The key to having a strategy that grows your business is to focus on your product and your customers… and always keep experimenting.
Don’t settle for what others have done before or what has worked for you in the past. Every day new methods, new techniques and technologies appear, and what has happened in the past is not necessarily what is going to happen in the future.
Here are some seriously effective business growth strategies used by some of the most successful companies.
1. Focus on user experience and interface
We also call the user experience UX, and the interface are very important aspects in our digital strategy. Both allow us to know what our customer’s journey is from when they know our product until they buy it, and all this carried out in a very simple way.
But why is it important to know what the customer journey is?
Simply because you have to make sure that the process is easy for the user, and that their experience with you is something they don’t forget.
Therefore, once you show very clearly the values of your products or your sales proposal, try endlessly, test, test and test and then analyze. Analyze how you can improve the customer experience.
And how to do it?
If you have an online store, measure where users leave the sales funnel using tools like Google Analytics or Kissmetrics . If your user experience is mostly offline, then directly ask your customers or prospects for feedback , or try changing some of your approaches to see if it makes a difference.
As GrowHacks’ Conrad says, a focus on UI/UX can really make a difference in not only attracting more users, but keeping them and converting them into customers.
Have you noticed what Apple does as a company?
Apple is a company that puts a lot of emphasis on this. Design and user experience are possibly the two main factors that have driven and continue to drive their business and are the two pillars on which they are based.
Conclusion, Take into account your interface and study how the user interacts with the different elements . Eliminate what hinders the user’s journey and highlights what facilitates it.
And don’t be afraid to test again and again until you find what really works.
2. Try Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is about attracting people to your website , by creating a customer-centric marketing strategy and being part of the conversation.
How to do it?
It always starts by offering the user something of value, it can be free content, advice and information and in return, you ask them to make themselves known (you ask for information, it can be their email, the response to a form, etc) .
In this way you create a database with which you can work to collect information. From this base you will find your target customers to slide them through your sales funnel .
All the most successful companies, no matter if they are big or small, everyone is using this sales method because it is the one that really works.
You may wonder how it works.
The first thing you have to do is create content or a tool that people can download from your website and in return they have to leave you an email or click somewhere to take them to another page that you think is important for them to know about.
If you look closely, inbound marketing always starts with a CTA, a call to action. In the example above, the CTA is very clear: Download the template.
You have to do the same, create a CTA that invites your user to interact with your website, but to provoke that action you always have to offer them something of value, and that value has to be real, because otherwise, a disappointed customer is a lost customer.
And you will wonder what kind of Freebie you can offer them. Consider that the forms of content that generate the most leads are ebooks, slideshares, and webinars .
Try to make this content connected, in some way, with what you offer.
Remember that you must be an enemy of self-promotion. Here the important thing is the client, not your product or your company. So do n’t try to sell from the beginning. Don’t promote yourself.
Imagine that without realizing it I put a banner like this in front of you, with content that has nothing to do with what you are reading and a topic that does not interest you:
How does it make you feel?
Well, the same thing will happen to your client.
Always offer content related to what your user is consuming at that moment . You will consume it without even noticing it and you will also do it while enjoying it, because it is a type of content that is giving you value.
Be educational and have a genuine desire to help people . For example, if you are a hotel that offers Conference Rooms, you can offer a guide on how to organize a conference or how to organize a perfect event; if on the other hand you are a web design company, do a webinar on how to do a redesign of your website, etc.
If you notice, you offer something that is not your product but is related in some way to your business , and it is something that can be very interesting for your potential client.
You can then promote this piece of content you’ve created by writing a series of blog posts around it, sharing it on social media, or sending it in an email to your contacts.
This way, once someone has downloaded the content and given you their details, you already have a qualified lead in your database who is ready for you to interact with. And you can do it, after a few days, with an email or a call, and from there start a commercial collaboration.
3. Start making the most of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the social network for B2B. Your company may have a Facebook page or Twitter account, as most companies do, but if you’re dealing with other companies, LinkedIn is the place to be .
There are different ways you can use LinkedIn to generate leads. One of them is through the development of a “touchpoint” system.
I have used it several times and have verified that it works.
What is the “touchpoint” technique?
The first thing you need to do is start looking for different people you want to target on LinkedIn because they seem to interest you and you want to connect with them.
Once they accept your connection, the touchpoint technique begins here , you start a series of contact points , which will essentially be some pre-written texts that you can copy and paste into your email, with the aim of introducing this person into your sales funnel.
This is where you must have all your planned strategy, what will you do once with that contact, once they respond to this first contact, it will be the second part of the funnel until it ultimately leads to becoming a business collaboration.
LinkedIn has also now enabled a new feature of sponsored updates, which is a PPC method that can be very fruitful for B2B.
You can also use LinkedIn to promote or republish your blog posts. You can also build a relationship with members of relevant LinkedIn groups, or even create a group for your own company, where non-customers can connect with each other, share ideas, etc.
4. Bring sales and marketing together
One of the crucial elements of growing a business is bringing your sales and marketing team together by having them focus on the same revenue goals.
In fact, your sales team knows much better the problems that your customers have , and the marketing team, knowing this content and taking it into account, can create more effective campaigns around it.
But this will only work if there is a complete collaboration between the two . In this way, the marketing team will be able to generate more qualified leads that your sales team will then convert into customers.
More customers, more income.
4. Personalization is key
No matter what stage of the sales cycle your customers are in, you should always customize it where you can.
Programs such as free ones like Mailchimp or paid ones like Hubspot or Campaign Monitor are extremely useful for this, since you can add personalization tags (such as the name of the contact, the company, the industry, etc.) in each part of your email campaign. marketing.
To make sure you’re sending relevant information to the right people, you should also segment your database based on their interests and roles.
This way, every email you send to your contacts will resonate with them, and you’ll immediately see much more engagement with your brand and an improvement in their open and click rates.
5. Give away free stuff
It basically consists of offering products without asking for money in return , such as free trials of our products, services, free tools and basic versions of our software to earn money later.
But it works .
He thinks that one of the biggest obstacles for a company to grow is that people cannot try your product before buying it .
Essentially, the more time, energy, and resources it takes for someone to test your product, the greater the chance that person won’t stick with your product.
The “try before you buy” or “freemium” model represents one of the most effective methods to lower that barrier and get people to try what you have without having to buy it outright.
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The trick when designing your free model is to make sure you offer the minimum number of features , enough for users to see the benefits of the product, but not always leaving them wanting to stick with the full version.
You can also develop free tools for people to use. For example HubSpot, which has a free CRM system and also has a free “ Marketing Qualifier ” tool that anyone can use to test the effectiveness of their website.
These types of tactics provide massive value to online sellers and will whet their appetite for your company’s full suite of services and products.
6. Create a community around your product or service
The best way to grow your business is to really build a community of supporters and referrers around you. You can do this, for example, by sponsoring events, going to exhibitions, thanking your promoters or best customers by rewarding them, etc.
I’ll give you an example, maybe you know Stripe .
It is a tool created for developers and e-commerce that allows companies to integrate a very well designed and easy payment system on their websites. It is similar to Paypal but the payment is direct , you do not need to have a Paypal account, therefore you facilitate the payment process for the client.
When they launched, most of the success came from word of mouth as a result of people who were excited to finally have an alternative payment method and were eager to talk about it.
And what did Stripe do?
Well, they simply took advantage of this amazing word of mouth and worked hard to grow this community that had formed almost naturally and without them doing anything to create it.
The company sent out care packages to developers who implemented Stripe live instances, facilitated developer meetups, sponsored hackathons, and other developer events, such as its “Capture the Flag” challenges, to raise awareness and build and strengthen an entire community around Stripe. of the product.
By building a community, the company strengthened the affiliate network for Stripe and ensured that it would continue to be recommended and championed by developers around the world.
7. Share video testimonials
We all agree that social proof and testimonials are very powerful, but they are even more compelling in video format .
But you don’t have to be in front of the camera to do it. Leverage user-generated content . And if you don’t have it naturally, make the user talk about your product with contests, tags, etc. and use that information, as long as it’s obviously positive, to sell your product .
Think that the content generated by the user not only adds credibility to your product but also quality.
