If you’re like us, you probably build the majority of your small business online and the balance offline. Just can’t get that old school entrepreneur out of the blood, right?
But, the trends for offline businesses is a little more obvious than those trends found online. Meaning, we see the rise and fall of physical store locations. We also see (or experience) expansions or downsizing.
It’s in our faces a lot more than what those building a small business online, see.
The online small business world can be crazy — constant changes, new platforms, marketing do’s and don’ts, and all the things in between. Our goal is to help simplify what we believe a few key players are for this part of the online business world.
Small Business Trends for 2021
Now, we are not self proclaimed experts in this space. However, we are 2 driven entrepreneurs who have been in the game 20+ years. We are coming from a place of trial and error experience and we like to keep our finger on the pulse of those who are experts and in turn, share with you.
Small Business Trends: Get Niche Specific
“Big companies like Amazon are great at delivering value through technology to mass market audiences,” — Brad Keywell, 2019’s World Entrepreneur of the Year. He went on to say “It’s the niches they do not deal in that offer real opportunity to entrepreneurs, who can be flexible and move quickly.”
Overall, think about the products and/or services you sell. Let’s assume they’re in the health and wellness space. How can you narrow that down even more?
- What problem do they solve?
- Who uses these products?
- Which price point are they at?
- Do they require knowledge or experience to use them?
- Who are the spenders in this space?
.. and so on.
Whatever you can do to narrow things down — the better position you will be in for this year (and beyond!).
Small Business Trends: Video, Video and more Video
When we look at platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram — the trends have been there, right? But in 2021 we can expect to see this even more.
In fact, experts at HubSpot have said that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. So, if you want to keep up with the small business trends … you need to start incorporating more videos in your content.
Small Business Trends: Optimize your Online Content for Voice Search
We’re going to take a wild guess that at some point in your day you’ve said; ‘hey Google can you ….’ or, ‘hey Alexa how far ….’ or, ‘Hey Siri what if ….’
Sound familiar? Well, then it probably won’t surprise you that voice searching online has grown more than 200%. So think about this when you are writing your posts, then, ask yourself what the reader ‘could have’ asked to land themselves on your content.
Here’s an example; the text we type into Google search is different than how we would speak to Alexa or Siri; instead of typing “weather Minnesota”, we would ask “What’s the weather in Minnesota today?”.
And, since platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn for example will return in a Google search — keep this in mind when you are writing. People are being more and more detailed with their searches.
Keep your content conversational and specific to the topic you are speaking on.
These are 3 of the small business trends we’ve started to incorporate in our own businesses for some time now — effectively.
Let us know if you’d like us to share a few others we are currently executing. Love your thoughts in the comments!
