It is a great feeling to introduce your dream product or service to your customers. However, it is very difficult for startups that are not supported by the right growth strategies to turn into companies whose success stories will be told. That's why proper planning for growth is critical for entrepreneurs.
In this article, we will give advice on the growth steps for start-up or scale-up entrepreneurs that will help them transform their businesses into large companies.
Large companies have large investment channels and budgets. This makes it quite easy for them to maintain their size. However, this does not mean that start-ups with relatively low budgets do not stand a chance to grow.
With stable and efficient investments in the right channels, it is always possible to climb from the first rung of the ladder to the top. Here are some growth tips we've compiled for you.
Developing the right growth strategy allows you to create measurable goals. In this way, you can understand how close or far you are from the growth you want, and you can organise your long and short-term strategies accordingly. Instead of fast but unstable growth hacking strategies, long-term growth planning will ensure that your growth is sustainable.
You can start by defining the personas you will address. You can determine which challenges your product or service will help for these personas. Then you can build a growth funnel and create separate growth strategies for each part of it. Thus, as your company grows, each step you take becomes stable and risks are reduced.
In order to increase your visibility in the industry and take the right position, it is critical to analyse your competitors' moves and current situations, as well as your own strategies.
Analysing many elements, such as the keywords your competitors are positioned in, the market they are dominant in, the tone of voice they use, and their marketing campaigns, will make it easier for you to develop strategies to gain a place in the industry.
Of course, you should not do exactly what your competitors are doing but create your own unique brand. However, if you do not know your competitors at all, you will not be able to determine how you differ.
Create your team with people who have the right skills, work ethic, and potential to adapt to the company's work culture.
Support each member of your team to establish a growth mindset for long-term and stable growth. Support the development of your employees with training. Inform and be open to creative ideas at every stage of growth to ensure they take ownership of their roles and feel part of the process.
When you are sure that you are working with the right employees, take actions that will persuade them to continue working together.
It is not surprising that most successful entrepreneurs are people with a very large network pool. The easiest way to overcome many of the hurdles a start-up can face is to have the right network.
Processes that you can accelerate only with your networking ability, such as receiving investments that will strengthen your hand financially and cooperating with different companies, play a very important role in your growth.
For this reason, do not miss any opportunity that can provide networking. Especially make sure that networking events are always marked on your calendar.
For a company, not being visible on digital marketing channels is often synonymous with non-existence. Search engines are one of the biggest areas where you can gain visibility. When you use the right content marketing strategies, search engines can be one of your most powerful weapons for visibility.
Preparing insights on your website that can solve the problems or answer the questions of your personas increases both your organic traffic and the trust placed in you.
Since creating this type of insight is almost costless, content created with the right SEO practices can boost your growth radically while keeping your budget.
When you target the right social media channels for your company and produce accurate content, you can promote your product or service to a wide target audience in a short time. That's why creating a social media marketing strategy is essential for building brand awareness and growing your reach.
Make sure to create a social media account that reflects your brand tone, where you post regularly. Create new hashtags and use popular ones. Create interaction opportunities whenever possible. Follow local and universal trends and be creative.
Engaging in activities for the values your customers care about helps them establish a sincere bond with your company. You can participate in awareness campaigns, social responsibility projects, or arrange your tone in digital media in line with the values you want to emphasise. Often, this is what differentiates an ordinary brand from a unique partner in the eyes of a customer.
It is important to have as many good customer references as possible for your company to grow without stumbling. Customers who are satisfied with their experience do not make an effort to look for alternatives, and new customers will never turn a blind eye when they hear about a positive experience.
Quality customer experience and advanced customer support will not only guarantee the engagement of your existing customers but will also have an important place in your customer acquisition.
For the stability of growth, it is necessary to develop the right sales strategies. If you find the people most likely to use your product or service, your chances of making a sale increase greatly. For this reason, you should encourage your potential customers to share their email addresses with you.
To achieve this, you can create content that they can access in return for sharing their email address, or you can make subscriptions to your newsletters attractive. When you use email marketing strategies correctly, you can easily analyse user behaviour and create leads.
It is important to create long-term strategies to establish a solid brand identity. However, industry and environmental factors change constantly over time. For this reason, you need to make sure that your company's current structure and strategies are in line with the trends in the industry.
To achieve this, you should always leave the door open for change in your long and short-term plans. If you manage to stay up to date at all times, you will be able to avoid many risks before you encounter them.
The most important factor in growing your business effectively and sustainably is the irrigation of the growth mindset seed planted in your team’s mind with experience.
Creating a growth team can be challenging for medium and small business owners. Working with an experienced growth team can be much more effective. An experienced business partner ensures that growth marketing strategies are implemented in harmony and minimises risks.
NBT provides end-to-end service for businesses at any scale with its proven methodology.
Our growth marketing solutions can support you to reach the highest level by using your resources efficiently. And NBT Growth Academy can provide you with growth and digital marketing courses and training.
