How to start a business that will deliver profit monthly - Part 3

Today we’ll round up our discussion on how to start and run a business that delivers profit monthly. We started by talking about identifying markets with large audiences, then we talked about developing clarity yesterday. Today, we’ll focus on distribution. Distribution basically refers to the channels through which you an convert your products/services to the end users. If you have a great product but customers don’t know about it, there is no chance you re going to get patronised.

One thing I want you to know before we jump right in is that the most popular platforms most times do not translate into the most effective platform for you depending on your kind of business.

Now lets tear down a few strongholds. The default distribution strategy for most businesses is Facebook and Instagram ads. While this is quite effective, you might be leaving a lot of audience out if you don’t utilise niche communities scattered across the internet. So lets start from there

Niche communities

There are several small to large communities around the world that has amassed a sizeable and engaged audience. Platforms like Medium, Quora, Reddit have valuable millions of unique visitors. The way you are able to compete for attention in these niche communities is to provide value. People have questions, if you can answer it backed by facts and proof, you’ll quickly rise to the top. Post valuable insights, don’t be scared to share the things that have worked for you because you think people will copy your strategy. Often times, when you give out enough value, it returns business and patronage to you because you enjoy the privilege of becoming an influencer and a force to reckon with in your field. You can easily monetise the attention you are getting either through consulting or by recommending products and solutions which returns a percentage to you in form of affiliate marketing.

Word of mouth

Word of mouth is by far the most effective distribution strategy. If you are able to do something so well that it drives up conversations and debates around you, it generates invaluable traffic and patronage. Word of mouth means people are talking about you even when you are not there. Have you seen passionate fans defencing their favourite club side? Have you seen apple and android fan boys in an argument? Now think about how conversations always pop up every now and then about a specific brand and imagine it was your brand someone is passionately marketing and defending! Everybody has a sphere of influence, if enough people talk about your brand, your influence increases and so does your patronage.

Organic growth; content marketing

SEO is still king. If you spend time creating original and genuinely helpful ever green write-ups for your blog, you could enjoy top visibility for the next 10 years and even more. Remember, when doing content marketing, volume is not half as important as quality. People need help not many words. If you can offer help in 40 words, do. Organic growth means you don’t need to constantly spend money for visibility. Keep posting and keep offering value, eventually, the attention will follow. Now, to be honest, it might take you another 2 years and more to gain visible traction. Know this and know peace (smiles). Organic growth takes time.

Email marketing

When you place your content on one of the platforms listed above, you are only renting access to an audience and your access can be set off anytime. The overlords could decide you broke a rule or simply suppress you and reduce your visibility. Owning your own email list is the golden rule of content marketing and distribution. Own your audience by owning direct access to peoples inbox. Don’t believe the popular “email is dead” thingy going round and people claiming customers don’t read their emails - people don’t read your emails because they are boring and they are all sales, sales, sales so whenever your email hits peoples inbox, you are selling something to them. You should get email right by offering a ton of value. We all have that one newsletter we look forward to receiving everyday. To keep your audience engaged, your content should be fun, informative and genuinely improve people’s lives.

Get affiliated

Nothing beats 10k people sharing your product and services to their own audience in exchange for a small percentage when their friends/family buys from you. There are popular platforms that allows you list your products and set up an affiliate program…if you are a bit techy, you could set up your own platform and create your private affiliate program, with a bit of marketing, you could easily sign up a fleet of affiliate marketers sharing your product or service.

Social media:

This is the usual go-to place for people looking to gain visibility and make sales. Facebook and Instagram lead the pack here and yes, they are affordable and effective. I would also encourage you to try other ways like Youtube ads, Google Adwords and Adsense. I won’t dwell much here because everyone already knows this and probably already uses it.

Publisher networks

See those ads that pop up when you use apps? Yes, they were inserted majorly by publisher networks. They have a large reach, so large you won’t believe your ads could get a million impressions in a short time. Some of the more popular ones are adsterra, Adroll, propellerAds, media.net, buysellads, adpushup and a lot more. They are far easier to get into than Adsense which is offered by Google. Find unfair advantage when you utilise any of these.

Others

Your WhatsApp status is valuable. There are more than a million reasons to explore platforms like Tiktok, Snap, Twitter, Linkedin and more. These platforms offer a lot of exposure and could surprisingly do better than most of the popular platforms.

I’ve just shared 8 methods but if you ask me, not that you did, but if you did, I’ll recommend running Facebook and Instagram ads for easy visibility, run Google Adwords and youtube ads for quick sales because those guarantee displays to people with intent to buy. Go for word of mouth and organic for longevity and so you can stop spending money on ads after a while. I highly recommend Email marketing because you own your audience and your rules apply; it’s your ground zero and you MUST build your own audience. If you do it right, you’ll turn off the ad machine forever.

You don’t have to do all of them, but you could blend one or two together and see how it works. Pick the one with the best return for your business. We’ll find time to talk about how to optimise your ads, proper audience segmentation, effective targeting and finding results using A/B testing.

Thank you for joining me today.

THE END

At Hala, we believe that consistency is greater than intensity. Thats why we are building our community around the principles of improving with just 1% daily; which compounds overtime into something remarkable. Hala is going to be a fine blend of creatives, experienced doers, starters and dreamers. We are founded on the strong belief that ultimately, we hold a duty of care to others in need. We want to balance access to opportunities regardless of colour, background, faith or income level. We value Integrity and highly regard dignity of labour within the Hala community. As a community, our success is measured by how many dreams are achieved, those broad fulfilling smiles when help arrives and how well we are able to impact humanity. These principles are consistent with Bible teachings where we draw our faith and inspiration from. You are welcome to join Hala, you’ll discover practical tips you can start implementing today to stay ahead in business.

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