15 Tips for Business Growth

Business growth refers to the scaling up of an enterprise.

Successful businesses always seek to improve and expand their products or services while enhancing their user’s experience. In contrast, static businesses will typically fail to compete and be substituted by more responsive ones.

This article provides you with 360-degree solutions and growth-hacking tips to help your business sustain itself in the long term.

Retain Customers to Establish Loyalty
Through Feedback, re-engagement, an improved customer experience

Offer Discounts and Incentives
Adapt your pricing to changing market conditions

Deliver a Consistent User Experience Across Multiple Devices
Create an engaging mobile and social media experience

Utilise Data Analytics Tools for Powerful Branding
How it helps you customise and build customer trust

Adapt and Plan to Changing Market Conditions
Patience, preparation and proper planning are key        

Before you spend all the time, money, and energy in expanding your business, it is important to ensure that your business is actually ready for growth.

When Should You Grow Your Business?

A good indication of a business that is ripe for growth is one:

• Whose industry is growing
• Has a steady cash flow with a regular influx of customers
• Has increasing demand and profit

When you have more customers out there that you cannot capitalise on right now, you are probably ready for growth.

Listed below are tactics to grow your business effectively and profitably.

These 15 tips suggest five key growth tactics for your long-term business growth.

Retaining Long-Term Customer Relationships

A good customer relationship can go a long way, creating a win-win situation for both customers and your bottom line.

Retaining existing customers who are brand loyal maximises the value generated from each customer. The more revenue they bring, the greater their customer lifetime value.

Customer lifetime value?(CLV) is a crucial metric in determining how much your business should be spending on acquiring new customers based on the business value that they generate in the long run.

The first four tips are ways you could possibly increase your CLV.

1. Make Your Business Sticky

Customer retention and consistent cash flow are drivers of effective growth. This may take the form of a gamified UI, a loyalty program or even an?impressive ESG proposition.

Find out what keeps your most loyal customers coming back and frame this value to new consumers.

Research shows that?acquiring a new customer is more expensive?than retaining an existing one. This is why?subscription models have become increasingly popular?with the most successful ventures in recent years.

2. Use Feedback and Referrals to Attract New Customers

As the economy becomes more globalised and oversaturated, the value of positive feedback cannot be understated.

One study showed that?90% of customers read online reviews?before frequenting a business. They were also likely to spend 31% more on companies with ‘excellent’ feedback.

Be sure to take negative feedback seriously and promote positive feedback often. This will incentivise more consumption and nurture brand loyalty for repeat business.

3. Reengage With Lapsed Customers

Lapsed customers are not necessarily lost! A customer who has engaged with your business before is still further down the purchase funnel than a new one.

As seen in the?acquisition funnel?above,?a lapsed customer is a visitor who still has the potential to be converted into a lead.

Re-engagement is often cheaper and more fruitful than the pursuit of new prospects.

Try to find out what triggered a visitor to leave your website or product landing page.?Reach out to them with new deals and value offerings to incentivise them to return.

4. Improve Your Customer Service

Cultivating a positive customer experience can improve customer retention. Consumers want to buy from companies that offer a good user experience.

People often tend to remember bad experiences more vividly than good ones.

Turning a poor customer experience into a fair and reasonable solution can be extremely powerful in creating brand loyalty.?Greater brand loyalty equates to increasing sales and low-cost recurring revenue.

Good cash flow is essential for continued growth of a business. Learn how to?improve your cash flow?and take your business to new heights!

Attractive and Adaptive Pricing Model

Pricing is a unique selling point for many customers looking for products or services that best meet their needs at affordable costs.

Regardless of high or low demand periods, an adaptive pricing strategy can often attract more customers.

The next 2 tips tell you how to do so:

5. Offer Discounts and Special Offers to New Customers

Discounts and limited offers are powerful tools for driving new customers down the purchase funnel.

Many methods can help your business retain customers. However, to exploit any of them, you must incentivise an initial purchase.

Good pricing is often the deal-breaker for customers when choosing amongst competitors. Try to provide competitive pricing that attracts more long-term customers.

6. Change Your Price

Changing the price of your product or service can help increase your sales.

Gain a good understanding of your market ecosystem and competitor prices.

Find a way to reduce costs and undercut the opposition. Even a well-framed bundle or deal that does not alter your margins can drive new customers to purchase.

Optimise for Different Platforms and Devices

Another powerful way to grow your business is by providing a consistent and good user experience at each touchpoint in their customer journey.

7. Optimise Your Website for Mobile

In 2022,?56% of all online shopping was done on mobile,?making it extremely important for eCommerce.

Mobile also accounts for?more than half of all web traffic?worldwide. The average global mobile traffic of 2023 has been 60.06% as seen in the chart below.

Businesses without well-optimised mobile sites tend to experience a much higher bounce rate.?This means that customers often exit the site quickly without engaging past the landing page.

To avoid missed opportunities, try to give customers an excellent online experience regardless of what device they use.

8. Create an Engaging Social Media Presence

Social commerce is becoming a part of firms’ conversion strategies. Significantly,?34% of new brand discovery?occurs on social media.

There is a reason why?social media advertising spending?is projected to reach over 268 billion USD by the end of 2023.

Creating unique touchpoints and customer stories on social media can yield significant dividends in both the short and long term.

Social media can increase customer retention and revenue, making it an invaluable tool for growth. Unsurprisingly,?global ad spending is on the rise.

Targeted ads on appropriate social media platforms can expand your reach and scale your business.

Leverage on Data

Whether it is company achievements, consumer or industry insights, every data point has a strong and powerful impact on your business’s brand value.

It is all about how you use this data to communicate a story or message that gains customer trust. Hence you should:

9. Collect Meaningful Data

Data helps you make better informed decisions. It helps you better understand your customers, your competition and the general state of the industry. It can help you identify trends and capitalise on them.

Consumers feel that?data in advertising?helps them discover products or services of their interest more easily.

As we become more digitally integrated, data becomes more integral to the way we do business.

Utilise strong company data points and create an impactful brand image for your audience.

10. Make the Most of Powerful Analytics Tools

Tools like google analytics can help you collect and interpret company data.

Take the time to properly configure the analytics tool of your choice and learn how to use it effectively. This can help you drive future engagement, showcase your business’s strengths, and outperform competition.

Flexibility and Planning is Key

Lastly, a business that is well-planned, opportunistic, and adaptive to market conditions, is one that is able to meet different segment needs.

Our last five tips conclude how:

11. Be Adaptable

If the changing economic times has any lessons to teach us, the main one would be – anything can happen!

Businesses have been forced to be more digital than ever. Supply chains have had to be reworked and organised. Marketing has had to adapt to the changing way people consume media.

Don’t let your business practices stagnate in changing circumstances.

Innovation is not a necessity, but make sure to check how your competition is solving the same problems you have!

12. Do Not Expand Too Quickly

The pursuit of growth can be exciting but know your limits.

Sensible planning and implementation are even more important in times of change.

Hiring staff or adding new offices are all a part of growth and success. However,?ensure that your new operational costs make economic sense when weighed against annual revenue.?Check?our?Cash Flow Management article?for more information.

13. Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail

As Benjamin Franklin has rightly said:

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail

Planning is integral to an effective growth strategy. One must consider and evaluate all consequences when making strategic decisions.

Always have a contingency plan to overcome unfavourable situations.

Not only does it help inform sensible business decisions, but it also signals investors that they are in capable hands.

14. Be Prepared to Admit When You Are Wrong

No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.

However, market winners know when to abandon an idea and re-pivot.

Do not overlook the shortcomings of a plan. Take your mistakes and learn from them to make you and your business stronger.

15. Finance Strategically

Be sure to pursue a financing method that makes sense for?your?business.

When debt financing, using the right lending institution is essential.

Velotrade’s financing platform?gives corporates in need of capital access to instant credit line to grow their business efficiently.

You should always use a reputable lender that you trust.