It’s not scary if you don’t have a single ingenious thought in your head. If you don’t have your own ideas, just quietly steal them. Competition with other companies is still to come, so a competent competitive analysis will initially find the strengths of your opponents and copy them. Do not forget also about their weaknesses, which can be used against themselves! To track and analyze the advertising strategy of other companies means to penetrate their minds, see the world through the eyes of others, and then, using their own original experience, find opportunities to do something better.
So, here are 5 steps to successfully scale your business.
Diversification of the Offer
What additional products, services or even information can you offer your customers? You already know your target audiences – now you should analyze their current expenses and understand what else they can buy from you in one extended package.
People are quite lazy, but at the same time value their time. If it is possible to purchase three items in one place, and not one at a time in three different ones, then, obviously, they will choose the first option. It is not necessary to radically expand your product offerings. Follow consumer logic, conduct a couple of studies and form packages of products or services that are potentially interesting to your clientele. If there are seasonal peaks in demand, then the range of offers can be expanded with products that are popular at certain times of the year and can be easily alternated.
New Partners
To start a real growth program, you will need new partners. Any modern market niche intersects with related industries with thousands of invisible but strong ties. Each segment of target audiences consumes its own package of compulsory products or services, in accordance with its lifestyle, location, age, wealth, etc.
Affiliate programs, with mutual advertising, joint promotions, and discount programs allow you to quickly expand the customer pool and evenly share the costs of attracting new customers between partners. Look in your environment for companies and entrepreneurs whose business can complement yours, offer opportunities for joint work that will bring mutual profit.
Aggressive Loyalty Programs
Immediately include aggressive loyalty programs in your new marketing strategy. It can be referral systems, discounts, special promotions, etc. The main thing is that existing customers have the motivation to promote your content and receive their bonuses and preferences for this. Attracting new customers this way costs three to five times cheaper than regular advertising channels.
In order to bring loyalty and credibility into a business, it is highly recommended for a company to get a page on Wikipedia. Wikipedia page creation services can help you get one for your brand or services. Presenting a company or a brand on Wikipedia enhances the traffic as well as increase the credibility of a company. People believe and rely on Wikipedia a lot. So that makes sense.
Trade Brand and Business Model
This is another way to budget expansion. If you have a profitable product and brand, then there are many who want to get their piece of the pie, those who have less ability, imagination and perseverance, but have a desire to do private business.
Trading licenses or franchises is a common practice that allows you to cover new territories. This model has three obvious advantages. First, the new amount of work falls not on your shoulders, but on the shoulders of contractors. Secondly, it promotes and strengthens your brand. Third, it is a source of constant income from interest on sales. Although, the development of the concept and promotion of the franchise will require some costs at the initial stage, in the future this strategy begins to work on its own and becomes a locomotive for continuous growth.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Of course, sooner or later you will reach the step that will be final at this stage of development. To grow further, you will have to radically change the format of your company. And most likely this stage will be M&A (mergers and acquisitions). You will need to either buy a competing company or merge with it. For many small companies, the very idea of such a step, that is, the rejection of sole management in favor of expanding the enterprise, causes psychological discomfort. In fact, this is the natural course of things.
Summary
The five steps described above are the most efficient of the many different options for business development. Do not let this list overload you. Select one or two ideas that are most suitable for the current development of your business and related circumstances, and try to implement them first. Then you can sequentially include others.