Finance Nations
Introduction.
Do you have a passion for business? Do you want to start your own company? But, are too overwhelmed with the process of creating a profitable business plan. No worries! This blog post will give you all the ingredients needed to create an appetizing and successful plan. So, grab your cookbook, and let’s get started!
- Know your target audience
A client once asked me, How do I know who my target audience is? My response was simple: Find out what you like and ask yourself if others will also share your tastes. Sounds good, right? I mean understanding where to channel your goods and services is one of the most important things to do when dispatching a new product /service or starting a business. Now the question is, how do you go about identifying your target audience? Below are three effective steps to know your target audience.
- Market research.
As a business owner, before launching any product or service, it’s very important to gather information about customers’ preferences and needs, through direct research from existing and potential customers.
Market research helps firms figure out their target customers and ascertain their feedbacks to know how a product/service will be received. Market research could be conducted through online research, physical interactions with customers, and phone calls. Your business stronghold and weakness would be identified,
So, begin by conducting and analyzing your target market through;
- Market trends
- Competition
- Demographic factors ( income level, occupation, marital status, age, gender among others)
- Location among other factors.
Identifying all the factors that influence your business market strength is a vital step in identifying your target market.
- Understand your Competitor’s strategy.
As a business owner, you can learn a lot from your Competitors selling strategies, understand the ways they work, and how they go about it. Analyze your Competitors’ social media marketing strategy and their customers’ problems, that way you can find out what strategy is solid in your niche and how you can use it to your advantage.
So, what is your competitor’s strategy? Is it social media? Is it their customer care? Or is it branding? Whatever it is, figure it out and learn how to implement a much unique strategy for your brand.
- Conduct insights on exiting customers.
Use customers’ data you have already gathered, leverage those insights to identify and properly implement them into understanding your target market.
- Create an effective marketing strategy.
Another spicy ingredient to add to your business is to create an effective marketing strategy for reaching potential customers and turning them into long-term clients of products and services.
An effective marketing strategy helps an organization to increase and attain higher sales. the four P’s (product, place, price, and promotion) are the key ingredients in marketing any business.
These four P’s are the core ingredients for marketing a business, it entails the place where the products /services would be displayed for purchase (either virtual /physical setup), the product for sale, the price tag for each product, and the promotional strategy employed by the business owner.
- 3. Provide excellent customer service and support.
Excellent customer services and support can positively help leverage your business, it entails providing customers with effective and timely customer care, attending to their needs promptly. Listen to your customers, get to know their needs, and gets feedback from customers.
The customer satisfaction should be one of the utmost priority of every business enterprise, hence the customers should be treated in a friendly, and respectful manner. That would keep them gueled to your products /services
- 4. Understand how to use social media effectively.
As a business owner, you should underestimate the powers of social media. Social media if properly utilized can help your business reach a wider audience, from different parts of the world. Craft an effective social media plan and understand how to use it to the advantage of your business.
So, As a business owner deciding on the right social media platforms for your business, identify your audience, reach a wider range, build profitable relationships, and pay attention to changing trends. Social media is a market on its own, and can help you make great connections with potential customers.
- Offer something new and different from what others are doing.
Before launching out your product and services, analyze competitors’ products in your niche. Offer a different and more improved product from what others are offering.
To successfully do this, you’ll need to up your game by; stepping up your marketing strategy, leveraging existing customers, and targeting new customers. Apply effective branding and make your business stand out. So, what are you waiting for? Go create that unique product, that would keep customers trooping into your store.
- 6. Create a business plan.
I’m sure you know what a business plan is, right? A business plan; a written document that entails details about a business’s plans, objectives, and set goals. For a profitable business creating a business plan helps determine future financial needs, elevates growth, and helps attract customers.
Hence, draft out a professional business plan that would serve as a roadmap for your business growth and help you achieve your business goals. Business plan is a must for all business enterprise and to create one, you’ll need to properly state down all the necessary details.
- Set up your inventory system.
An Inventory system refers to all the products, goods, and services a business has to offer for sale. As a business owner, to keep track and successfully elevate your business, it is a vital step to set up your inventory system. I mean, who wouldn’t want to keep their business organized, right?
So, make a list of all the products you have for sale, that would help define your business strategy and help you in elevating profits.
- Be prepared for all potential challenges – including weather, traffic, and crime rates in your area.
Challenges and problems cannot be avoided in any business setup. As a business grows, it will require different solutions for potential challenges. Amidst all the hype for growing a business, challenges such as; weather, traffic, and crime rates cannot be avoided.
Be prepared to scale through these challenges, have standby solutions like time management, marketing strategy, among others.
- Make sure you have enough money saved up to cover any unforeseen expenses that may come up throughout the year.
The last ingredient in our list today is keeping aside money “emergency fund” for unforeseen expenses that might occur throughout the year.
Keeping money aside can help improve your business’s financial stability and security by creating a path throughout the year so unexpected expenses can be catered for. For instance, your business might encounter losses during a transaction, those saved money can be used to balance right up.
- Conclusion.
Having looked at the above strategic ingredients to add to make your business profitable, the above is just the tip of the iceberg. A successful business is determined by how well the business owner can balance through all the requirements needed to succeed.
We hope this article, helps your business become more profitable. The list is endless, however the above are proven steps you can implement and your business success will be guaranteed.
