10 Proven Ways to Grow Your Business Online

Looking to grow your business online? Many people are understandably worried and unsure of what to do during the global pandemic. Every business is being affected and during times like this, it can be easy to slip into non-action due to uncertainty. 

But even whilst there are global uncertainties, it is important that you use this time wisely to help make your online business more resilient. During these uncertain times, you may also want to look into diversifying your offerings and adding additional income streams into your business and grow your business online.

Most female entrepreneurs already have these income streams built in, so if you are just starting out in business or the online space, these 10 business tips will help you grow your business online.

At the Women in Business Club, we have been talking about the many ways you can show up in your business as well as add passive income to your business when you grow your business online.  We wanted to bring your attention to some of the key business  ideas that you may want to implement and find useful right now. 

Here are our top 10 proven ways you can also grow your business online and can start making money online and help your business grow during the global pandemic. 

1.  Create an online course to grow your business online

Create an on online course utilising your skills or expertise as this will help you grow your business online. Whilst we are a little more isolated at home, use this time wisely to create an online course that can keep bringing in passive income to your business. This will ensure that you can still build income without adding additional hours to your working day. We have just recently hosted #CourseCrave challenge showing how to create an online course in 12 easy steps. 

2.  Host more online events to grow your business online

We see many more entrepreneurs now hosting online webinars, virtual workshops or virtual events.  During this time of self-isolation many entrepreneurs feel alone and want to take part in virtual events, webinars and other learning to help them grow in business, mindset, skills etc. To set it all up really doesn’t take that much doing if you got the right tools to help you. 

Our favourite tool that we use is CrowdCast that makes it super easy even for a non-tech person to set up an online webinar, masterclass or a virtual event or an online summit.

This year we are hosting our second virtual Summit called Women Thrive to empower more women in business to rise up and succeed in business. Using a HeySummit tool – the heavy lifting is already done so we can simply focus on delivering the best content by our chosen speakers. 

3.  Sell through your email sequences to grow your business online

Set up your email sequences and automations to help you nurture your audience. The most commonly overlooked ‘secret’ to business success is a sales/nurture funnel. Imagine having new leads coming into your funnel on a daily basis and your pre-determined email sequence doing the heavy lifting in nurturing your audience.

Giving your prospects the tour of who you are or what your business does, whilst building trust and likability factor. Doing the selling on your behalf by making offers in a predetermined email sequences. Wouldn’t that be a dream?

Indeed, that is how many successful entrepreneurs have built their businesses online. They are not sitting day and night sending you emails. They do it once and the tech does the rest. Our favourite tools are Active Campaign for email funnels, segmentation and monthly newsletter and LeadPages for beautiful and functional landing pages. 

4.  Prepare Your Social Media Brand & Presence

Social Media is currently our main medium where we can share ideas, promote our businesses, start conversations and put ourselves out there. So it is more important than ever to brush up your social media presence and get consistent doing it. So we would definitely allocate time to planning, preparing and scheduling your social media content for some of your social media channels. It will help you stay consistent and be intentional what your share with your audience.

Consistency builds trust and brand loyalty, which is what people need right now.  For that we love using Tailwind for Pinterest scheduling and Planoly for Instagram content planning. We talk more about a few more social media schedulers in our blog post here. Right now it is also the best time to start thinking about building your personal website and elevate your personal brand. It will help wonders for you, helping you land speaking opportunities and establish yourself as an authority in your field.

Recently we found these awesome WordPress templates from BluChic Themes that makes website creation a breeze. And they are super beautiful!!!

5.  Look at your systems and processes

Create systems in your business that will help keep things organised when things get busy as you grow your business online. We love keeping our office clutter-free with some of the tips from Becky Stanton, Effectiveness Coach. You can read some of her top tips here on how to grow your business online.

You may also want to look over your systems, filing processes, backups, and making sure your back office is safe from any technical glitches. When things are busy at work we tend to forget the precious information that we hold on our laptops and computer systems. Make sure you have a system that does regular backups especially when you want to grow your business online.

Use external or cloud storage solutions to have the peace of mind that no matter what your work and memories are safely stored. Our favourite online business and systems tools are: Active Campaign, CrowdCast, LeadPages, Google Drive and Trello. 

6.  Record a podcast

Record a podcast – if you have always wanted to share your expertise and want to grow your business online but perhaps you feel a little camera shy – why not record a podcast for your business? Podcasts are a fantastic way to share your story, your expertise and reach a new audience.

Podcasting is both fun for you and easy for your audience. Maybe they can listen to it while driving, cooking or doing the laundry. It would add yet another channel of communication and a way to spread your message to grow your business online.

In fact we have our own podcast too, where we feature Inspiring Women Stories from our Women in Business Members Club – so make sure you check out!

7.  Write a book

Write a book – if you always wanted to write a book this is the perfect time to get started and put your ideas on paper because this will help you grow your business online. You probably have much more time on your hands right now, so instead of consuming media – try to find your own voice and start writing. It may start off as an online blog or a personal diary, and eventually become an actual book.

Imagine in a few months time you could be a published or even a best selling author. Wouldn’t that be cool thing to tick off your bucket list? It doesn’t need to be a huge commitment too, just set aside 1-2 hours a day to write, and in few months time you will have ready-to-publish book. 

8.  Organise a launch 

When was the last time you had a launch for your business, a service or a product? These are tried and tested ways to grow your business online. Did you know that a launch is like a sprint, that generates huge buzz around your business or product you are selling? Give yourself 4-6 weeks to plan, prepare and organise a launch. Generate some excitement around what you are doing or plan on launching, gather people who are qualified leads and could become potential customers.

Spend some time to build trust, educate them and nurture to prime them for purchase. Then release your product when you feel that your audience are ready and excited to buy. Remember that a launch is a specifically crafted event that can reap huge financial rewards, so give yourself enough runway to execute it properly and if you need help, the Women in Business Member’s Club has some epic resources for you!  Check out our launch month resources here. 

9.  Create a product staircase

Did you know that most successful entrepreneurs have 7 or more income streams and it is usually made up of low cost offers, mid-level offers and high end offers. When you think about your customer journey with you, they may come to find out about you on social media, and not yet have the ‘Know, Like, Trust’ factor built up with you, so they want to try something that is low risk and low value to ‘test the waters’ – so they opt in to buy a low dollar offer.

If they love what you have delivered they opt in for a second tier offer, which may be your mid-level offer. If they fallen in love with what you do and how you show up online, they may be ready to buy your high end offer.

So it is up to you to create the incremental steps for your audience and potential customer to go through to grow your business online. This approach also solves the issue of different affordability levels and different needs of your customer. So, have you created your product staircase yet? If not, our Member’s Club has just the workshop training for you to help you package your offers. 

10. Start a Facebook Group

With people spending more and more time on social media – Facebook groups has become more popular than ever. Why not use this time to create a Facebook group for your niche, where you can invite your potential customers or clients and engage in a conversation? Maybe you have a specialised interest, that no one else is doing, or you have something unique to share. 

Use Facebook groups to gather your tribe, nurture them with value and build trust and relations that will eventually lead to sales. Especially if you are planning on doing a launch, it will come a place where you can interact with your audience in much more personal and effective way to grow your business online.

Above all, take care of your own mental and physical health, because everything starts with you. No matter how successful your business may be, your health and wellbeing always comes first. 

Lastly, remember to stay positive, healthy and kind to others. Everyone has unique challenges, worries and concerns during this difficult time. Everyone will deal with this crisis in a different way, therefore it is important to respect each other and be kind in the moments of chaos.