With education and skill-based teaching having increased in the past century, there are now more people worldwide who have learned more than there have ever been in recorded history. Many people develop great skills and expertise across a wide range of fields that add positive aspects to society. Many also, among these learned people every day decide to use their skills and investments to start their businesses to make their mark in the world of commerce. Almost all of these businesses start small.
Even the juggernauts of today like Apple and Microsoft had extremely humble beginnings, which is a very good approach to take, because as it is with everything in life, slow and steady wins the race and starting a business from smaller roots and then developing it slowly adding to its growth is a sure-fire way to success.
Set Clear Goals and Objectives:
Research is one of the most important words to go by when trying to grow a small business. You need to have a clear understanding of what growth for your business actually means for you. Whether you want to increase your presence, revenue or customer base you need to do research to set doable goals. Gain insight into your target market look into what your competitors are doing and find out their strengths and weaknesses.
Understand Your Target Audience:
Target audience refers to those people that are most likely to buy your product or use your service which is why it is paramount that all your advertisement efforts be focused on this group of people if you want to grow your small business.
Getting new customers is great and all, but customer retention, the process of customers doing repeat business with you, is far more important in the short and long term. Target audience can be identified through age, gender, income, interests, areas, and many other factors.
Knowing your target audience has great positive effects on your marketing strategy and allows you to make specific appeals to get your message out to more people who are like to have a turn over towards you.
Build a Strong Online Presence:
This is the digital age we are living in. The way of advertising your business with the old methods has run its course. In this day and age, those businesses that do not have an online presence cannot hope to grow at a steady and significant way.
Online presence basically means having a website and social media accounts. It has been proven through research that businesses that have websites are far more likely to be engaged and trusted by customers compared to those who do not have a website.
Similarly, having a social media presence allows a business to instantly get its message across to millions of people at a fraction of the cost it took with traditional advertising in the past. Social media and Websites also allow customers to have a direct line of contact and interaction with the business where they can provide valuable feedback that helps businesses with customer retention if their needs are met.
1- SEO – Search Engine Optimization:
SEO is the most important aspect when it comes to online presence as its primary function is to put your business among the top searches in any search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. It is a known fact that most people never go beyond the 1st page of results in any search engine so your business must appear among the top searches to see any growth.
We have a track record of boosting our client's online presence in Google search results!
2- Content Marketing:
This marketing is based on creating material that is specifically designed to be shared online such as photos, videos, written material like blogs and social media things. Content marketing is a great way to get your business’ message out there in many creative ways to attract potential customers and stay in the general public’s zeitgeist regarding the services you provide.
3- Paid Advertising:
While most people are capable of creating small posts to promote their businesses online with little to no cost, if one wishes to see genuine returns it is best to make use of functions that many social media platforms provide nowadays. One of these is paid advertisement which not only costs a fraction of what traditional advertisement used to cost, but thanks to its targeted mechanisms, social media platforms make sure your message reaches to its target audience.
Utilize Digital Marketing Strategies:
Online advertisement does not happen in a bubble, nor is there a single sure-go-to-way strategy to lead a business to success. You have to do proper research and see what kind of strategy would work best for you. There are several strategies and some of the most popular ones are:
1- Email Marketing
One would be surprised know that even in this day and age, one of the original online marketing strategies, Email Marketing, is still one that brings in the most return on investment (ROI), yes even more than SEO and PPC. The process is quite simple surprisingly. A business sends a personalized message promoting their services or products or offering solutions to some specific problems to people who through research have been identified as being potential customers. Within the email, along with the message is usually a call to action (CTA) in the form of a link that takes the customer to the business’ website where they can get further information. This personalized approach makes Email Marketing a highly effective medium.
2- Social Media Marketing
Unlink email, social media marketing is not focused on a single potential group, rather covers a wide swathe of people over the internet, target audience and potential audience included. Social media is a powerful tool that can help propel a message instantly to thousands, potentially millions of people in a very short time. Social media marketing involves creating images, videos and written content whose sole purpose is to make people aware of what your business is all about.
3- Influencer Partnership
With the ease of access to the internet and platforms like YouTube giving everybody the spotlight if they put the effort in, there have millions of influencers online today from all walks of life. Influencer Partnership basically boils down to a business sponsoring (paying) an influencer with a considerable audience and reach to promote their services and products. This is a highly effective method as through this, any business can have its message reach millions of people within minutes and the return on investment is great since the message usually comes from the mouth of an influencer whose fan base already has trust in them.
Optimize Operations for Scalability
The optimal use of aspects of any business such as employees, facilities and funds is known as Operational Efficiency. In simple words it can be described as how many resources go into work daily and what amount of results does it lead to. By simply cutting out gaps in processes, the amount of effort put into work can be significantly reduces while at the same time the output can be increased.
Leverage Customer Feedback and Improve Customer Service
Good customer service is of paramount importance if you want to not only get new customers but to also retain the already present ones. Everybody likes their problems to be solved quickly and with the littlest of hassles as possible and nowhere is this more when dealing with customers. Customer service is one of the biggest contributors to any businesses growing because it drives customer retention, loyalty, repeat purchases and referrals.
It is very simple to understand that if a customer is satisfied with your product and has a good experience with it, they are more than likely to not only come back to your business for that specific need but they will surely spread the word to their family and friends that will lead to getting new customers adding to the business growth.
Network and Build Partnerships
Networking is vital to small business growth. Networking helps in building long term relationships with other business and potentially individuals that you can help and more importantly who can help you in return. Networking includes all kinds of social relationships that you have be they family and friends, members of different groups, other businesses etc.
Networking and building partnerships is highly beneficial for all parties involved, because this is based on sharing and not taking. Keeping in touch with your contacts and assisting them with finding new opportunities helps strengthen your partnership which becomes beneficial to you when it is you who needs help and they are there for you. Your network can also be a huge source for fresh new ideas and perspectives.
When it comes to business it is best to be as social as possible and visit local events that are organized by the industry, attend seminars and conferences and have a good social media presence online to engage with potential new partners.
Conclusions:
Running in a business is hard enough but growing it can be a significant challenge if you don’t know what you are doing. Instead of just going with it, being proactive, learning, and applying strategies that proven to work are a sure fire way to help you on the road to success. In conclusion three things to keep in mind when wanting to grow a small business are:
- Research, know your customer base.
- Action, find a need and fill it.
- Persistence, keep at it. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day and only by staying consistent and putting in the effort will ultimately yield results.
While Digital marketing is a game changer in the world of advertisement, not everybody can afford the costs of hiring a larger firm. This is where gems like Canadian Content Creator come in handy. Though smaller in scale than the juggernauts of the industry, digital marketing agencies like Canadian Content Creator (aka C3team) provide services of equal quality.
This makes it the perfect partner for any business that is just starting out or one that does want to see growth but is not as of yet to a point where they can spend a large amount of money. With targeted services to meet the client’s requirements, Canadian Content Creator is one of the best choices for all your digital marketing needs.
Visit us at www.c3team.ca and let us know what we can do for you.
