Growing a business can be tough but not as hard as all these business growth gurus make it out to be.
Some business owners welcome growth but don’t know where to start; others are scared because it’s something new that they don’t understand. Well here’s a crash course guide to business growth.
Be Noticed In A Crowded Marketplace
Some companies expect results from simply buying clicks or followers or throwing money into traditional marketing activities like shoving leaflets through doors. This isn’t necessarily the approach to make in a crowded marketplace. A more thought-out approach is the ticket to catching more attention.
Your customers only lookout for products and services that fix a problem that is relevant to them. For example, trying to sell baby clothes to a mother when they have a 19-year-old son or selling car insurance on the metro, it’s not the right audience.
There are several steps to up your chances of standing out from the crowd:
- Have a USP (Unique Selling Point). Develop a unique but yet clear message of your services/product
- Have amazing customer service. Put your customers first, work around your customer’s needs
- Highlight positive feedback to build trust. Shout about your good work and who and how you helped people overcome their problem that your target audience also experience
Build & Develop Your Online Presence
The best businesses in they all share one thing in common: they aim to create customer trust and reward brand loyalty. Building trust in the modern digital era requires a lot more than great customer service and happy helpful employees on the shop floor. The majority of consumers research products online before buying them.
Your business isn’t just up against the number of businesses on the high street, you’re now up against everyone worldwide – and you’re only ever a tap away from gaining a customer.
There are many influences on your online presence. The most common factors that can have the biggest impact on your online presence is having a website and your social media channels. Focus on these areas to build customer trust and stand out.
Improve The Customer Experience
Amazing customer experience will always be important for any business. A good experience means happy customers, and happy customers are loyal customers, loyal customers can be brand ambassadors.
For SME’s, the importance of a loyal customer base can’t be overstated. Thanks to the surge of the internet, customers have higher expectations than ever. Larger businesses have the resources to offer more choices in their services; offering multiple locations and lower prices. Being a smaller business, the key to competing with the larger businesses involves in providing an excellent customer experience.
These are a few winning tactics to get your business to deliver the best customer experience you can:
- Ask how you could improve and what your customer likes about your business instead of guessing what you could improve
- Your customers will have different needs of your company. Once you understand your customers aren’t, all the same, try segmenting them into different categories i.e. new customers; occasional customers; loyal, regular customers. Come up with different strategies that benefit all of these types of customer’s.
- Even if you’re a business that doesn’t consider itself to be ‘web-based’ or ‘digital’, make sure you’re looking after both digital and physical customer experiences. Be looking to improve however you can, this can mean improving your website or even just looking at online reviews of your store can help.
Educate To Build Trust
For anyone to make a purchase they need to trust in what they are buying. This works for both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer). A great way to develop and build trust is by educating your customers/consumers.
You can convey your knowledge and experience to your audience through your blog or premium content offers or via webinars. This helps to educate your potential customers on what your business does and how they help you. Instead of going for the hard sell right away, nurture them through education which gives them the power to make their own decisions. On your website, you can advertise your services and special offers on your blog for when your lead is ready they can act on the advert.
Routes to Business Growth
Businesses have products and services that can do wonders for their audiences that benefit them, you know this but do they? One factor that can impede on business growth is the lack of understanding from your audience. This can be a feature not being explained clearly or it’s dull. How can you make it sound more interesting and understandable to your audience? Overcoming this challenge can bolster your routes to market.
Customer Interactions To Inspire Business Growth
Understanding how you interact with your customers and how your customers interact with you is key. Obviously, you want to interact with customers at all times, that’s how you’ll make the big bucks. But your customer base might only need to purchase your product or service every now and then or they need to buy from you every week. Learning this is key to success; can you meet the demand with the supply? A great example of this is toilet paper, yes toilet paper. It is something that every home needs and is purchased weekly by every home. Brands like Andrex and Charmin have to meet the supply of their customers and have to produce lots of stock because they have to interact with their customers frequently.
Key Performance Indicators Drive Business Growth
Is your business doing well and how do you know it is? Set Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to assess whether your business is doing as well as it should be. The most common forms of KPI’s tend to be:
- Increased profits
- Decrease of expenses
- Increased customer satisfaction
But you can make up your own to achieve your own business growth goal. You can use KPI’s company-wide or in a specific department, you can use them to track how departments or the business is doing to fine-tune and achieve the best results.
These are just a few things to be looking to do to your business to grow, if you need some help growing your business we offer one to one support and we have specialised growth training courses designed to take you out of your business and give you time to work ON your business. Learn more about them here.
