How to define the location of your business?

If you are thinking about opening a business, you may have already wondered how to define a location. Today, leasing goes far beyond physical establishments, as companies are increasingly dominating the online environment. Some businesses, in fact, only exist in the digital environment.

Now, if you want to open a physical store, it is important to pay attention to some criteria to define the right place to attract consumers and sell your products. In today’s post, we’re going to bring you some tips about leasing, both in physical space and online. Come read!

Physical space

If you’re looking to open a physical store, you might have a few neighborhoods in mind. Ideally, you should research other companies in the same segment in the neighborhood, to evaluate possible competitors and opportunities for insertion in that location. For example, if you want to open an ice cream shop, it is interesting to check if there are restaurants nearby, as people who have lunch or dinner at the restaurant may stop by your ice cream shop afterwards.

Furthermore, even if there are some competing companies nearby, you need to evaluate the differentiators of your business. If the neighborhood has a few ice cream shops, you don’t necessarily have to give up on locating your store there. If you produce unique ice cream flavors and have a vegan line, which your competitors don’t have, your store ends up standing out.

When choosing the physical space, you can consider the 4 Ps of marketing strategy (price, place, promotion and product). In this case, to define the neighborhood and even the street where you intend to open your store, some questions to answer are:

• Who is your product aimed at? Does this public have access to your establishment? How does the public reach you?
• Who are the possible competitors close to your store?
• Is there a good flow of people in the surrounding area?
• How far are your suppliers ? How much will this impact product costs?
• Does the price of your products match the prices offered by other establishments in the neighborhood?
• What costs will your company incur with rent in this neighborhood?

From these answers, you can evaluate different places and choose the one that best fits your business objectives. To facilitate this analysis, you can, for example, create an Excel spreadsheet placing the criteria or questions we listed above on the vertical axis and, on the horizontal axis, the neighborhoods or streets you are considering.

Then, you can assign a score for each place and make the final sum. List the 3 neighborhoods or 3 streets with the highest scores and evaluate in detail which option is best for your business.

Google My Business

Even if you opt for physical space, it’s important to have a digital marketing strategy . The online environment helps your company attract the right audience, through advertisements and other forms of publicity.

Therefore, it is also worth investing in Google My Business , which helps your store appear on the first page of the search platform. In this case, if the customer searches for “ice cream shop in neighborhood x” on Google, your establishment may appear for them. Some information that GMN makes available to consumers is:

• Opening hours
• Customer review
• Store address
• Website address
• Telephone
• Service Options
• Summary of what your company does
• Delivery options

Online space

The online space has already won over small businesses and is a very affordable option for companies. But, regardless of which environment you choose to undertake in digital, website or social networks, it is important:

• Know who your target audience is;
• Identify whether your product makes sense for your audience, how it helps people and why it is different from what the competition sells;
• Understand the best way to communicate with this audience (which will determine the language used to speak to them, as well as the forms of service available);
• Identify the public’s preferred channels.

With this information, you have more input to define the best way to sell to your customers.

site

If you want to open an e-commerce , it’s important to start with an intuitive website that provides all the information your customers need to buy. In this case, you will need hosting and a website creator that comes with some templates to create your e-commerce (but it is also possible to outsource this part and hire a professional specialized in website creation).

To promote your products, it is interesting to take photos on a light background and at different angles, so that all the details of the items are visible to customers. It is also important to pay attention to product descriptions, providing as much information as possible, such as available sizes and colors, dimensions and features.

The item’s price, shipping cost and installment conditions must also be clearly visible so that the customer does not have any surprises at the end of the purchase process.

In e-commerce, a determining factor is check-out. Therefore, ensure that this step is done without a headache. Ideally, this should be a quick process, in which the customer chooses the payment option , enters their details and completes the purchase quickly.

Social media

Social networks are great allies for business owners. This is because they allow you to sell your products, starting with low investments. The first step to operating on social media is choosing which platforms your business will appear on and, to do this, you need to know where your audience is.

Currently, Instagram and Facebook are the wildest social networks, which cover a large audience. But if you have a younger audience, for example, Tik Tok could also make sense. If your focus is on other companies, LinkedIn can be a good alternative.

After defining the best social network for your business, in addition to perfecting your profile, you should start advertising your products. This can be done directly through Instagram and Facebook. In the latter case, you use FB Ads Manager, which allows you to refine the target audience for your ads.

With this strategy, you can reach more people interested in what your company sells. Furthermore, even if you have a physical store, you can take advantage of these tips about the online environment to boost your digital business.

It is important to highlight that each option has its difficulties, in the online world the chances of scams and fraud are greater, the logistics of employees and product delivery can also be more complex than in a physical business, so carefully analyze your options and understand which model best fits your business today.