Shaping a business growth strategy: 7 key steps that work

If just half of the businesses survive beyond 5 years and only a 1/3 make it to ten, what is the single most important thing you can do to assure your business's sustainability? Of course, the answer is to develop a development strategy for your firm.

A business growth plan entails much more than merely imagining long-term prosperity. Without a concrete brand value accelerator plan, you risk losing business – or increasing the likelihood of losing business to competitors.

Any expansion plan must be purposeful. Determine the rate-limiting phase in your business growth and provide as much fuel as possible to the fire. However, for this to be useful, the following procedures must be taken:

• Study the trends

It's all too easy to get carried away with business growth marketing. You may believe you're losing out on a chance if you don't immediately respond with a marketing message.

However, one of the most effective strategies for achieving the business growth you desire would be to slow down and invest significant effort behind the scenes before publishing anything. Once something is public, it is impossible to forget or undo it. And if you make a mistake, you may have to work much harder to undo your actions.

While it is beneficial to begin examining these patterns before the start of the new season, it is essential to continue doing so throughout the year. New developments will continue to emerge that will affect your business growth plan. These trends are easily discernible on social media platforms such as Instagram and on websites that appeal to your viewer's interests.

Even media outlets and important audience influencers like fba aggregators may supply a plethora of information about altering interests, allowing you to be prepared.

• Understand your audience

Developing personas for your customers may assist you in determining their specific thoughts and desires at each point of their purchasing journey which in turn helps you in business growth. For instance, understanding their concerns and what prompted them to seek out a certain product or service may influence both the sort of message you offer and the new product creation plans you implement.

Understanding your audience's preferences and when they use specific social media channels may also influence how you construct a character that identifies them. This can provide you with precise instructions on what to say and do along your journey resulting in business growth.

Additionally, keep in mind that the initial catalyst for their journey may not be the ultimate buy. To do so, you may need to grasp their perception of the genuine value associated with resolving the initial issue.

Armed with this data, you can tailor your communications to certain members of the audience to aid in business growth.

• Market development (market penetration)

A market penetration approach (or market development plan) is a method of expanding your firm by attempting to sell your existing items into unexplored areas. This entails discovering new markets for your present product line.

Market development is a popular technique for expansion since it enables you to expand beyond your current clients. As a consequence, your market share will increase. This form of diversification may entail focusing on a new business, demography, corporate department (e.g., moving from human resources to finance), or geographic region.

Facebook is an apparent example of a firm that uses market development as a strategy for expansion. They began as a product that was solely available to Harvard University students. They grew from there to encompass Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. Following that, they made the platform available to all Ivy League colleges and a handful of Boston-area schools. The program was then expanded to institutions around the United States and Canada. Facebook has subsequently moved beyond its initial emphasis on campuses.

• Strategic partnerships

Strategic alliances with other companies can enable success that would not be achievable otherwise. For instance, if you collaborate with a firm that provides a complementary product or service to yours, you gain accessibility to their customers and vice versa. Additionally, you profit from recommendations from your strategic allies and the reputation associated with their brand. A successful strategic relationship is the one involving Lyft and Taco Bell. Lyft provided a Taco Bell delivery service to its clients, allowing passengers to request a mid-trip stop at a nearby Taco Bell ("Taco Mode") with a single tap within the Lyft app. The arrangement benefited both firms by providing free exposure and increasing Taco Bell's sales.

Additionally, strategic collaborations might be formed to develop a better or unique product. Returning to Taco Bell, cooperation with Doritos resulted in the Doritos Locos Taco. To say it was a huge success would be an understatement. Doritos Locos Taco sales topped $1 billion within the first 18 months of the new product's debut.

• Drive big impact from multiple moves

Growth seldom occurs in a single burst; in our experience, focusing on a diverse range of seemingly minor increments is a more effective technique. We frequently see businesses achieve double-digit growth by focusing on a few core revenue generators, applying best practices to each, and stacking a succession of minor victories.

While "division of the potential" into smaller wins makes it more doable, many executives remain uncertain about how to continue. However, there is a growing corpus of empirical research demonstrating how firms may achieve commercial excellence, from increasing marketing efficiency to inspiring sales teams to testing and scaling price innovations. The key is not to discover new methods for performance improvement, but to take the time to search outside your company for proven methodologies and emerging solutions and to apply them with discipline and rigour to the factors that truly move the needle on growth.

When one educational services firm examined its marketing success, it discovered that it had overlooked brand recognition and placed an excessive emphasis on performance marketing strategies. Using empirical facts and bottom-up research, the firm restructured its advertising budget and redistributed assets, resulting in a 24 per cent increase in high-conversion enquiries. Continuing to work along the customer journey, the group then improved the website's customer experience to raise inquiry flow; ramped up coaching and implemented performance management "nudges" to boost frontline sales, and implemented multichannel communications and peer-mentorship programmes to aid student success. Together, these actions halted the company's five-year drop in revenue, driving it to double the increase in new sales in less than a year.

• Use the channels your audience frequents

It's natural to believe that if you expose yourself to as many channels as possible, you'll grow. However, doing so might potentially be more detrimental to society as a whole than selectively effective.

By conducting the aforementioned research, you may narrow down your audience's social networks and favoured interaction platforms. Additionally, you may pick the ideal day and time to communicate with them.

It is OK to employ only a few locations. You want to ensure that you have the skills necessary to handle such channels effectively. Otherwise, your audience may believe you are not paying attention.

• Establish a value proposition

To ensure long-term success for your firm, you must first determine what differentiates it from the competitors. Determine why people seek out your goods or service. What distinguishes you, what sets you apart, and what establishes your credibility? Utilize your response to persuade additional shoppers to do company with you.

For instance, several businesses compete based on "authority" — Whole Goods Market is the authoritative source for healthful, organic foods. Others, such as Walmart, compete solely based on price. Determine the unique value that only you can deliver and disregard everything else. If you depart from this premise, you risk devaluing your business.