Whether you have a brand new business, have been around for a while and found some success, or are a well-established brand – at some point every company finds themselves facing a similar dilemma. How do you grow?
Growth is complicated, because it means something a little bit different for every industry, every company and even every individual. Growth can also be a bit of a nebulous term. After all, what are you growing? Customers? Sales? Revenue? Newsletter subscribers? No two companies are going to be able to grow in exactly the same way or at the same pace.
That said, we've got some techniques that tend to provide some juice to business growth. We're just going to leave these right here, and you can do with them as you will. We won't judge.
It's called your "bread and butter" for a reason. It's sustenance. Life-blood. Your core demographic where you know things are working best for you. These are your ideal customers, the people who you really want most in the world. So, make sure they are happy and well-served. Talk to them, engage with them, find out if there is anything more you can do for them. Hopefully, this kind of focus can help garner some larger orders or repeat business.
Okay, I know this really sounds like the opposite of what I just said above, but I promise, it's not. Just because you are focusing on your target market, doesn't mean you can't also be expanding into new markets. Maybe this means starting up online sales, or shipping globally instead of just to the continental U.S. The key to both of these strategies is to not spend too much time focused on markets where your message or products just aren't hitting home.
Related somewhat to focusing on your target market, this technique takes advantage of "word of mouth" being one of the most effective marketing strategies for any business. If your core group of customers are happy, then they'll be more likely and willing to spread the good word about your company. You can sometimes encourage this behavior through loyalty programs, discount codes or promotions. You can even just ask your customers nicely to tell a friend, post on social media or leave a positive review somewhere.
At some point you'll have to admit that you can't do everything yourself. Your time is probably one of the most valuable assets your company has, and if you aren't using it efficiently, you are wasting your company's resources. With that in mind, anything you can delegate or automate in order to operate more efficiently is a good idea. Sometimes this might require investing in new technology, which if use correctly, can pay off big-time.
Maybe you could be networking through LinkedIn, or advertising on Facebook. Maybe there are forums where you can engage with your customers. You might even be able to write blog posts and better newsletters or make instructional videos. There are so many ways that the internet has made it easier to connect with new and existing customers. Whether it's through your own website, social media, public forums, email newsletters, or whatever the next thing that will be invented tomorrow is, the growth opportunities provided by taking advantage of the internet are seemingly boundless.
We've learned a lot from launching and growing businesses of our own. Let us help you learn from our successes and failures to build a smart overall marketing strategy to help your business grow.