You’ll want to increase your revenue and customer base regardless of your business type. As a business owner, there are always ways – big or small – you can improve your business operations.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are key strategies you can apply to your business to make it grow.
Why is it important to grow your business?
The longevity and survival of your business depends on growth, so business growth is beneficial for many reasons. Not only does it help boost growth and profit, but growth can also push you to take more opportunities, broaden your product and service offerings and help you attract and retain customers. Business growth can also push business owners creatively and help them think outside the box, making you stand out from your competitors.
Business growth also positively impacts your reputation and authority in your specific industry. However, for your growth to be long-lasting and effective, it must be strategic and deliberate. Making steps toward growth without any planning or research can lead to a loss in revenue and customer loyalty.
Types of business growth strategies
As a business owner, knowing the different business growth strategies is essential. The strategy you choose to work on depends entirely on your business goals and what you want to grow and improve upon.
Revenue growth strategy
A revenue growth strategy is a business’s plan to increase revenue over a set period of time. A lot of organizations will compare year-over-year earnings to guide their revenue progress.
Businesses can do a few things if they pursue a revenue growth strategy. To start, they can monitor cash flow, monitor sales forecasting reports, analyze market trends or look into strategic partnerships with other businesses.
Practical revenue growth tactics can include:
- Sales training programs for employees
- Upgrading technology to improve sales reports
- Partnering with companies to promote products and services
Customer growth strategy
A customer growth strategy is a company’s plan to help acquire and retain customers over some time. Like a revenue growth strategy, you can compare month-over-month or year-over-year to help you benchmark your progress. If your business is considering a customer growth strategy, you may be more open to larger strategic investments.
Business owners can track customer churn rates, lifetime value, and pricing strategies (which can attract more customers). Another helpful strategy is to boost spending on marketing strategies so you can use new customer sign-ups as your north star.
Customer growth strategies may include:
- Increased marketing and advertising
- Adding new products and services
- Discounts and membership reward loyalty programs
Marketing growth strategy
A marketing growth strategy is when a business increases its total addressable market (also known as TAM). The ultimate goal is to grow existing market share. Organizations pursuing a marketing growth strategy should research their given market and look into customer audiences, regions, demographics and more.
Specific marketing strategies can include:
- Rebranding your business to appeal to your target market
- New product launches
- Opening new locations in different regions
- Adopting new strategies – social media, newsletters, paid advertising
Product growth strategy
The main goal of a product growth strategy is to increase customer sign-ups or expand product offerings. Depending on the type of products you’re selling, it can require a lot of initial investment.
Product growth tactics can include:
- Upgrading your current product line
- Adopting a “freemium” pricing strategy
- Adding more products and services to your line
- Expanding into new markets (with the help of market research)
How to grow your business
Scaling and growing your business can feel frustrating at times. It requires a well-thought-out approach and strategy. Check out some tips that can help you refine your business strategy:
Determine your business goals
The why behind your business can also act as your north star – if you don’t have a why, you can lose your way. One of the biggest challenges businesses face is understanding why they do what they do and communicating this message to their target audience.
To be successful, you need to make sure your priorities align. Identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and goals. A few tactical ways you can identify these critical aspects of your business are:
These analyzes can take a while, but understanding your goals is essential for business success.
Become an expert on your products or services
When you become an expert in your services and products, it shines through to your customers. Nowadays, many shoppers research brands, check reviews and compare products. This can present both advantages and disadvantages – however, you can benefit from this by leading the way in your respective field.
When you are knowledgeable, you build brand authority and awareness – which only grows your business!
Conduct market research
No matter your business strategy, you need to research your market. This helps you better understand your current customers and informs you about your future clients.
When looking to expand your business and customer base, looking into customer trends and gaining insight into your target market’s behaviours is essential. From here, you can make educated decisions about moving forward.
Don’t forget to research your competitors. Once you know their strengths and weaknesses, you can apply and improve what they’re doing and appropriately scale your business.
Optimize and streamline your business processes
Streamlining repetitive and unnecessary steps and tasks is vital to operating more efficiently. Optimizing your processes aims to help increase productivity and creativity in the workplace. With more available time and resources, you can dedicate more time to other backburner projects.
Before streamlining your processes, make sure to:
- Understand the process before you automate
- Breakdown the workflow
- Calculate the ROI of automation
- Use available solutions whenever you can
Before jumping in head first and buying the latest software, understand the whole process and why you need to optimize. This will save you time and money on future automation investments.
Invest in business software
Investing in business software helps you perform essential tasks more efficiently and can track any important business insights you need in the future. Before investing in new software, there are a few things to remember. For instance, you may want to:
- Cut costs with automation
- Improve customer service and retention
- Communicate with third-party companies
- Enable employees to work efficiently
If you’re unsure where to start, do some window shopping and research to see what software or solutions best suit your business needs. If you don’t have the budget to update your hardware, find a solution that can run on your current equipment. With solutions like QuickBooks Online Advanced, you can take your business to the next level by customizing your workflows, boosting team productivity and analyzing analytics. With these systems in place, grow your business with our scalable solution.
