So, you have started a new business. Congratulations! Starting a business is always a fun and exciting experience. Every entrepreneur starts their business with a vision to grow and expand globally. But the sad part is not all of them achieve this vision successfully. Why? It is because either they either don’t create the right strategies or even if they do, they don’t implement them in the right manner. No matter how great your products or services are if you don’t have the right strategy to promote them, then it’s of no use. That is why we have come up with this blog that will guide you with some creative and time-tested tips to increase your business.
Let’s get started!
Creative Ways to Increase Your Business
1) Research competitors:
Every business has competitors in the market. To grow your business, you first have to understand who your competitors are; what are their strengths and weakness; what strategies are they following; what people are saying about them, etc. Gaining knowledge of all these things will help you in creating the best strategies to retain existing customers and steal the customers of competitors. Researching about competitors doesn’t mean that you only rely on Google or their website. We know that to know about a particular company, individuals either begin with Google or look out the company’s website. But there are other great resources available in the market that can help people with their research. For instance, you can hire a person or a company to do competitive research for your business.
2) Invest in website design:
Today, it has become obligatory for entrepreneurs to have a business website. Even if they are not selling anything online, customers expect them to have an online presence. Why? It is because, in case of any query, customers find the company’s website as a most trustable source than any other informative site. To attain the best results, it is advisable that you design a responsive website. It looks great on all smart phones and tablets. They automatically adjust as per the screen of the device. To create a responsive website design, here are a few tips:
• Place vital information at top of the page
• Hide navigation menu on smaller screens
• Change the position of content on smaller screens
• Replace the enlarge functionality of images with scrolling pages
• Balance the size between header and footer
3) Create customer loyalty program:
A customer loyalty program is a reward program offered by a company to customers who make frequent purchases. A company can reward customers in the form of discounts, cash back, offers, etc. Loyalty programs are a great way to retain existing customers and acquire new ones. No matter in which industry you are in, introducing a loyalty program can help you in increasing sales.
4) Build a sales funnel:
It is another great way to increase business. Sales funnel is a path that is designed to give your potential customers space to make their own buying decision. One of the most common mistakes that businesses do is that they try to go to sale directly from the first contact. It may be the shortest path, but it doesn’t matter if it is rarely taken. It is difficult to get direct sales, as the competition is fierce, and buyers have access to do online research. The better way to get more customers and increase sales is through sales funnel. Let your customers move from one stage to another on their own as they are the one who needs to make purchase decision themselves. There are basically five stages of the sales funnel – Awareness, Attraction, Interest, Purchase, and Delight. So if you do not have sales funnel, go ahead and build the sales funnel for your business.
5) Email marketing:
Emails are a great way to get connected with potential customers personally. Today, everyone has access to the internet. Sending compelling emails to your potential customers not only help you in getting new customers but also retaining the old ones. Here are a few ways through which you can grow your business with email marketing:
• Promote your products or services by listing the benefits in your email. To attract customers to take action, you can offer discounts, coupons, etc.
• Build customer loyalty by sending them personalized emails like ‘We miss you’, ‘Greeting cards’, etc.
• Sending an email and forgetting the prospects is not the right thing to follow. Communicate with your potential prospects regularly. You can do that by automating the follow-up process.
• Ask your prospects to send their reviews or feedbacks. You can put them on your website or on social channels. It will help you in gaining credibility, which ultimately leads to getting more customers or clients.
• Send your prospects case studies that talk about a problem that your product or services have successfully overcome. It will help them in gaining confidence.
6) Get custom t-shirts:
The trend of custom t-shirts is growing rapidly. Marketers are using them to promote their business. They are the smartest, affordable and the most effective way to increase the brand awareness. You can wear them and walk through malls, local parks, etc. They are great conversation starters and there is no chance that you will get unnoticed. Here are a few tips to design your custom t-shirt:
• Be clear with the purpose; whether you want to design a t-shirt for promotion, leave-behinds, brand values, etc.
• Define your budget, quantity, timeline
• Choose the t-shirt type
• Have a clear understanding of the placement of design
• Choose the right colors and typography
• Know your printing options
• Hire a professional designer
• Evaluate your design
• Find a printer
7) Social media marketing:
In this digital era, you cannot afford to miss this efficient marketing channel to target your prospects. Social media has changed the way businesses used to communicate with their customers or clients. To motivate customers to make a purchase decision, it is vital to winning their trust, and it is not easy to do that, especially for the first time visitors. Social media is one of the great ways to win the trust of the customers. Putting a company logo, sharing interactive and useful content, using related hashtags, joining communities, building a partnership with industry influencers are some of the ways through which you can increase your business through social media.
8) Google Adwords:
Google Adwords is a great marketing platform that helps businesses to target those customers who are looking for their products and services and are ready to buy them. It is one of the favorite tools among marketers. With effective strategy and little investment, they can attract more prospects, and make more sales. Google Adwords allow users to create different type of ads such as:
• Video Ads: These are the ads that generally appear at the start or end of videos.
• Search Ads: These are the ads that appear on the top of the SERPs when someone looks for something.
• Shopping Ads: These are the ads that display as a suggestion when someone buy or look for similar products or services.
• Display Ads: These are the ads that display on apps or websites. These can be in the form of image, text, videos, etc.
9) Search Engine Optimization:
Many businesses hire salespersons to generate more leads by calling. Well, this may help them in achieving their objectives, but these are old ways of generating leads. You must also agree with us that today, people don’t take sales calls. They find it irritating, especially if they get in the middle of their important task. So what is the best way to gain visibility and generate more volumes on the website? Through effective SEO! Search engine optimization is a technique of optimizing the website content and images so that your business displays on the first page of search engines. Though the process takes time to show results, it pays off in the long-run. Here are a few ways through which you can improve your search engine ranking:
• Write a good Meta description
• Do proper research on short tail, long tail keywords and add them in your content. But make sure you don’t do keyword stuffing. Otherwise, Google may penalize your site.
• Produce quality content regularly
• Optimize your images
• Improve the speed of your website
• Share content through guest posting
• Get Google business listings
10) Affiliate marketing:
For any business to grow, it is imperative to have sales. And for that, companies need to have a customer base. Increasing the customer base is not an easy thing. It is a big challenge, and it cannot be achieved simply by creating good quality products and providing good services. Businesses need to find new ways to promote their products or services. Affiliate marketing is such type of marketing that helps businesses in promoting and selling their products or services with the help of affiliates (people who work on behalf of the company). The company pays these affiliates commission either on the sales of each product or number of products. The commission structure is set by companies only. Since affiliate marketing let affiliates to earn money from anywhere at any time, so they try their level best to sell products or services.
Conclusion:
Businesses don’t grow overnight. It requires a lot of time, patience, and efforts. Rather than depending on a few methods, you should try to promote your business and generate leads from all the possible ways. Choose ideas that are suitable from the above list and start implementing it into your business. We are sure that you will get to see the results. Good Luck!
