It’s hard not to want the best for your business. Whether you started the company yourself with next-to-no money or have recently taken over an established business, growth is likely a major concern. The following will explore a few powerful strategies for growing your business with a focus on online growth, as in the digital sphere, growth is far less limited.Â
Identify Your Dream Client
Before you start focusing on growth, you need to admit to yourself that not all growth is created equal. Some clients give you a ton of headaches and endless revisions and make work feel like an uphill battle. Some clients value what you do and are willing to pay you what you’re worth to do it—these are your ideal clients. Identifying your dream clients can help you make tough decisions as your business grows, and you need to prioritize your efforts. Simply ask yourself whether what you’re doing is bringing you in contact with more fantastic clients or scraping the bottom of the barrel for anyone interested in your work. You might feel like you want every and any customer at this point, but that won’t always be the case. It’s better to start building those key relationships early than to realize five years from now that you need to cut half your roster in order to build new connections. (You can bet that’s going to have a negative impact on your online reviews.)
Figure Out Where Your Dream Clients Are
No matter what your target demographic is, there are going to be places where the people who are interested in your work congregate. Focus on your top 20% of customers and spend time getting to know them. What websites do they use regularly? What print publications do they read? What applications or social media platforms do they prefer? Figuring out where your ideal clients live can help you pare down and focus your marketing efforts where they’ll be most beneficial.
Differentiate
Because the internet is infinitely big, you’re likely going to run into some online competition from time to time. When this happens, you want to take a step back and figure out how your business/product/service differs from theirs—what makes what you’re offering interesting? A third-party perspective, from a digital marketing team or retired industry professional, can be incredibly useful in this regard. It’s hard to fairly compare your work to that of other people in your niche, but you need to be able to explain to potential customers through your marketing and publicity efforts why your product or service is a better choice than theirs.
Customer Service Is King
When someone is having a problem related to working with you, like a delayed shipment or a printing mistake, they need support from you. Your customer service needs to create a calm atmosphere where solutions can be found without too much pain. Foremost, this means you need to be reachable. People don’t want fifteen different automated phone messages when they call; they want to talk to a person who can walk them through what’s going on. Likewise, people expect prompt responses on email and social media. Figure out what you can do to help people who aren’t 100% pleased with your product or service (even if their issue has nothing to do with your work). Just a few scathing reviews can tank your rating on popular review sites.
Take Care Of Your Staff
Happy people work harder and produce better results. Happy people also encourage talented people they went to school with to apply where they work. Years ago, businesses could get away with putting their employees last, but that isn’t the case anymore. The well-being of your staff is partially your responsibility, and the current young generations have lost a lot of patience when it comes to mistreatment in the workplace. Work needs to be safe and supportive. It doesn’t matter how fantastic your product or service is if you can’t keep solid staff long enough to get it into people’s hands.
Regularly Update
While you’re going to want to keep your branding consistent, it’s important to note that digital standards develop much more rapidly than analog ones. Regularly take a look at your website and digital platforms and seek ways to meet the new standards. A site that was fast-loading two years ago might be slow today. New security expectations are developing all the time related to data privacy. What is considered stylish visually changes every few months online. Outdated digital efforts can seriously hinder your business’s growth.
Growing a business takes time, but it’s often well worth the effort. Make sure that you’re keeping track of any changes you make to your workflow or pipeline, and study the results carefully. Focus your time and money on the changes that are having a positive impact on your company.
