Growing Your Business

Growing your business is not an easy task. It will be one of the toughest tasks you face as a business owner, being a frustrating and stressful time for many people. There are hundreds of ways to grow your business, but it doesn’t happen overnight. 

There are small steps to take when growing your business. This includes patience, effort and lots of dedication. However, once you start seeing the benefits, the hard work will show to be worth it. Here are our tips for growing your business.  

8 Tips For Growing Your Business 

1. Utilise social media. 

Social media is one of the best tools for growing your business. There are plenty of benefits to using social media to promote your business. It is a way to advertise your product and create an identity with your customers. Growing your online presence can boost traffic towards your business and improve sales.  

Not only can you advertise your business, but many social media platforms give you access to insights. These insights can give you valuable information about what types of customers are using your platforms and ways you can improve your company.  

Below is a table showing some incredible social media statistics from Naturally Social. They have provided a huge resource of social media facts and figures for you to check out.  
 

Platform Statistics 
Facebook Around 74% of Facebook users visit daily. 
Twitter In the UK, 6 million people can be shown a Twitter advert. 
Instagram 60% of Instagram users say they’ve found at least one new product on the app. 
LinkedIn 62% of businesses use LinkedIn. 
YouTube YouTube users watch more than a billion hours of video per day. 

2. Explain the brand story. 

Many successful businesses will advise that having a brand story is essential when building a connection with your target audience and growing your business. Building an authentic feel for your company creates trust and long-lasting relationships with customers, helping to retain sales and keep people coming back to your business. 

If you search most brands online, they’ll have an ‘about us’ page on their website. This gives an overview of the story to their business, telling their customers how the company started and the ways their company has grown.  

For example, Mirafit, one of the leading sports equipment companies in the UK have this to say on their about us page: ‘Mirafit was born out of the belief that we all deserve the right to a healthy heart’ showing the reason they built the company.  

3. Form an SEO-friendly website. 

Having a professional, SEO orientated website is a great first step to boosting your business. Your website should be tailored towards the keywords that are relevant to your business. Search engine optimisation is a great way to compete with other businesses in your niche.  

You may look to outsource this to specialist companies who expertise in websites or carry out your own research to save some money. There is great advice online, such as Search Engine Journal. They say that ‘quality SEO incorporates a positive user experience’ which can boost growth. You should see their list of SEO tips here

By moving up the search engine rankings, customers may be more likely to use your website over others. Below are some good ideas for improving SEO content: 

  • Create content around local events. 
  • Use primary keywords on each landing page. 
  • Optimise for mobile users. 
  • Add in customers reviews. 
  • Think about utilising trending topics in your niche. 
  • Research keywords in your market.  
     

4. Create a rewards and referral scheme. 

Many businesses overlook this simple marketing strategy that can boost your customer base. Rewards and referral scheme are a great way to generate leads and to grow your business.  

Referral programs are beneficial as they are spreading the awareness of your company through word of mouth, building trust along with customer numbers. If someone believes and trusts in your product, they will tell others about how great your business is.  

Reward schemes are an easy way to promote your company too. It will create an incentive to use your company over others, plus you can make it a win-win situation when the reward comes when the customer promotes your business. This builds trust and makes your business more memorable.  

Below are some ideas for potential plans you could use to shape to your own business.  

Business Loyalty Plan 
Coffee shop. 5 coffee stamps for a free coffee. 
Book company. Share your business on social media for 10% off.  
Flower business. Refer a friend and get free delivery. 
Dentist. Book 3 appointments to enter prize competition. 

5. Improve your customer service. 

The basics of any good business is having quality customer service. You can have the greatest product in the world, but without a solid customer service plan, your business won’t grow. It is all about making sure the customer feels special and wanted, going the extra mile to want them to continue using your company.  

You should let customers know they are highly valued to them and do everything you can to stop them from using your competitor’s company. If there are any issues that the customer has, they should be resolved as soon as possible. No query should be too difficult for you to fix and customers appreciate it when companies look after them. 

Gather feedback from customers, along with checking social media to see if there are any reviews about how your company is acting. Reviews can be so beneficial to growing your business, as one good opinion can lead to more traffic to your company. So just think, that one issue you resolve, may lead to a boost in growth. 

6. Research your competition. 

Research your competition on the market is another good way to grow your own business. This may seem strange, but there are plenty of benefits to this method.  

Firstly, you can see what other businesses are doing well and making them successful. This gives you an idea of what the customers of your niche enjoy and brings them to that company. 

Secondly, you can see ways the competition is doing things wrong and ways you can capitalise on this. For example, if companies in your niche don’t have an Instagram page, you could create your own trusted fan base, using a different method of business growth the other businesses have overlooked.  

Here are some guides to researching competition: 

  • Use your competitor’s goods or services, see what they have to offer. 
  • There are plenty of websites that offer research, explore more than Google. 
  • Be thorough, check social media, websites and other platforms. 
  • See what your customers think about the competition. 
  • Get feedback from your suppliers regarding competitors. 

7. Attend networking events. 

If there is an opportunity to attend a networking event, it is usually a good idea to participate. Networking events are fantastic ways to boost your business and improve your company profile. 

Firstly, networking events allow you to grow your network of like-minded individuals. You can speak with all areas of the business, that includes suppliers, customers, investors and even competitors. These events allow you to talk to key people in the industry and get an insight into how they operate and ways you can improve. 

If you’re looking to expand, you may also meet potential recruitment opportunities, with people who offer their services to help your business grow. Networking events can also boost your confidence in yourself and the product. It can be difficult entering a room with people you don’t know, but the more you try, the better you get.  

According to Orera, there are plenty of online networking events to attend. Orera says that networking events allow businesses to ‘become aware of new trends and the latest industry developments’ which is an easy way to keep up with the competition. Their list of benefits to business networking gives a complete overview of how incredible these events can be to your business. Check their blog post here.  

8. Let your niche expertise flourish.  

Using your expertise can separate you from your competitors and build respect for your business. Your brand image is important and showcasing your knowledge of the market can be beneficial to growing your business.  

Not only is it having the knowledge, but showing it is the next step. You want to be creative and use different methods to promote this expertise. This could be via social media, or even through videos on YouTube. There are plenty of ways to showcase this knowledge.  

According to Valuable Content, a good way to establish your expertise is to create a blog. Creating a blog for your website not only generates more traffic through SEO and keywords but can create trust with your customers. Valuable Content also states you should ‘try writing guest blogs for others in order to reach new audiences’ which is a neat tip. Their website lists some unique ways to show your expertise, you can find it here

So, as you can see from this list, there are many ways to grow your business. It will take a lot of effort, but by following this guide, you can start the journey to growing your company and creating a loyal customer base. 

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