There are various ways to grow your business as well as different tactics to use for optimal growth.How well have you been able to focus on identifying the best marketing tactics to foster growth in your company? Over the past four parts of this sales and marketing series, you learned how to:

  • Formulate your unique selling proposition (USP)
  • Integrate the marketing mix
  • Use quick sales to increase revenue
  • Effectively use your market research

The ability to identify the most appropriate marketing tactics and growth objectives for your company stem from the previous four components. In this part of our series, you will be able to do the following:

  • Understand the various methods you can use to grow your company
  • Identify the appropriate marketing tactics to support your growth objectives

Using the customer market research you learned in Part 4 will help you decide which tactics are most appropriate to use based on the mix of your customers and their needs.

Using Research to Determine Your Growth Tactic

There are a variety of applicable tactics to employ for optimal growth, so you will want to choose the tactic(s) best suited for your target market. Their answers to your survey questions, such as where they look for information about new products, services or new vendors, will play a vital role in determining which tactics will resonate best with your target market.

The survey questions you develop can also help you uncover whether they are searching Google with select keywords in mind, attending industry trade shows, or reading industry publications and journals.Their responses will vary but they will also help you determine which tactics to consider for reaching new customers who are in your current market.

Five Ways to Grow Your Business

There are more ways to growing your business than just surveying customers and prospects to find out where they go when looking for new product or vendor information. You can also grow your business by increasing the number of prospects from within your current market(s).

The following are five different ways you can grow your business, and in the next section, you will learn about some tactics to use that coincide with these growth models.

  1. Keep your past and current customers informed about all of your offerings to increase the business you receive.
  2. Communicate a resonating Unique Selling Proposition to increase your conversion rate of prospects into paying customers.
  3. Build awareness of your products and services by reaching out of your current customer base to increase the number of prospects within your current markets.
  4. Increase your offerings to your current markets by developing and marketing new products and services through your current channel of distribution.
  5. Move into new markets to promote, distribute and increase your exposure to new and different markets.

Marketing Tactics that Impact Growth

The following marketing tactics are different ways that you can communicate with your customers, prospects and channel players, such as distributors, dealers, retailers, etc.

The idea is to use whichever tactic will resonate the most with your target audience and effectively impact the growth method you employ. Here are just a few examples.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is the ideal tactic for continually fostering your relationship with former and current customers. Through this tactic, you can keep your customers informed and put your name in front of prospects. Communicating new products, pricing specials, etc. to your current customer base and prospects can help you stay “top of mind."

Email Newsletter

The email newsletters you design should be brief but they should also allow the recipient to seek additional information, which is typically provided by links to relevant and more educational reading materials.

Each newsletter should be consistent in message, format and delivery. Several email programs offer no or low-cost fees that are easy to use (My Emma, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Vertical Response, etc.). All of these programs offer the ability to track your results with open rates, bounce rates and unsubscribes.

Press Releases

Press releases can be a cost-effective method to build awareness of your company’s offerings. You can target your message to interested parties using online or offline publications.

You will want to create a media list of editors, assistant editors, writers and reporters who publish in your local area or in national industry publications. Often regional publications are looking for a good local story for their readers.

Direct Mail Postcards

Direct mailings are often perceived as junk mail; however, they are a great way to engage new prospects in your current market(s).

The reason why direct mail gets associated as junk mail is because it gets sent to the wrong person or organization. It is the tangible version of an unopened email becoming junk or spam mail.

This is why it is important to identify who will be the recipient of your message. Postcards are an ideal form of direct mail because they are easy to read and less expensive than producing and mailing a brochure.

You can use postcards to:

  • Create awareness of your new products and services
  • Inform prospects and customers of upcoming trade shows you are attending
  • Drive online, specific web page or phone number traffic
  • Announce new product offerings or price discounts

Pulling it All Together

There are many ways that your prospects and customers seek out new product or vendor information.

The question is, while growing your business, how can you ensure that your voice is louder and more in-tune with what your prospects and customers need then that of your competitors. You can expand the breadth and reach of your company by increasing the number of prospects from within your current market(s) by:

  • Keeping them informed
  • Communicating your USP
  • Increasing your products and services
  • Moving into new markets

There are also some tactics to use that coincide with these growth models including:

  • Email marketing
  • Enewsletters
  • Press releases
  • Direct mail

In the next module, we will conclude this 6 part series reviewing the key elements of the past five parts and highlighting some next steps to take.

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