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If you have spent considerable amounts of time and immense amounts of effort creating your own business, you will fully understand what a complex and difficult task it can be. In the early years of trading, success can often be measured simply by staying afloat and keeping costs under control as the revenue streams eventually begin to grow. Most business owners will be acutely aware that approximately 20% of businesses fail in their first year of trading. The first year is a critical milestone to pass. Another sobering fact is that by year five of the life of any business, 50% of organizations will have closed. Clearly, the world of modern business can be a challenging environment to operate in, and achieving sustained growth after navigating the initial start-up factors is a key goal for any business owner. Put simply, without sustained growth, a business is increasingly likely to stagnate or even fail in the medium term. This article explains some key strategies that can be adopted to promote business growth and secure its long-term viability.
Table of Contents
Cultivate your niche
During the early stages of your business, it is likely that you will have thoroughly researched your target market to fully understand their needs, wants, and general buying behavior. To allow your business to grow and flourish, you must spend time cultivating and retaining this customer base. One way to ensure repeat custom and to gain a steady stream of revenue from your target market is to actively listen to what they want. When a customer makes a purchase from your website, you will be able to gain their email address, which can then be used as an avenue of two-way communication and promotional activities that are designed to foster loyalty and encourage revisits to your site. Use direct email marketing campaigns to inform and educate your customer base about new product ranges, seasonal promotions, or flash sales. In addition, it can be beneficial to conduct short surveys with your customers on platforms such as SurveyMonkey. You can incentivize this by offering entry to prize draws or giving discount codes for future purchases. Use the knowledge gained to drive changes and improvements to your product or service that improves customer experience and gives them a more tailored personal service.
Secure additional capital
One of the most important ways to grow your business is by securing additional capital. Whether it be because of a bank loan, crowdfunding, or third-party lenders, having reserves of capital is incredibly important, as this can fuel future purchases, promotional activities, and the hiring of additional specialist staff. Ensure that your financial projections and your rolling business plan demonstrate the potential for business growth and illustrate a viable company that financiers can be sure will offer them returns on their capital investment. In short, having reserves of capital is an integral part of expanding your business, as it can be a key factor driving the upscaling or production, purchasing, or hiring staff.
Harness the power of social media
A vital tool in growing your business is by harnessing the power of social media. A staggering 3.96 billion people use social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. This represents more than half the world’s population. By tapping into social media channels to inform customers of your products and services and promotional activities, you are increasing your reach into the global marketplace. A key point to consider is that all promotional activities should have unified styles and themes that give a coherent brand image across all your touch points. Short, eye-catching videos and concise, well-designed promotion pages with links back to your company website can drive traffic to you. This can help to retain your existing customer base by keeping them informed of your latest activities and can also encourage new customers to visit your site, driving business growth.
Create interesting web content
One way to encourage repeat visits to your website that can potentially be turned into purchases is to write interesting and informative content. This can take the form of blogs describing an activity that market research indicates your customers are interested in or a product review that contains links to the purchase page of that product on your website. The key with blog writing is to style both your language and content into a format that appeals to your target audience. It should engage them and create a buzz of excitement. You can use a blog page to also request feedback and comments from your online audiences. Use this platform to cultivate meaningful discussions and take the information gained to inform future business activity. For more on effective blog-writing, see here.
Harness analytics
Gaining a comprehensive understanding of buyer behavior is a key way to both cultivate repeat custom and attract new trade from similar sections of the marketplace. If you can understand the reactions and behavior of your customers to promotional activities and social media content, then this knowledge can shape future activities. One good source of information is Google Analytics. This platform can be used to gain a deep understanding of key activities such as web traffic after promotional activities have taken place, which will allow you to effectively measure the success of such campaigns. Approximately 50% of the top million websites use Google Analytics to gain a clearer understanding of their visitors and customers. This can prove to be an integral part of retaining and growing their customer base and therefore the business as a whole.
Host a webinar
Attracting the attention of new customers can also be achieved by hosting a webinar. If you have a new product or service that is due to be released onto the market or simply want to educate new and existing customers about your range of products, then a webinar can be an ideal platform to do so. Organize keynote speakers from the industry and give live demonstrations of what your business offers while allowing real-time chat, feedback, and flash surveys to get instant opinions and insights from your audience as you conduct the webinar. This will all help to grow and educate your community and can be an important way to build brand awareness and brand loyalty. For some useful tips on how to host a professional and engaging webinar, click here.
