As the phrase “Digital Entrepreneur” grows in popularity, many people are clueless to what a digital entrepreneur is, what they do, and what is the difference between a Traditional vs Digital Entrepreneur. Here are a few things to know about digital entrepreneurs:
- Digital Entrepreneurs are able to work from anywhere in the world at any time of the day as long as they have access to the internet.
- Customers can buy from a digital entrepreneur at any time because they have 24/7 access to their website or ecommerce store.
- Digital Entrepreneurs don’t need to borrow lump sums of money to build/purchase a brick-and-mortar building because they are solely online.
Digital Entrepreneur Basics
Before we take a deeper dive into the world of digital entrepreneurship, it’s important to know what a Digital Entrepreneur is and what makes it different from a traditional entrepreneur. A Digital Entrepreneur is someone who builds a business or business venture strictly online. After reading this you might say, “how is that different from any other business? A business like Forever 21 sells online, does that make them a Digital Entrepreneur?” My answer to that would be Yes and No. Yes because this business has an online platform to sell from, however they are not solely online. Plus it is run by a corporation. Just because you sell your products/services online doesn’t mean you’re a digital entrepreneur. It could mean you are a traditional business owner that sells online. There is a level of freedom you get to experience as a digital entrepreneur vs a traditional entrepreneur.
This sounds exciting but just like everything, digital entrepreneurship is not for everyone. For some, a traditional business is the way to go and that’s okay. I don’t want to take the time to talk about who is qualified or not, but I do want to show you that becoming a digital entrepreneur can be simple and rewarding if you can get good at three things. Those things are 1) Building an presence online, 2) Creating a video content strategy, and 3) using effective Call to Actions. We’ll talk about these later. For now, I want to share some truths about digital entrepreneurship. Let’s talk about it!
3 Digital Entrepreneur Truths
There are many benefits to working solely online. A few I mentioned before but here are some you may not have thought about:
Flexibility
Office hours are not a common thing in the digital world. You’ll have the flexibility to work when you want and where you want and it isn’t looked down on. The only time you may be required to be online is if you are creating content or engaging with your audience. The rest of the time can be spent looking for ways to build the business, traveling to different parts of the world, or investing quality time with your family. With digital entrepreneurship, you are able to pick the times where you spend doing what you want to do.
Easy Access to Customers
Because your business is run online, you have the ability to make money anywhere in the world at any time of the day. If your website and social media platforms are done correctly and filled with valuable content, your customer can search for you, find your products/services, and pay you without you having to assist them.
Potential for Growth
To scale in a traditional business, it usually comes down to buying more products, hiring more staff, or the biggest thing, opening another location. That’s not necessary for digital entrepreneurs. Because your business is online, you invest in systems and partner with other businesses that can help scale your business in the right direction. Depending on how high you want to scale will determine your business growth, but with a brick and mortar business, if you want a business in a great location to increase the chance of more customers coming to patronize your business, you have to invest large sums of money in hopes of scaling.
Traditional Entrepreneurship/Business Limitations
Location
Once you pick the location you want your business to be, you are stuck there. This isn’t always a bad thing but it can become a problem if the proper market analysis isn't made (which costs money).
Overhead
Have you ever walked into a store and all their shelves were half empty? It’s not a pleasant feeling. If a store wants to look presentable, the shelves have to be stocked. That not including the utilities that must be paid like electricity, internet, and phone.
Brick and Mortar
As the years go by, buildings experience wear and tear and have to be remodeled. This can cost hundreds of dollars just to give a building a minor face lift. On top of that, if there is a storm, flooding, or damage to the building, people can’t come into the store which means money can’t be made.
Here are more truths for Digital Entrepreneurship and how they differ from traditional entrepreneurship:
There are many more limitations to running a business as a traditional entrepreneur but this is not to bash anyone who has a traditional business. I just want to show anyone who is looking for other options or that could work in their favor. So if that’s you, this blog will get you well on your way.
The Importance of Building an Online Presence
If you want to see any success as a digital entrepreneur, you have to be able to build a presence online. It can be extremely difficult to be in the digital world but not be online. So this is the most important piece to being a digital entrepreneur. In order to build an online presence, you want to consider these 3 things:
Picking a Targeted Audience
Choosing a Social Media Platform
Creating Valuable Content
Picking a Targeted Audience
One of the most critical steps in building an online presence is to identify and pick a specific target audience. You should pick a specific group of people and focus on them, rather than trying to reach everyone. This way you can customize messages for them and create campaigns that will work well with this group. You'll also be able to track how successful your marketing efforts are so you can make the best decisions about how to market online, which leads to better engagement, greater conversions, and ultimately, a thriving business.
This is easier said than done. If you don’t have a clue on where to start looking for your target audience, the best thing to do is to ask yourself who would be interested in buying what you’re offering. Even though your offer is “so great that everybody would buy it”, targeting everybody doesn’t work. If you are too broad with choosing your audience, it can be difficult in the long run to create messaging that will speak directly to your audience.
Buyer Persona
What you want to create is a Buyer Persona. This is a made person that you would consider your ideal customer. You would give this person a name, determine her age, income, occupation plus more. If you can get real good with creating this buyer persona, you can do the research necessary to understand this person's needs, wants and buying habits. SEMrush has a great blog that talks about creating a buyer persona in greater detail.
Choosing a Social Media Platform
Building a presence online is essential in today's business world, and social media platforms can help digital entrepreneurs achieve this goal. With so many social media platforms available, it's important to carefully consider which one will be the best fit for your brand and content. Research shows that over 3.6 billion people worldwide are active on social media, making it a powerful tool for reaching your audience. Each platform offers unique benefits and caters to different demographics, so it's important to understand who your target audience is and where they spend their time online.
For example, if you're targeting a younger audience, platforms like TikTok and Instagram may be more effective, while LinkedIn is better suited for B2B businesses. It's also important to consider which platforms align with your content strategy and goals. For businesses that rely heavily on visuals, platforms like Pinterest and Instagram offer great opportunities to showcase products and services. Ultimately, choosing the right social media platform to post content on can make or break your online presence as an entrepreneur, so it's crucial to do your research and make an informed decision.
Each Platform has its own NATIVE Content
For every social media platform out there, there is a purpose for why each of them exist and they are all different from each other. Think about it, do you go to Facebook for the same reason you go to YouTube? Do you go to Instagram for the same reason as Pinterest? Or Twitter and TikTok? You go to them all for different reasons, and each platform has something called Native Content. This is the type of content that is pushed the most by that platform's algorithm. Here are some examples:
Facebook: Facebook Lives
Instagram: Reels
YouTube: Long Length Videos
Pinterest: Blog/List Post
Twitter: Written Post
TikTok: 60 sec - 3 min Videos
Creating Valuable Content
This is where you start to think about content differently. It’s not always about going viral. Going viral can be good but it doesn’t always mean you will make money. If you want to become a digital entrepreneur and your goal is to generate income, you must create valuable content. The easiest way to explain this is to put yourself in the position of a customer. Think about your favorite thing to watch on YouTube. Why do you watch it? What was about it that made you start watching it? You more than likely started to watch and continue watching it because it gives you some sort of valuable information. Value sticks! Value brings trust and engagement. And when you have someone's trust, they are more willing to buy from you than not.
With these three things, you are well on your way to building an online presence that has an engaged audience with valuable content. But what if you are currently a traditional entrepreneur and you want to transition into a digital entrepreneur. What should you do?
Expanding from Traditional Entrepreneurship to Digital Entrepreneurship
Being an entrepreneur in these digital times is not easy. Not only are you running a business, but you have to expand yourself to do more and keep up with the competition. It can be a lot for some people and sometimes overwhelming. This is why expanding into digital entrepreneurship is important. As entrepreneurs, we get so caught up in our work that we forget what the end goal is. We become entrepreneurs for many different things. To get rid of your boss, create generational wealth, or you had an idea that just wouldn’t leave you. The thing is, how much money you make is dependent on how long you work. How many hours in the day are you serving customers? But with digital marketing it is different.
Because of the digital world and people are able to access it 24 hours/7 days a week, your customers can buy your product or service at any time. You can even expand your services and sell the knowledge you’ve gained while running your business. There is someone out there that is looking for the information you have. You can create an offer out of what you know, put it in a package where people would buy it, and now you have your business working for you instead of you always having to work it. You’re making money while you sleep and eat. Plus if you are a traditional entrepreneur, you are a step ahead because you have a business and knowledge to go along with it. Digital Entrepreneurship is the next step for traditional entrepreneurship. Here is what’s next to become a digital entrepreneur.
How to create Effective Video Content Strategy from my Traditional Business
The key to creating an effective video content strategy is to talk about what you know. What most digital entrepreneurs have to do is research everything about a business before they start to make offers and sell their products/services. But because you already run a traditional business, and have the knowledge about it, it can be easier for you. Use that knowledge and turn it into content. Not just any content, Video Content.
Why Use Video Content over Still or Written Content
As we continue to grow in this digital era, there are so many things that fight for our attention. As business owners, we have to go with the flow and stay with the times to remain relevant. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you learn to adjust quickly and know what is working for other business owners who are already in the digital world. According to Idea Rocket, our brains can process visuals much quicker than it can process words. Almost a thousand times faster. What that means is if the attention span of the average person is 15 seconds or less, and you want to create content that engages with them, then creating video content is the most effective way to accomplish this.
We are more likely to remember a brand or business because of their video content rather than a promotional image. There are no reasons for us to remember an image. The only way we would remember a still image is if it resonated an emotion within us that sparked that part of our brain telling us that this is important and we should remember this. That takes a lot of luck on your part to meet the right customer at the right point of their life to become your customer.
However for videos, you can create a promo video talking about your product and service, and if done right, your audience will be moved by the emotions you spark within them, even if they are not your customer, they will at least think of someone who can use your services. That’s the power of video. Just like the saying says, Actions (video) speak louder than words.
Now the question is, what should I make content about. This is when you create a video content strategy. With this strategy, you will be able to pop your phone up and talk about many different topics within your business that will gain the attention of your audience and leave them wanting more.
Let’s talk about it!
Create A Video Content Strategy
A video content strategy helps you understand what your content will be about. So many entrepreneurs make the mistake of jumping out into the digital world full of excitement creating video content, then eventually hit a wall because they run out of things to post. This happens because of the lack proper preparation and not developing a solid video content strategy. To avoid hitting that wall, do this instead. Find a main topic that is a common issue in your industry, create sub-topics from the main topics, then create detailed sub-topics from the sub-topics, and continue to repeat until you can’t find any more common issues on that subject matter. This is an example of how that would look.
Main Topic
Sub-topic
Detail #1
Detail #2
Detail #2 Sub-topic
Detail #3
The great thing about this is you can create as many Main Topics as you see fit. This is what keeps you from running out of video content to talk about. For my visual folks, this is the same outline but from a web view.
Creating content doesn’t have to be hard, but it does take effort and proper preparation. If you can create 5-10 of these before you start recording any content, you can have valuable engaging content to post that can last for 6 months. That’s exciting right? No more stressing about what you should post about on a specific day because you have your video content strategy diagram. Pick a topic and hit record. Now your audience is engaged and wanting to know more about your products and services. But how do you get them to move on what you are offering?
Call To Action
A call to action is exactly what it says, calling someone to act on something. It should let your viewers know exactly what you want them to do after watching your video. It needs to be specific and relevant to your content, as well as delivered along with the benefits they'll get from taking action. Remember to keep your call to action short, clear, and concise, making it easy for viewers to understand and follow through.
Another essential factor when creating a call to action is to make it visually appealing, using bold fonts, bright colors, and animation. Adding a sense of urgency by including phrases like "act now" or "limited time offer" can effectively create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) among your audience, encouraging them to take the desired action.
You can have the best video content in the world, but without a “call to action”, it’s useless. Don’t make the mistake of wasting your time and effort of creating video content and leave your audience to guess what is next.
In conclusion, digital entrepreneurship has seen a boom in the last few years and if you’re pulling away from traditional business routes, having an online presence is essential. Whether it’s launching a website to introduce your product or outlining a plan for content marketing through videos, there are many ways to get started. Doing so will open up new opportunities, help build your consumer base, and give you an added layer of protection. Don’t wait any longer to start your journey as a digital entrepreneur! Invest the time into understanding more about this concept and book a call with us if you want to jump right into it. With our hands-on experience in the business realm, we have all the knowledge you need to make your transition from traditional to digital entrepreneur successful. So don’t hesitate; start creating your future today!