5 Mistakes That Can Kill Your Online Business

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Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a goal for everyone starting an online business. No one thinks of failing in their endeavors. But in reality, only a 10% of entrepreneurs make it. Many people close their businesses in less than six month. Others struggle with loss making venture but eventually throw the towel. 

Failing in business can be a heartbreaking moment. It is painful to watch your efforts going to waste. Luckily, you can avoid it. Despite the challenges and competition in the commercial world, you can start and run a successful sustainable venture. However, this will be possible if you can avoid the following five mistakes:

Lacking a business plan
Lack of a plan is planning to fail. This ancient sentiment remains valid to date. With internet, it is easy to start an online store. Everyone can have a business and make profits. For this reason, many people are joining the entrepreneurial field without a plan. Some want to do what their peers are doing while others get to business because they are idle.

These individuals do not take time to draw up a plan for how they will run their businesses. You should not commit this mistake. The success of anything is a product of a good plan. You need to plan everything from marketing to finances. Take a look at this OKR implementation guide that can help you asses your long-term goals and make aggressive moves to achieve them. Without a good business plan, success will be a nightmare.

Starting a business on the wrong niche
The first step in becoming a successful entrepreneur is choosing the right niche. You need to pick a market segment that you know best. Working on the wrong niche means that it will be hard for you to come up with new ideas. 

Also, you will not give the best as you have zero passion on what you do. This aspect will make it hard for you to compete with webpreneurs whose passion is on this niche. Eventually, failure will be your rewards. Always choose the right niche by aligning it with your passion. This way, you will have a drive to keep going and success will be a guarantee.

Ignoring SEO as part of your marketing strategies
It is the digital era where everyone is online. The customers you are looking for are spending time on the virtual spaces. For this reason, digital marketing should be your priority. You must have a strategy to promote your products on the online marketplaces.

While some entrepreneurs have a digital marketing strategy, they ignore SEO. These entrepreneurs believe that SEO is slow and won’t offer fast results as other digital marketing approaches. If you are in this group, you are making the worst mistake. 

SEO need to be a central component in your digital marketing plan. You need to acquire knowledge on how this approach can boost your business growth. Essentially, you can learn SEO for free if you have no money to invest on paid courses and consultancy. Prioritizing search engine optimization will help you scale the ecommerce field faster and avoid any failing chances.

Not developing a customer’s database
Since you can get customers coming on your online store, you see no need of capturing their data. You do not keep any information about people visiting your online business. If this is your norm, you can expect to have no business soon. 

Data is everything in this era. You must have a way of establishing long term relationship with your customers. It only through this approach you can enjoy returning sales. So, if you want to fail, always ignore having a database of your customers.  

Ignoring customers feedback 

Do you listen to your customers? The life of any business relies on the customers’ perception. Any successful entrepreneur must listen to their customers and offer the right solutions. Giving a deaf ear to their feedback is the best path to failure. 
In a word, every business has the potential to succeed. However, this can only happen if you pay attention to various aspects and avoid the above killer mistakes.