Marketing Strategies to Help Your Business Grow
7 Powerful Marketing Strategies That Generate Real Business Growth
Growing your business is an obvious goal. But how effectively are you achieving this goal? If you think back to when you first launched your business, consider where things sit today versus where you envisioned they’d be by this moment in time.
What are some steps you can take to grow your business beyond a level of pure survival? What are the marketing strategies you can employ that will start turning your company into the behemoth you first envisioned?
Here, we’ll take a look at some powerful growth strategies that go far beyond “get active on social media.” These are all tried, tested and true when it comes to growing a business. All it’ll take is some planning and a little investment.
1. Further Penetrate the Market You’re In
For many business owners who think of how they can create growth, they immediately jump to the idea of acquiring new customers. What these well-intentioned entrepreneurs fail to realize, however, is that the fastest growth comes from increasing sales with current customers.
It costs a lot of money to persuade a brand new customer to make a purchase from you. Conversely, you can easily contact an existing customer in a cost-effective manner and drive them toward new sales.
2. Request Referrals
Even with the relative ease of selling to existing customers, you still want to bring in new customers to grow your business. One of the simplest and least costly ways of doing this is to ask for customer referrals.
There are many ways you can do this. One is by offering a current customer a discount or bonus when they send a new customer your way. Another effective way is by including a hand-signed note in a delivered order package. In the note, request that your customer tell their friends and family about their experience with you. Offer them a promo code to share with their referral that gives them a percentage off their first purchase, and your current customer a percentage off your next purchase for the referral.
Yet another way might be the most obvious. After a sale is complete, ask your customer if they know of anyone that would benefit from your services or products. If you’re making the sale in person, don’t hesitate to make this request face-to-face. If it’s a digital transaction, ask this question in a post-sale email.
3. Create More Product Innovation
Spend a lot of time thinking about potential new uses for your catalog of products. Products that have multiple uses attract more existing customers while also creating brand new markets.
Think about the examples of duct tape and petroleum jelly. If these products were only marketed for one use, their sales wouldn’t be nearly where they are today.
4. Market Reach Expansion
Here is where you focus on growing your company by reaching out to a brand new market segment or pool of buyers.
Take your top-selling product and think of creative ways that you can present it in a new way to a new audience. A great way to quickly get your marketing message out is through paid social media posts. They’re inexpensive and highly targeted.
But before you start paying for full campaigns, get your marketing message down right. Test your message delivery in small A/B tests, spending only a couple of hundred dollars. Once you’ve narrowed down the best performer, scale up your reach and see how it performers.
Continue to A/B test different ideas and approaches. Often, the marketing message you think is the worst might end up performing the best.
5. Go to Trade Shows
Attending niche trade shows is a great marketing growth strategy. You’re at a location where people are already interested in the product or service type that you’re offering. And most often, these are all brand new customers just learning about you for the first time.
The biggest key to tradeshow success is that you participate in the ones that best fit the market you’re trying to reach. Chose your tradeshows carefully to maximize the effectiveness of this strategy.
6. Become a Niche Conqueror
When you think of a niche, think of the analogy about being a big fish in a tiny pond. That’s basically how this marketing strategy works.
The niche you choose to dive into is the tiny pond of a narrowly-defined customer segment. The inhabitants of this pond aren’t having their needs met. They need a big fish to jump in and lead them.
That big fish can be you.
Niche customers are much easier to sell to than broad target market segments. In what ways can you re-market your products to a niche audience that’s eager to buy?
7. Consider Exporting
This is one of those marketing strategies that can be time- and resource-intensive. But if you’re committed to growing your business over the long-term, getting into the international market can be extremely lucrative.
Here’s to Business Growth
Marketing strategies that grow your business are varied in a lot of ways. And what works for some businesses might not work for others. But with these seven growth strategies, you’ll be well on your way toward a new level of success.
What are some steps you can take to grow your business beyond a level of pure survival? What are the marketing strategies you can employ that will start turning your company into the behemoth you first envisioned?
Here, we’ll take a look at some powerful growth strategies that go far beyond “get active on social media.” These are all tried, tested and true when it comes to growing a business. All it’ll take is some planning and a little investment.
1. Further Penetrate the Market You’re In
For many business owners who think of how they can create growth, they immediately jump to the idea of acquiring new customers. What these well-intentioned entrepreneurs fail to realize, however, is that the fastest growth comes from increasing sales with current customers.
It costs a lot of money to persuade a brand new customer to make a purchase from you. Conversely, you can easily contact an existing customer in a cost-effective manner and drive them toward new sales.
2. Request Referrals
Even with the relative ease of selling to existing customers, you still want to bring in new customers to grow your business. One of the simplest and least costly ways of doing this is to ask for customer referrals.
There are many ways you can do this. One is by offering a current customer a discount or bonus when they send a new customer your way. Another effective way is by including a hand-signed note in a delivered order package. In the note, request that your customer tell their friends and family about their experience with you. Offer them a promo code to share with their referral that gives them a percentage off their first purchase, and your current customer a percentage off your next purchase for the referral.
Yet another way might be the most obvious. After a sale is complete, ask your customer if they know of anyone that would benefit from your services or products. If you’re making the sale in person, don’t hesitate to make this request face-to-face. If it’s a digital transaction, ask this question in a post-sale email.
3. Create More Product Innovation
Spend a lot of time thinking about potential new uses for your catalog of products. Products that have multiple uses attract more existing customers while also creating brand new markets.
Think about the examples of duct tape and petroleum jelly. If these products were only marketed for one use, their sales wouldn’t be nearly where they are today.
4. Market Reach Expansion
Here is where you focus on growing your company by reaching out to a brand new market segment or pool of buyers.
Take your top-selling product and think of creative ways that you can present it in a new way to a new audience. A great way to quickly get your marketing message out is through paid social media posts. They’re inexpensive and highly targeted.
But before you start paying for full campaigns, get your marketing message down right. Test your message delivery in small A/B tests, spending only a couple of hundred dollars. Once you’ve narrowed down the best performer, scale up your reach and see how it performers.
Continue to A/B test different ideas and approaches. Often, the marketing message you think is the worst might end up performing the best.
5. Go to Trade Shows
Attending niche trade shows is a great marketing growth strategy. You’re at a location where people are already interested in the product or service type that you’re offering. And most often, these are all brand new customers just learning about you for the first time.
The biggest key to tradeshow success is that you participate in the ones that best fit the market you’re trying to reach. Chose your tradeshows carefully to maximize the effectiveness of this strategy.
6. Become a Niche Conqueror
When you think of a niche, think of the analogy about being a big fish in a tiny pond. That’s basically how this marketing strategy works.
The niche you choose to dive into is the tiny pond of a narrowly-defined customer segment. The inhabitants of this pond aren’t having their needs met. They need a big fish to jump in and lead them.
That big fish can be you.
Niche customers are much easier to sell to than broad target market segments. In what ways can you re-market your products to a niche audience that’s eager to buy?
7. Consider Exporting
This is one of those marketing strategies that can be time- and resource-intensive. But if you’re committed to growing your business over the long-term, getting into the international market can be extremely lucrative.
Here’s to Business Growth
Marketing strategies that grow your business are varied in a lot of ways. And what works for some businesses might not work for others. But with these seven growth strategies, you’ll be well on your way toward a new level of success.
