Are you in need of ideas and some amazing strategies for business growth but aren’t sure about where to start?
Understanding how to take your business to the next level can be tough if you don’t have the tools to hand.
Luckily, here’s a list of top-notch ideas that you can try in the form of marketing, sales, customer experience and nitty-gritty back room essentials!
Let’s get started.
Marketing Strategies for Business Growth
1.Create a MEASURABLE Marketing Plan
Being able to measure the success of a plan is something that is necessary to be able to track its progress. It’s only then will you be able to see whether or not something needs to be changed.
So, how do you do this?
Start by laying out a basic list of marketing materials and social posts and identify something you can measure as an end result. For example, the number of link clicks on a downloadable resource or maybe the number of new followers on a social platform.
Then, monitor the results and assess the positive and negative aspects of the outcome.
What will you do differently next time?
2.Build Your Email Marketing List
Email marketing is a widely used tool by many businesses. This is because the effect is high and the investment is low.
Your email list should be built on customer data or potential customers who have given their email addresses to you in the form of a subscription, newsletter or permission acceptance.
RELATED POST: How to Use Email Marketing to Keep Customers Coming Back
3.Develop a Re-Marketing Strategy
Are you familiar with this method?
Essentially, it’s a way of capturing data about people who are interested in what you do and have visited your website.
Using Ad campaigns on social media (yes, Facebook and Instagram but there are lots of other places too) you can put your products and services in front of your website visitors and people just like them.
It can be a cost-effective way to convert leads to sales.
What’s better is that you know that these people are interested in you because they have already interacted!
4.Grow Your Network
Networking is an essential component of the entrepreneur’s toolkit!
Whether you host a local networking gig or attend a couple to see who is in your area, these events are the first step to creating long-lasting professional relationships, finding leads and securing deals.
5.Mix-Up Your Social Media Channels
Social media is versatile, meaning that every platform has a different use and audience type.
For instance, Twitter is a short-hand social media platform with quick-fire content. It’s great for promoting events and those all-important lead magnets that will help you build your email list.
This approach differs completely from LinkedIn with its strong business focus or Facebook and Instagram as they are great for community building as well as high-impact / low-cost advertising.
And don’t forget TikTok and Pinterest.
If you have been using the same platforms for some time and your engagement is not as strong as you would like, why not try something new? How about giving TikTok and Pinterest a go?
All the platforms have different roles to play and using a variety will help you reach a wider and more diverse audience.
And remember, check your analytics find out when and how you should be posting,
Your data is key to making the biggest impact!
6.Start Delivering Webinars
Webinars are a fantastic way to allow your audience to see you and learn from you without having to attend an in-person event.
For example, if you sell sign-language books, creating a webinar class teaching the basics of British Sign Language would be a way to take advantage of a virtual event that you know would appeal to your audience.
Also, webinars can be used for expert interviews, to showcase specific products or services and as part of your email list growing process.
7.Start a Podcast
Ah, podcasts! These great little listens are really taking off.
Starting a podcast talking about news, your products, sector, or anything at all is a great way to engage with your target audience and educate them.
Not only is your audience able to listen on-the-go, but they can watch too if you enable a video feature which can give it a more round-table talk feel.
Top tip? Keep in short. 15 minutes is fine.
8.Start Using Video
Video is one way that you can make it seem as though you are having a personal conversation with your audience.
Video content has many different ways to come through, such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Shorts, Instagram Live, webinars, chats and so much more.
A lot of people are visual learners, so why not give your audience an insight into your business and day-to-day running?
9.Test and Measure- Use the A/B Method
A/B testing is an amazing way to test reach, effectiveness, new features, products or updates and to discover how your potential customers will react.
It involves testing one factor against another and measuring which has the most impact.
For example, maybe you’ve been sending your weekly newsletter out on a Thursday, but you’re not sure if that’s the best day of the week. To A/B test the best day of the week continue to send the email to a random half of your list on a Thursday and send out to the other half of the list on another day of the week. Which day gave you the most opens and clicks?
This is a great method for identifying what happens when you change one aspect – how does it impact your customers or contacts?
Sales Strategies for Business Growth
10.Update Your Customer Personas
Keeping up to date on what your customer data is telling you about your clients is something that you’ll need to do in order to update your customer persona. This should be a key strategy for business growth.
A customer persona, in short is the key traits of the majority of your consumers.
Using your data, you can see what your audience is thinking, where they are and what issues they are facing to tailor your product and marketing to appeal to their needs.
11.Work on Your Elevator Pitch and Your Customer Problem Solving Statement
Being able to deliver an impactful statement within twenty seconds or less is a talent that you should have!
If you encounter an issue, you’ll need to respond immediately with something that both satisfies the complainant and gives a brief outline of the process that you will undertake.
RELATED POST: Elevator Pitch. It Depends on Which Elevator!
12.Do Some Market Research
Don’t get comfortable with the state of your industry for too long!
The market is continually changing and so are consumer habits.
Make sure that you’re staying on top of industry trends, who your competition is and what you can do to appeal more to your audience.
Customer Experience Strategies for Business Growth
13.Introduce Something to ‘Delight’ Your Customers After Each Sale
How does it make you feel when you buy something and there’s a tiny little extra included? It doesn’t have to be something big or expensive, but it makes you feel good, right?
So, another thing you could introduce as a strategy for business growth is introducing a little gift, a personalised message, sending something to celebrate customer anniversaries etc.
It doesn’t have to be a lot.
An email, a voucher by mail or something like a handwritten note. All these things show your customers that you are grateful for their custom goes a long way to building lasting relationships.
14.Improve the User Experience of Your Website
When was the last time you did a website audit?
Carrying out regular website audits is a key way to making sure that your site is user-friendly, optimised to the fullest – and that all the links work!
After all, you don’t want an outdated website with features that aren’t being used, right?
If you’re not sure how to go about auditing your website, get in touch. It’s one of the things I can help you with.
15.Create a Reviews and Testimonials Strategy
Reviews and testimonials are one of the first things that new customers look at when buying a product or service from a new brand.
To obtain more, you could create a competition or give out discount codes to those who leave feedback.
Or, you could simple have a process where you automatically request a review or a testimonial after you have delivered your product or service.
The key to more reviews and testimonials? Just ask!
Back Room Strategies for Business Growth
16.Set Aside Time (REGULARLY) to Check and Monitor Your Progress
I know it can be time consuming to run a business and sometimes the idea of taking time out to monitor progress can be seen as a time-thief (it can also be something you don’t want to face head-on).
Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be time consuming or threatening.
Simply set aside a small amount of time in your diary each month to review your strategy, progress and statistics. This way you will see whether any change is necessary. You will also be able to spot new trends that you can use to your advantage.
17.Get to know (and Love) Your Analytics
Analytics is one of the most important things that you need to understand when growing your business.
All the online resources you use (not just social media) will have an insights or analytics section. Become familiar with them.
Once you’re comfortable with them you will know what your usual figures look like. Any positive or negative changes can be assessed which means you only need to focus on areas that need a little help.
For example, if your social media interactions are low but your views are high, try to adding open questions, polls or stronger calls to action into your content.
18.Automate, Automate, Automate
Do you find that manual admin or data tasks are taking up all of your spare time?
Automate it!
Automation isn’t only for email marketing. there are loads of other applications.
For example a handy tool like Zapier will allow you to create automated actions between different applications. For example, every time someone books a Discovery Call with you via Calendly their details can automatically be transferred into your CRM.
What’s Next?
Even if you only implement two or three of these 18 suggestions they will help to make this your year for business growth.
But, maybe now it’s time for you to get serious about change and get in contact for a conversation? Remember, business support in an investment not a cost check out my blog where I explain why.