Mackenzie | February 18, 2020 | Digital Marketing
When we talk about growth strategies, we think it's important to talk about tangible strategies your small or midsized business can implement today to help drive growth. There's a lot of information out there about diversification, market penetration, market segmentation, and acquisition. Those are legitimate small business growth strategies, but they're nebulous, not actionable.
Yes, it's important for your overall business health to do things like diversify and acquire new products/services and even other businesses, but that doesn't help you grow in real-time.
Those are strategies that bring you growth, but they don't set you up to support that growth in the long term. That's why we're here to talk about small business growth strategies that can help you boost revenue in real-time, helping you prepare for long-term growth, and supporting your company in a sustainable way.
Today we're talking about small business growth strategies that:
a) help you get the word out,
b) deliver you the qualified leads you're looking for
c) help you close better deals, faster.
Best of all, each of these strategies is measurable and results-driven.
You want growth, right? There's no point in investing in a growth strategy if you can't see the results it's delivering.
So, without further ado, here are a few of our favorite small business growth strategies that boost revenue in ways you can track:
If we've said it once, we've said it a million times — it's hard to implement a growth strategy if you don't know where you're growing to.
Setting growth goals is an integral part of your small business growth strategy. Think of it this way: how will you know which strategies to implement if you don't know what you want to grow?
It's one thing to say, "I'd like to grow my business," or "increase revenue". It's another to actually sit down and make that happen.
I won't belabor this point because we've already written a lot about it, but set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely), and develop your small business growth strategies to help you meet those goals.
Once you've set your growth goals, you'll have a better idea of which of the following small business growth strategies can help you meet those goals.
For example, driving traffic helps bring in more leads, focusing on customer loyalty helps with customer retention, and increasing local SEO helps do both, with the added benefit of increasing your digital presence.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some of those key small business growth strategies:
Sure, your product or service has value to people, but it's tough for customers to take that at face value. Other than selling something, how can you create value for your potential customers and leads?
Content is always a great place to start. You have the knowledge and you have the authority in your industry to create helpful content. Developing content that showcases both of those qualities and answers questions that your potential customers are asking creates serious value that will start to draw those leads into your business.
It's tough to grow a business without customers.
By creating value with blogging, with content offers, and dynamic social media channels that offer the information your ideal audience is looking for, you start drawing in those customers you want.
When you offer valuable information, you build both trust and authority with your prospects. By providing helpful answers to their questions, you become their go-to resource. So, when they do finish their research and get ready to make a purchasing decision, you can bet your business will be at the top of their list.
Not sure your content creating is creating value? Make sure you have calls-to-action on your blogs and articles and make sure you're tracking conversions on your content offers. All of these tools can show you exactly where your customers are coming from, and how your valuable content is contributing to your bottom line.
When it comes to small business growth, it's all about traffic. Whether you're a brick and mortar business or strictly digital, traffic is important. You need people in your store and on your website if you want to grow your company.
Drive traffic with:
Point people to your valuable content, your new video, your awesome website, or your attractive content offer by sharing it on social media. Make sure you're choosing the platforms that are best for your industry, too, like LinkedIn for B2Bs, Facebook for home services and local, community-focused messages, and Instagram for any exciting visuals.
We'll talk more about SEO later on, but developing a website that's tailored to specific keywords and topics that your customers are searching for is key to getting the traffic you need to grow your business.
Backlinks help you boost your domain authority (basically, how important search engines think you are) but they also drive traffic. When another site links to your page or piece of content, everyone who comes to that site has the potential to click over to you. If you don't have backlinks yet or don't have the power to get backlinks, it all starts with great content. If you're writing unique, interesting content that people relate to, it's naturally more shareable.
Well, if you're generating more of the right traffic — that ideal target audience who's genuinely interested in your product or service — you've got a higher percentage of qualified leads on your doorstep just waiting for your marketing and sales teams to close the deal.
Traffic is also an easy one to track. Use Google Analytics to measure your influx of traffic over time. If you have marketing software, that's also a great place to look for results.
See where your most promising leads are coming from, which pages they're landing on, and which content they seem to prefer, and you'll be able to keep optimizing both your traffic growth strategy and your content strategy for better results.
For most small businesses, it's all about location, location, location. You've got to start getting your name out somewhere, right? If your business is location dependent, meaning you offer a product or service in a specific area, local SEO is key to your small business growth strategy.
You don't want customers from Alabama if your service area is West Michigan. That's what we'd call a seriously unqualified lead.
As a local business, you want to be at the top of the list when someone searches for, "roofing near me" or whatever local search is relevant to your business. Local SEO is how you get there.
As small business growth strategies go, local SEO is a solid one that offers tangible and measurable results. We won't go into the key points of implementing SEO, but you can find plenty of information about how to get started with local SEO on our site, and from digital marketing leaders like Moz and HubSpot.
Like I said before, this is a great small business growth strategy if you're looking for measurable ways to boost revenue.
First and foremost, when implemented properly, local SEO works to put your company in front of qualified leads in your area.
You can tell that your local SEO strategies are working by tracking your traffic, your SERP (search engine results page) rankings, and just by measuring how many of your leads are coming from organic search results. Again, marketing software and Google Analytics can help you get all of these numbers.
Like many growth strategies, local SEO does have its limits. When you're working hard to get your company to rank well for local search terms, you're going to see more local traffic. But all this growth strategy can do is get those leads to your website or sales team. From there, it's still up to you to actually convert those leads into sales.
That said, it's hard not to grow when more of the qualified local leads you're looking for are coming directly to you.
These days, consumers are more engaged than ever with the brands they choose to buy from. Most consumers take pride in supporting companies they believe in, whose beliefs they align with, and whose products and services they love. In the digital age, growing your small business is about a lot more than just selling a product.
Today's most successful small businesses stand out by building relationships and trust with their customers and prospects.
How do you do that?
In the digital era, consumers are seeking that sense of connection wherever they can find it. They want to buy from brands that "get" them. Brands that understand their pain points and work hard to support their goals and needs are brands they're likely to stick with.
This might seem like a lot of personal, touchy-feely advice, especially for small businesses in B2B industries, but it's true. No matter who your consumer is, whether it's an engineer looking for the next great tool to support their research and development, or a local homeowner seeking a new roof — how they perceive your company matters.
If your company and brand seem human and approachable, they're more likely to buy from you. If they feel like they'll get personalized customer service, and you deliver, they're going to keep buying from you in the future.
Today's consumers, in every industry, are looking for personal connections and exceptional customer service. If you can deliver that, your small business is going to start seeing your growth. Here's how you can make that happen:
Email marketing is a great place to start. If you've been doing any kind of digital marketing, you've probably collected the email addresses of previous customers, potential customers, leads, and prospects. Use those email addresses to start delivering the personalized service and messaging that can build that customer loyalty.
Segment your email list, and start putting out marketing messages that really resonate with each segment of that list.
For new prospects, that might be information to help them through the consideration phase of their buyer's journey.
For past customers, that might be reminder emails when its time to get their product serviced or inspected, or helpful information on how to use your product or service for the best results.
When you are able to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, you're not just developing a successful email marketing strategy for your small business.
You're also building positive, strong relationships with leads, prospects, and previous customers, all of which keep your flywheel spinning and contribute to small business growth.
The more personalized and positive your experiences with leads, prospects, and customers are, the more business you're going to win and retain.
And of course, when your customers love your products, your services, and your company, they're going to talk about it, which means word of mouth marketing for your small business. And that's one of the most effective small business growth strategies out there if you can get it going.
Growth strategies are integral to the success of your SMB. Whether you're looking for more local leads, hoping to convert a greater number of leads into sales, or you're looking for ways to increase customer retention, we can help.
All of these small business growth strategies I've mentioned today can be combined into one overarching strategy that puts your business ahead of the competition. If you're ready to grow your SMB, we're ready to develop a tailored strategy that's guaranteed to deliver.
At Evenbound, we're all about helping our clients grow. We use inbound and outbound marketing strategies to deliver you the qualified traffic and leads you need for serious growth. And we have a lot of fun doing it.
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