Business Growth Strategies

When we are focusing on business growth strategies it’s important to understand what all your options are and to get rid of all distractions that keep you from implementing those growth strategies.

Because we all want our businesses to grow, it’s important to really determine how you want it to grow and what you need to be ready for the growth.

I have found that many business owners don’t understand all their options when it comes to business growth. They just keep trying to do the same old traditional ways of doing things in hopes of something changing.

Well, I want to give you a bigger picture of all your options when it comes to business growth strategies… It’s important to remember, that you MUST get out to where your target market is, otherwise you will not see any business growth.

Offline Business Growth Strategies:

1. Find What Works & Has The Best ROI

This is important, when my wife and I owned our coffee shop we fell into the trap of just doing what everyone else was doing, which consisted of newspaper ads, local newsletter ads and so on. We soon discovered we were not having a good return on our investment. It was time to change the way we were marketing.

2. Getting Out And Being Social

Joining your local Chamber of Commerce or other business networking groups is a good idea. Plus, if your area has local festivals and things of that nature, you can always look into getting a booth if that will help get your business out there.

3. Radio, TV and Billboards.

This may only be an option if you have a bigger spending allowance. Once again, you really need to be careful when choosing your strategy. It would make no sense to market your quilting store on a hard rock station. You have to market to where your target market is!

4. Other avenues

I have recently seen smaller advertising companies come into play and some seem do get the job done nicely. This could consist of poster ads in your local movie theater or your city’s information center.

5. Texting and SMS Marketing

This is something you are going to start to hear more about. This is where you can now advertise by sending text messages to people. I will be covering this more in depth in an upcoming article.

Online Business Growth Strategies

1. Social Media Marketing

We have been talking a lot about this lately and you will continue to hear a lot about this, we are in the Social Media Revolution! In case you have been under a rock, Social Media consists of:

- Twitter
- Facebook
- Youtube

And the list keep going and going! These are all very smart things to add into your marketing strategies. Remember, it’s all free and I have had a VERY good return on my investment with them.

2. Web sites and blogs

There is a transition happening that many Internet Marketers started a while back that many Store Front owners are now seeing the bigger picture…

Which is blogging! Blogs are now taking the place of traditional HTML web sites. Blogs are an awesome way to now only get out in the search engines, but a great way to build a community of loyal customers.
Here is a quick rundown of why I would choose a self-hosted blog over a traditional HTML web site:

- SEO friendly.
- Easy to use.
- Great way to build a loyal tribe.
- Easy to get people to connect with you on your other social media sites.
- Easy to customize

It’s definitely worth taking a look at!

3. SEO & PPC

To have a web site is not enough to be found in the search engines. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s a totally free way to get your web site or blog found in the search engine through keywords and keyword phrases. This is a big topic which we will cover later as well, I just wanted you to know about it.

PPC which stands for Pay Per Click advertising are the ads you find when doing a search on the right hand side of the screen. Playing the Google adwords game can be tricky, but a great way to get more sales fast.
I should also mention that both SEO and PPC can be outsourced to professionals.

4. Free Online Classifieds

This was a business growth strategy I implemented back in my MLM days. It worked very well. People are always looking on classifieds for good deals. Whenever I need to grow my business, I would just post a nice ad with good sales copy and it worked great!

5. Buying Ads On Other Sites

This is another option if you are willing to pay. All you will need to do is find a high traffic site that is in your Niche and see if you can buy an ad space from them. Depending on what you are selling, this could be a powerful strategy.

6. Discussion Forums

I will end with this one…
Doing a Google search for discussion forums in your Niche is an excellent way to:

- Get to know target market.
- Interact with like-minded people.
- Position yourself as a professional.
- Get traffic back to your site.
- Get to know some “heavy hitters” in your Niche.

Although this can become time consuming, I highly recommend at the very least doing this when researching your market.

I hope you see some nuggets of gold for you and the growth of your business. Again, when it comes to business growth strategies, be sure you pick the right ones for you. Plus, if you find some you think would be good, but know you can’t pull it off, hire it out!

Keep moving forward!

Tagged as: Advertising, business growth strategies, Pay per click, Search Engine Optimization