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5 Ways to Grow Your Business

Your business is one of the most important things to you. You gave a significant part of your life to your business, and you are hoping that it will pay you back in dividends. A business can be compared to a baby. In order to raise a baby to be a good and responsible adult, you have to give your child time patients. You cannot give up on your child for a full 18 years, and even after that, you never do. You must think of your business with this same long term commitment in mind. It is something that you never want to give up on. At the same time, you may have to change your approach to your business if you find that it is not growing well. Here are five things that you can do to help your business grow with time.

1. Build a Sales Funnel

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A sales funnel basically a road map for your potential clients in order for them to get to your products or service. In order to establish this funnel, you are going to have to get the email addresses of potential customers. Once you get an email address, you are able to send out mass daily or weekly email newsletters or reminders that will lead them to purchase your product or service. Email addresses are powerful when it comes to the world of marketing, make sure to take advantage of it when getting started.

2. Research Your Competitors

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There is generally no reason to reinvent the wheel if your product or service is already on the market. Instead, research your competitors in order to see what type of advertisements they’re doing, any incentives they’re offering, and the content they provide, whether it is through their blog or social media. In that way, you can find innovative ways to improve on a good thing.

You can also analyze the performance of their websites by using tools such as Moz or Ubersuggest. It provides you data on what content gets them the most traffic and what keywords they are ranking for on Google. That way, you can create a similar content strategy as them, but more valuable and appealing.

Next, look at their social media. Find out if they’re actively involved with Linkedin (if they are b2b) Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, if they aren’t it’s either because they do not know what to do, or it is not the best place reach their target audience.

If you’re able to reach your target audience on one of the platforms and your competitor isn’t using it to its advantage, start getting your social media profiles started up and branded and come up with a content strategy so that you can increase brand awareness through social, it will help your company out big time if you have a killer social media marketing strategy.

3. Create a Customer Loyalty Program

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Your clients need to have a reason to continue to come back to your business. In order to do that, give them incentives. This can be in the form of a loyalty program that will give them points, recognition, or discounts for giving your referrals or for repeat purchases.

A great example of this is when you’re out at a store, and you see an iPad at the check-out counter. You can enter your number on the prompt when paying so that you can sign up for the stores loyalty program. Every purchase you make, you get points. You redeem the points for free meals or discounts, and what’s good about this is that they send you automatic SMS reminders as well to let you know that you have pointed to redeem the next time you shop. Sometimes they even use it as a tool to advertise a discount, so it gets you going to their store and make a purchase.

4. Hire a Marketing Team or Agency

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If your company can afford it, a marketing agency is a fabulous investment, another option would be to hire a fractional CIO that could direct your company and development. Most companies are not highly skilled when it comes to marketing, and a marketing agency can help a company to step up its game. There is a wide range of prices when it comes to a marketing agency, so you should be able to find one that will fit your budget. Be sure to research the agency before seeking a pitch to make sure that they have a good reputation and can deliver results. Make sure to always ask for case studies to get an idea of what they can do.

If you do not have a big marketing budget, try hiring people in-house for things that you need, whether it’s SEO, Social Media Marketing, or any other form of marketing tactic as it may be a lot cheaper than going through an agency. Another thing you can do is hire freelancers, they typically charge hourly rates, and they can help get things done or at least guide you to the right path based on their experience.

5. Have a Marketing Budget

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In order for you to gain some type of brand awareness or sales, you have to add marketing to your budget. The age-old saying “if you build it, they will come,” doesn’t apply in business. There is no way that your company will be successful if it is not properly marketed to the customer you’re trying to reach. Your competitor is more than likely to have a marketing budget if they’re doing very well. The marketing budget is one reason some owners turn to small business loans. Other reasons include fulfilling inventory or orders once the marketing efforts attract additional customers. If this option is right for your business, always compare lenders before securing the loan. Use a comparison site like Lantern Credit that makes your search more effective by only showing lenders that fit your business needs and qualifications. Few things can be compared to a good marketing campaign when it comes to growing your business.

Watch Your Business Grow

Even in times of economic uncertainty, your business can thrive and grow. It is wise for you to continue to look for innovative ways to help your business to be successful. Your business is your baby, so feed it, cherish it, care for it, and help it to grow in the best way possible.

About Matt Durham