Avoid The Common Mistakes Many Make When Starting An Online Business
Study the above image for a while.
This is a great image for a beginner who is thinking about starting an online business. You will notice the entire chain that an e-commerce or online business has to deal with and go through.
Many online businesses are started by young people who do not have any experience in business and Customer care, and these businesses perish after a while. You will also notice that the one thing that underlies this entire e-commerce journey, is “words”. A website or e-commerce store owner must “write” content in almost every part of this journey, right from the beginning.
It appears that having products and building the website seems to be the easiest part of the entire e-commerce journey. But the real work begins after this stage.
It is crucial to realise that people or, as they call it in the digital world, “traffic” will not come to your website “automatically”. Many newbies to websites and e-commerce believe that as soon as we launch a website, traffic will automatically come to our website – this is not true.
In fact, what everyone in the world is doing is trying to drive organic traffic to their websites, and this translate to sales and revenue. This is the goal of all Digital Marketing initiatives – to drive traffic to our websites.
Here are the common ways to drive traffic to a website:
• Advertise on Social Media & Search Engine platforms
• Share Social Media posts
• Write and post blog articles
Although there are many other digital methods to drive traffic to a website, the above 3 would be typical. You will notice that even with these 3 items above, there is a lot of Copywriting involved, and this is only the beginning. You will need to learn to write for every instance of this e-commerce journey.
5 Reasons Why You Must Learn Copywriting Before You Start An Online Business:
As already illustrated above, there are already 3 areas in an online or e-commerce business that warrants good Copywriting. It must be pointed here, that Copywriting is not ordinary writing. Copywriting is a special kind of writing designed to generate “sales”. It is unlike ordinary or even Content Writing.
So, if you are about to start an online business, or already have started one, these are the areas that you will need the writing skill to excel and be successful in online marketing:
1. Copywriting is needed for your Website
As you know, the first step to starting an online business is to have a website. However, I would advice you not to do this. You are better off opening an account at many of the online Marketplaces and upload and sell your products through these platforms. Most of them are Free. So you will not need to spend any money to get started. Next, these Marketplaces advertise a lot and therefore, have millions of visitors every month. You get to leverage on this traffic brought in through the effort of the website owners. However, whether you build your own website or open an account at a Marketplace, you will still need to write about yourself and your products.
2. Copywriting is needed for Product Descriptions
This is a Marketing crime many commit without realising it. Many websites I have reviewed do not have any Product Descriptions in the Product Page of an E-Commerce website. You have to realise, that in the online world, there is no “salesman” to help you push your products to people. So you will have to convince or persuade your website visitors to make a purchase, right now, entirely through “words”. Hence, this is another very important reason why you should learn Copywriting skills.
3. Copywriting is needed for writing your Advertisements & Posts
It is part and parcel of any business to have some marketing activities to promote their products, and this is usually done through advertising. Copywriting is this special kind of writing that is designed precisely for advertisements. In most ads, the copy is short, and there is also a Call-To-Action line is the copy. This is what makes Copywriting so special that not everyone is born with this skill. In fact, hardly anyone is born with this skill and even great Copywriters today, learned this skill from other Copywriters. You will need to learn Copywriting to write your advertisements, daily social media posts, and product offers and promos.
4. Copywriting is needed for Customer Care
Many young entrepreneurs who do not have work experience fail spectacularly in this area. You have to remember that even an online business is still a business and people who deal with them will expect answers and responses. Many people who do Dropshipping and get their products from China to be delivered to addresses around the world often experience delays. When customers call the online sellers for answers on this delay, the website owner panics, and is unable to deal with the customers. This then leads to bad reviews, and sadly the demise of that online business. Therefore, it is important to learn to write and speak with your customers. You shall be able to explain better when you have attended a Copywriting class.
5. Copywriting is needed for Email Marketing
Email marketing is unarguably the best form of Digital Marketing, and all Digital Marketing experts from around the world will promote it. If you have an e-commerce business that is starting to have customers, then it is always a good idea to stay in touch with your customers. Send them an email every now and then, just to stay in touch. You can update them with information pertaining to the products they bought from you, or you could up sell any new products that you have. For this exercise, I do not need to tell you that you will do well if you had some Copywriting knowledge to do this task well and effectively so that your effort is not wasted.
Conclusion
So there you have it. You simply cannot escape learning Copywriting the right way if you want to succeed in anything online. We have to remember that the internet and Search Engines survive purely on words and writing, and this is why, in this Digital Age, it is not the knowledge of technical things and websites that will make you successful, but good old fashion, organic writing.
Online Courses Malaysia has tied up with some reputable institutions and trainers in Malaysia to bring you some really good certified Copywriting short courses that you can learn online, at your convenience today, and be successful with your online business.
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