Taking Your Internet Business To The Next Level

Once your business becomes established, you have to consider where to take it next. Do you just keep going at the same level relying on new business and repeat business to bring in your profits or do you aspire to take your business to the next level and expand? There are lots of things to consider, not least whether your plans for expansion include further financial investment. Here are a few ways that you can expand your business.

Extend your reach

With an Internet business, you have the potential to extend your reach on a global level. If you are selling a physical product that is relatively straightforward to ship abroad, consider opening up your markets to other countries. All it would take is some research into the best methods of shipping and you could expand your business very quickly.

One thing to be careful of is that you have the capability to sell large quantities of your products and another is that you will not be restricted by rules and regulations in another country — for instance, the US may be permitted to sell certain food supplements that would not be allowed in the UK. It’s worth checking if your business would be subject to restrictions of this sort.

If you intend to extend your reach around the world, you will need a comprehensive marketing strategy to reach your new markets. This should be fairly straightforward and if you run pay per click advertising, social media marketing and so on it should be relatively easy to adjust your settings so that your adverts appear to prospects in other countries. Check your website SEO and make adjustments ready to start getting your website into the search engine listings for other areas and countries.

Go wholesale

If you own a unique product, you could consider offering it on a wholesale basis. If you have a decent profit margin per unit sold, you should still be able to make a good profit if you become a wholesaler selling at discount prices.

An advantage of expanding in this way is that your prospective customers are easier to find and contact. All you have to do is search for them online and contact them about your wholesale products. While it is not acceptable to contact individuals by e-mail anymore — this is considered spam, it is perfectly legitimate to contact another business since they openly display their e-mail address for anyone to contact them.

If you are considering selling your products on a wholesale basis, you could also combine this with extending your reach into other countries by exporting to other businesses.

Diversify

Another way to expand your Internet business is to diversify your range of products or services. Try to add more backend products to your main product — for instance, if you are selling a digital book, why not create a course or a set of DVDs that complements your original product. You could also cross sell a variety of other related products — for example if you are selling a book on weight loss as your primary product, why not supplement this with other weight loss products and services.

You could consider developing a portal website chock full of information on relevant subjects and start offering a diversity of affiliate products as well as your own unique products and services within your theme.

Create an affiliate program

If you have a good product, you could get other people to sell for you on a commission basis. It’s relatively straightforward these days to set up an affiliate program through a third party website, although you should make sure you look after your affiliates well and provide plenty of marketing materials for them to use.

License your product

If you have your own product that is unique to you, you could consider licensing it so that others can sell it. You could charge an upfront fee as well as ongoing royalties on sales and it is a low-cost, low risk way of making more money from your existing products. This form of expansion works well for products such as software and information products but it could also be suitable for all sorts of products and services. You could issue licenses to others as a business opportunity if you put together a really good package of products, with a protected territory. You may need appropriate legal advice and contracts.

Franchise your business

Franchising your business can be a very profitable way to expand, if you have something unique and a tried and tested business model. Many businesses sell franchises successfully although it can take a lot of work and effort to set up as a franchisor to begin with. Again, you will need appropriate legal advice and contracts to be drawn up.