Candle aromas enhance the senses and recreate memories – so why not create your own candle business? Candles can serve many purposes and are meaningful gifts, decor and room features! And with the right digital strategy in place – can support you in a number of ways.
The ability to reach new audiences, connect with global consumers, and expand target markets has been enhanced with technology. That’s why creating a digital business strategy is essential for a small candle business.
Mission Statement
Highlight what your business intends to achieve through its production of candles. For example this could be;
EverGreen candles brings people together through sharing of aromas
This highlights the connection your business attempts to gain amongst its consumers.
SMART Goals
Firstly, to make this plan as effective as possible make sure that your goals you are setting are SMART
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Timely
Goals can be either short-term from between 0-6 months, or long-term goals 6 months +
Here are some examples of both;
Short- Term Goals:
- In the next three months, I want to have 30 candles ordered per month.
- Within the next 6 months, I want to have at least 500 instagram followers.
Long-Term Goals
- In the next 8 months, I want to have 50 candle orders per month
- In the first year, I want to have at least 1000 followers on both Instagram and Facebook.
- In the first two years I want to increase by profit by 50%
Measuring Goals
Don’t forget to use metrics to analyse your success or failures of your goals! Potential metrics include Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, Social Media Engagement, Website Traffic, Instagram Insights, and many more that can be tailored to any digital business.
Understand and Define your Audience
Research – Learn about what your customers want, what customers are buying and – who is buying.
Narrow Your Scope – Identify your audience, demographic, and those you wish to target. Understand the audience needs, and how to best connect.
Target Your Audience – Create content, ads, social media posts with your audience in mind, identify what they’ll respond to.
Research Competition + SWOT Analysis
Before entering the market, it is essential to understand the climate of the current market. This requires research on competitors, market share, threats etc.
To do this, outline a SWOT analysis to identify your brands strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – then utilise this.
Prepare Your Digital Space
Create your brand! Create brand logo, motto, colours and apply them to your new brand. This is important to keep consistent across social platforms.
SEO – Improve your website traffic by increasing your Search Engine Optimisation find out more here; https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/seo/
Social Medias – Create Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages etc. Whatever suits your target audience. The more platforms you use – the larger the audiences you can reach!
Finally – Create Your Strategy
Formulate your step-by-step strategy to accomplish your goals set. Here is an example – customise this to your business, goals, and targted audiences.
1. Create a Webpage and Digital Platforms
As a new business, it is vital to set up your brand and pages ASAP, to gain awareness and connect with new consumers. It’s pretty cheap and easy to make your website and social media platforms, use mailchimp or something similar to control your posts from one source.
2. Establish Your Branding
You need to distinguish your brand. By identifying its values, and ideas you can connect better to consumers and establish your brand.
3. Thorough Research of your Competitors
Understand the competitor values, their advantages and disadvantages, and use this to build your brand.
4. Sign in to Google My Business
Professionalise your brand, this builds trust with prospective clients, and will help you to start building your digital fingerprint, the same way as the webpage does. This will allow for getting reviews that will get you credibility and insight into what your customers think about your product.
5. Identify What Tools and Resources You Need
It is important prior to building your business, to make sure you have everything you need. This includes resources, ingredients, tools etc. Once you’re set up – you’re ready to go!
For more specific instructions check out this page; https://candles.lovetoknow.com/Candle_Making_Business
Good Luck!
