Marketing is about getting people to want to do business with you
Marketing is key to growth. It’s about getting people to want to do business with you.
If you are looking to grow your business, chances are, you have established a customer base by identifying your target customer, creating products or services they need & marketing & selling to them.
If you are just getting started, this involves two simple steps
- figuring out who your ideal customer is? Who’s the customer that’s going to want your products or services and tell all their friends about them, refer the most business and become a long-term client, not just a customer? and
2. keep finding new ways to add value to meet their needs, and never stop marketing to them.
How to Develop Your Business Growth Strategy
In this overview I have provided a brief summary of the key considerations and implications. These would usually be a key element of a formal business plan to be implemented over a number of years (3 to 5 years is common).
You will need to thoroughly research all options you might consider to make sure you are clear on the positives, negatives, risks & rewards. Many businesses choose to outsource managing this to a suitably skilled & experienced business consultant or coach.
Identify options available – selecting your most attractive options and why.
So, based on a growth strategy of constantly adding value for your ideal customers, there are a number of ways to grow.
Other ways to achieve growth include:
- creating new products or services your customers need, then marketing & selling to them.
- widening your geographic areas of activity, nationally and internationally.
- Selling online through an eCommerce Store.
- Investing in marketing to increase brand awareness.
- A combination of some or all the above.
Other strategic considerations you need to ask yourself about
The Business environment. These days your business exists in an incredibly dynamic and ever-changing environment with technology being a key driving factor.
You need to be prepared for these things, so start by thinking about your expenses and growth strategy.
Other Resources and facilities required to grow your business.
You will potentially need excess capacity in:
- Production capacity,
- Advanced machinery to reduce unit cost of production,
- Cash to fund Growth, potentially including acquisitions, and
- Systems– To what extent are your current systems scalable?
Marketing Strategy for growth-digital marketing has changed everything
Marketing is the most important thing to get right in your business. Businesses with great marketing will outperform a brilliant strategy with poor marketing.
So where should you be looking to spend?
Keep in mind that most SME’s will not have the expertise to do this for themselves so, at least initially, you will need to work with someone who understands digital and can make it work for you.
Digital marketing has created a revolution, allowing small businesses to compete in niches previously the exclusive territory of big corporations. Digital marketing works, but not for everyone, or every product,.
The advantage of digital is that it can be specifically targeted, so you should never have to just hit and hope with your paid marketing.
For B to B businesses Linkedin is a very powerful platform to use to attract your perfect customers.
There were 11.2 million LinkedIn users in Australia in January 2020, which accounted for 43.6% of its entire population.
Customer Experience is equally important
Focussing on all the stages of the “Customer Experience”, not just sales and marketing is as important as the sales and marketing phases.
This means ensuring that the experience the customer has during the whole customer life-cycle is as good as it was during their sales and marketing phase. This will ensure that customer defection (or churn) rates” (I.e. the annualised rate that customers leave as a %age of total customers) are minimised.
Unfortunately most businessess reward customer acquisition over retention. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the cost of acquiring a new customer is 6 to 7 times more than retaining an existing customer.
Conclusion
Marketing is key to growth. It’s about getting people to want to do business with you. When creating your Marketing Strategy for growth, be aware that digital marketing has changed everything
Your Next Step
If you would like to get more details about how to create your personalised Business Growth Strategy and grow your business to the next level, you can request a Free 15 minute Strategy call with me by clicking on the link below:
Click Here to Book Your Free Strategy Call
You will receive a confirmation and reminders from my calendar system.
Or alternatively, send me a text message with a brief explanation of what you need help with, and I will call you back for an initial chat. My mobile number is 0418 277 137
