Challenges of Businesses in Online Marketing
It is inevitable for businesses to face the challenges of targeting the right channel on the online market and successfully acquiring paying customers. Back in the days of conventional marketing techniques, there wasn’t much competition, and doing business wasn’t as challenging. In the contemporary era, everything has moved online, even the customers. With the arrival of e-commerce, there is more competition now than ever before. Starting an online business isn’t a very easy task now. Amazon is one of the major competitors that every business in the online market is trying to struggle against. Even the share of Chinese products is also getting higher in the market.
When running an online business, there are several challenges that you will face and some of them will be addressed below;
Building your own E-commerce Site.
The first step includes creating a website that looks appealing and can convert. You will also face challenges in designing any website. Attracting customers and driving traffic to your website requires you to have a website that is modern, user-friendly, classy, and secure.
The most common challenges you will face while building your own e-commerce website are:
- Finding the right team for your web designing
- Choosing the right technology for your website (e.g. right shopping cart, inventory management program, etc.)
- Staying up to date with the technology
- Adding features for enhanced user experience
- Creating informative and original content
- Designing CTAs for increased customer conversion
- Making the website mobile-friendly (if it isn’t mobile-friendly, users will exit your website way before browsing your products)
- Generating Targeted Traffic. With the advent of digital marketing, retailers cannot rely on just one type of method for driving traffic to their businesses. You will need to get your website to rank on Google by using keywords related to your products. Throughout this journey of digital entrepreneurship, you must learn about digital marketing strategies such as SEO, email marketing, online advertising, and social media marketing. Don’t forget to align your digital marketing strategies with the business objectives.
- Perfect Product to Sell Online. If you are just starting a new business, you need to find a profitable and in-demand product line that will sell. There is always competition in many popular products. And if you look at Amazon, it seems to occupy the whole market with its range of product catalogs and options. This means that anything that you are considering to sell is already being sold in the market, and that will make it very difficult for your business to find success if you are offering the same products as already being sold on Amazon. Hence, your product should be a unique one in the online market.
- Customer Acquisition. Again, attracting customers in the digital market is completely different from the traditional market setting. Online customers are becoming extremely smart; they will read product reviews from other customers and judge your product on the basis of that. They will compare products before purchasing the best one. However, what you can do is decide on the right hashtag to find the right customers. You could also use the right keywords for search engines and that will make a potential customer find the right product that they’re looking for. On your website, you will also need to keep different landing pages or employ customization for an enhanced customer experience.
- Cybersecurity. Online businesses even need proper cybersecurity methods in place because they cannot afford downtime in their operations. Cyberattacks can seriously affect the growth of your online business. Having the right technology and implementing policies regarding it can also prove to be challenging, but it will go a long way in keeping the business running. Businesses must also ensure security in the products and services that they offer to their customer. For instance, Comcast Xfinity offers Xfinity Internet with Xfinity Gateway Advanced Security, which securely monitors incoming traffic on to a network connection.
- Return/Refund Policies. Online shoppers like reviewing the return/refund policy of any retail store before deciding on a purchase. They even tend to leave websites and shopping carts when they are not happy with the delivery dates. Most online shoppers do not want to wait more than 5 days to finally receive their products. Some online shoppers make an unnecessary return of products, from which most of them are repeated customers. These are examples of just a few hurdles that online shoppers create for online businesses. To avoid that, online businesses need to create and design excellent return/refund policies to clear any confusion.
The COVID-19 has opened doors and provided great opportunities for online sellers since shoppers are now moving online for their desired products. This is a perfect opportunity for you to move your business online. Challenges in the online market are always going to be there, but businesses must keep in mind that nothing can be overcome without having a strategic plan, effective policies being implemented, and the security of information.