2022 has seen a large-scale oscillation in business growth and performance due to global supply chain disruptions and post-pandemic recovery efforts. Small businesses in particular are seeking to adopt fresh strategies for business growth that will stand them in good stead for the rest of the year. Luckily, there are many ways for us to achieve this. Having even a general knowledge of the strategies a business can implement to accelerate growth is going to be helpful.
Before you start, make sure you have a clear, strong grasp on your brand image and identity, while also being cognisant of your strengths and weaknesses across the board. Always take into account when you might have to adapt and reimplement some of these strategies in your ongoing business plan. More than anything, take away something you can use and apply to your business!
Market penetration
Market penetration involves increasing your market share by successfully promoting a new product or selling more of your existing product. For example, this might be achieved by offering a discounted price on items for existing customers or offering fresh services available to customers as a free trial.
While drastically lowering the price of your products might be an unappealing prospect to begin with, it can be a good idea as a short-term strategy for expansion for those businesses that sell products which are similar in nature to the products sold by their competitors. For example, if you have ten different businesses all selling the same type of household cleaning product at a similar price, dropping your price instantly makes you the more attractive business to a potential consumer.
Free discounts on any future purchases or offers are going to also be a great way to boost the promotion of your existing products.
Market development
Market development requires that you retain existing customers while attracting new ones. If you are not currently employing a strategy for market development, then you could be missing out on a highly profitable market. If sales of existing products have become stagnated or if you want to expand market reach to fresher target demographics or newer geographical areas, then this could be especially important.
Profits and sales are inevitably going to suffer unless you can find new markets for your services and products. This point is especially important when you consider that we are just coming through a post-pandemic era where the traditional methods of purchasing and selling goods has rapidly changed, due in part to supply chain disruptions and new safety procedures.
Alternate channels
Business growth can be largely dependent upon leveraging online channels to promote your business through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and more recently, TikTok. This also includes business website and blogging, as well as e-mail marketing. Strong traction can be gained through the implementation of these methods.
More than a quarter of small businesses don’t even have websites, and those that do struggle to operate and maintain it. Businesses implementing social media for growth can expect to see a large increase in customer interaction and retention; 69% of business marketers develop a loyal customer base through marketing via social media.
With this in mind, if you haven’t already – get yourself online.
Market segmenting
Market segmentation allows you to segment your customers based on preferences, locations, interests, purchase history and other important characteristics. This kind of segmentation will allow you to formulate highly personalised and targeted marketing campaigns that have a far higher chance of succeeding.
Customer research consisting of web analytics, e-mail surveys, and purchase history can tease out any specific consumer preferences and traits that might inform your social media and e-mail marketing campaigns. This might sound overly time-consuming, but tools such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help you here.