords and that the topics being discussed are engaging, expertly written, and relevant to the major concerns and talking points of the day. It takes regular monitoring and finessing to ensure that you can stay near the top of the search rankings.
