Success in business does not come about by chance. Instead, several important factors must be addressed. Read on to find out what they are below.

Customers

It may sound obvious but to be successful in business you will need customers. The thing is that when it comes to getting and keeping a loyal customer base there are two things you need to consider and plan for. The first is offering a great quality product combined with an excellent customer experience. The second is making sure your business is set up to facilitate a customer’s need in the first place.

Unfortunately, many businesses are started on the premise that the founder has a good idea. The problem with this is that it doesn’t matter how good your idea is for a product or service if it does not meet a genuine need that customers have. That is why it’s crucial to focus on this stage of the process first and commit to customer testing and research to establish whether there will be enough of a market to sustain your business.

Branding

Your business’s brand is its identity, and it’s crucial for many reasons including making sure your customers can instantly recognise you in the marketplace. A good brand will also help make your business more relatable to your customers as you will share the same values, differentiating your business from all the others in your field.

Branding is made up of two main components – the visual and the written. Visual branding includes aspects such as the colours you use, the fonts you pick, and even the layouts and images you work with for things such as your website, product labels, and even your logo. Remember the mark of a good brand is when a customer can pick your product out from others on a shelf and instantly recognise it by visual aspects.

The written aspect of branding is also important and covers things like the type of vocabulary you’ll use, as well as the tone of the language. It even relates to very specific ways of talking about people such as using ‘we’ for your business, and ‘you’ for their customers in content and copy.

Marketing

While branding is about identity, marketing is about letting the right people know about your business and the products you have on offer. Marketing is crucial in today’s customised digital landscape if you want to make sure the people most likely to buy your products will know about your business. With that in mind, a combination of digital marketing such as SEO, PPC, content and social media marketing is usually the best approach.

Start-up / Expansion funds

Next, whatever stage of running a business you are at, you’ll need funding to push to the next one. This means if you are setting up a business you will need start-up money to cover costs such as building a website, purchasing stock and equipment, and covering overheads like business rent and payroll.

You’ll also need money if you are in a stage where you want to expand your business as well, as breaking into new markets requires a range of expenses to be covered including market research, new premises, new stock and new staff. The good news is there are a range of funding options to consider from startup loans to reinvesting the profits you have made with your business into expansion.