It’s no secret that the world of an ecommerce business is a fast-paced, ever-changing landscape.

And while it may seem like the way to make huge strides in your business is to focus on high-impact strategies like hiring an agency or launching an ad campaign, there’s one strategy that can actually be more effective.

Tiny gains are small improvements that you make on a consistent basis, which over time add up to better results for your business. They can come in all shapes and sizes—from making sure your website is mobile-friendly to improving your content by testing different headlines, or even just starting to use hashtags. It might not seem like much at first glance, but if you make these tiny changes consistently over time, they’ll add up quickly!

When you’re growing an online business, there is so much to do and you want to see massive growth immediately. But what if I told you that small improvements add up to make a big difference? Most people are afraid of making very tiny improvements because they don’t think that they matter.

Dave Brailsford is the Team Sky principal and the mastermind behind an incredible winning streak. He uses the power of tiny gains strategy with his athletes, taking tiny steps every day towards achieving their goals.

Commit to improving your business by 1% every day and you’ll be amazed at how much more successful it will become

As a business owner, you probably feel like you’re always struggling to keep up with the competition. You know that if your company doesn’t grow and evolve, it’s likely to fall behind.

If this is the case, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article I’m going to share one of my favorite strategies for accelerating growth: the power of tiny gains. It sounds simple enough, but by putting in just a little bit of effort each day and practising some patience (which isn’t easy), you’ll be amazed at how much more successful your online business can become!

I first heard about this idea from James Clear, #1 New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits. In this book James discusses a successful case study on how Dave Brailsford improved every tiny thing in his role as a performance director in sport and the fascinating outcomes achieved from this strategy, more on this a little later.

The power of tiny gains graph
The power of tiny gains graph. Source: James Clear

So, you don’t have time for small improvements?

The problem with this mindset is that it leads to making quick decisions without thinking through the long term consequences. It’s easy to see how this can lead to bad business practices like hiring an agency and not being clear on exactly what it is that you need or outsourcing hundreds of hours worth of work to experts on Upwork or Fiverr yet not knowing how to brief your requirements, nor knowing how to check the specifics of a technical job has been executed correctly.

To stop this, start by thinking about your business in terms of tiny gains and not just big wins. Your website should be designed around what matters most for your visitors rather than focusing on aesthetics because “it looks nicer” (unless it does). Every month you should be setting time aside to review your analytics and identify what areas need improvement and then focus on improving those areas one step at a time.

But what if I told you that small improvements add up to make a big difference?

Now, I’m not saying that taking a few minutes to work on your website will turn you into a millionaire overnight. But what if I told you that small improvements add up to make a big difference?

That’s right—even just one extra blog post each month can double your traffic in twelve months. Or if you decide to outsource some of those tasks (like SEO or social media), it could triple the number of leads coming through your door!

And let’s say instead of spending $1,000 on hiring someone who knows how to optimize for search engines and social media platforms, you spend $30 by purchasing an eBook from someone who has already done all that research for themselves. Then after reading their advice and putting some effort into following their suggestions, within two months, your website traffic increases by 20%. That sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Not only that, you’ve opened the black box on digital marketing and are learning some of the fundamentals to growing your business online.

Most people are afraid of making very tiny improvements because they don’t think that they matter

But here’s the thing: it’s better to improve by 1% every day than trying to make a big improvement in one go. Small improvements are more sustainable, easier to measure and easier to implement on a daily basis—and most importantly, the cumulative effect over time will be much greater than any one individual change!

Small improvements compound over time. If you make a change in your life and it improves by 1%, then that’s great! But what happens if you keep doing that every day for a year?

Dave Brailsford, Performance Director of the Great Britain Cycling team in 2004 and the mastermind behind an incredible winning streak

Most people have heard of Dave Brailsford. But if you haven’t, he’s the Team Sky principal and the mastermind behind an incredible winning streak, which includes his British cyclists winning 178 world championships, 66 Olympic and Paralympic gold medals and they captured 5 Tour de France victories, in what is widely regarded as the most successful run in cycling history.

And yet Brailsford’s success goes beyond that of a mere sports manager; he has transformed his company into an exemplar of modern entrepreneurship through his unswerving commitment to the idea that small improvements in every area can add up to big results.

Brailsford’s approach is all about attention to detail. He breaks down his team’s goals into small, manageable tasks and he makes sure that every member of the team knows exactly what they’re responsible for. He doesn’t just want people who are good at their jobs; he wants them to be great at them.

It’s not just cycling where Brailsford’s philosophy is catching on: it’s also been adopted by Virgin CEO Richard Branson as well as by companies like Amazon and Google.

The power of tiny gains can be applied to digital marketing

If you’re looking for a more structured approach to applying the power of tiny gains to your business you can use ‘The eCommerce Growth Framework™’. The Framework is specifically designed for small businesses and is a frame that works and puts concepts into practice.

The framework not only simplifies how you approach growing your business online, it drives sustainable growth over the long term, as well as more effectively allocates your resources into efforts that drive a return on your investment and meet your business objectives.

The framework includes eCommerce growth best practices and tactics that you can apply to your business whether you are a start-up or an established business.

The power of tiny gains are built into the eight eCommerce growth pillars:

  1. Branding
  2. Data and insights
  3. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
  4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  5. Email marketing automation
  6. Digital and social content strategy
  7. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  8. Social paid media (advertising)

Your business can also benefit from this growth strategy, even though building a successful business takes time

You might be wondering how this growth strategy will work for you, especially if your business is still in its early stages.

While building a successful business takes time, using ‘The eCommerce Growth Framework™’ to help fast-track the process and make sure that your business continues to grow.

Implementing the best practice tactics in the framework will lay the foundations for your business to grow and scale, sustainably, cost effectively, over the long term.

No more ad hoc marketing activities and promotional advertising. No more digital marketing traps. It’s time to navigate the digital maze with ease and adhere to the power of tiny gains.

Conclusion

The small improvements we make in our lives add up to what is truly significant. Whether it comes to fitness, health or growing your online business. It’s easy to get caught up trying to make huge leaps forward, but life isn’t like that.

Winning happens in small, achievable steps. The trick is to realize that the incremental wins you make today are still substantial victories that lead towards success tomorrow.