Starting your own business is a dream come true for most people. Being the one who is in charge certainly brings numerous benefits, however, it can be risky too. It’s estimated that roughly 100 million businesses are launched every year. Those are some pretty astonishing figures and even though more than half of those startups fail either within their first year or later, it is still worth a try.
Now that you have started your business, just like any other business owner, your aim is to get more money and to expand. However, you will need a well-planned strategy for scaling your business and achieving the dream. Having a plan is necessary so as to avoid the dreadful faith of most startups. Fear not because, with the help of some useful growth hacks, you can scale your business in its first year. Here are seven hacks to help you achieve that.
Paid Ads
In order to grow your business and reach your target audience, you will need to use paid ads. Most social media networks offer paid ads so you can use Facebook or whichever your target audience frequents the most. Paid ads will help you reach more potential customers who might be interested in your product or service.
Use Videos
Video marketing is becoming a very powerful marketing tool and it’s clear why. People would rather see a video of something rather than read long, boring instructions. It was even predicted that by 2019, 80% of all internet traffic would be video. You don’t need more reasons to jump on the bandwagon, right?
You can use videos to scale your business in different ways. Creating clear, useful, valuable tutorials for your YouTube channel is another step towards scaling your business according to Entrepreneur. Share your in-depth knowledge with the audience worldwide and educate them on how to do something.
Become an Authority
Speaking of valuable, there’s another common way of sharing knowledge with your audience. Blogging. Sure, everyone is a blogger these days which is why you might underestimate the method. However, not everyone is capable of delivering meaningful knowledge that is of true value to readers. By doing that, you will establish yourself as an authority in the niche and customers will come to you.
Branded Materials
It might seem that in this digital age, printed materials bear no value to your business. Online marketing has taken over and we are investing more and more in it every day. However, this old-school method is still a very powerful marketing tool and therefore one worth mentioning in this article.
Branded materials can still help you attract more customers and a proof of this is the fact that more than 50% of people perceive a company differently after receiving free branded materials. What’s even better is that about half of the people who do receive free branded materials such as T-shirts, cups, pencils, hats etc, end up using those things on a daily basis. They are basically promoting your company for free. Just think how many people will see your logo on someone’s T-shirt or coffee mug?
There are lots of things you can give away for free that won’t actually cost you a lot. Think of useful things such as stationery, folders, notepads, bags etc. All these items are things that people will actually use every day.
Focus on Effective Social Media Only
With an abundance of social media platforms, you might think that it’s a must to be present and active on all of them. And while you do absolutely have to be visible and active on social media, you must focus your time on the ones that actually bring you results. As an entrepreneur who has to wear many hats in order to keep the business alive, your time is valuable and your funds probably limited.
You can’t afford to waste your time on ineffective social media channels. To find out which ones actually bring results, you need to consider the amount of time spent vs. the number of conversions each of these social media platforms derive.
Sales Funnel
All marketing experts will tell you that building an effective sales funnel is one way to scale your business. This is a great way for small businesses with a limited budget to grow their revenue. In case you need clarification regarding what a sales funnel is, it’s a sales system (in the shape of a funnel) which helps you move your leads through a system until you finally convert them to sales. Not all leads will be converted to sales and the number of people who will end up actually buying something from you is actually very small when compared to the number of people at the beginning of the process.
In fact, according to the research, the majority of people who learn about your product do not intend to buy anything from you in the beginning. But to scale your business revenue, you will have to use the other hacks (social media, content marketing etc) to raise awareness about your business.
So, you calculate how many new sales you need every month in order to make a profit and create a sales activity plan to reach the targeted number of people.
Redefine Your Team
As your business grows, your team will grow as well and that means you will have to redefine certain roles in the company sooner or later. You will need to adapt to the new changes by adding new jobs or redefining old ones or even eliminating certain positions you deem unnecessary. The crucial thing to do is be prepared for the growth and reorganise your team on time instead of waiting until the last minute, according to Inc. Anticipating these changes and dealing with them on time is a characteristic of a successful leader.
Scaling your business is a full-time job that requires a tremendous amount of time as well as investments. But as long as you follow the right steps, act in a timely manner, and have a backup strategy for unexpected situations, you will be well on your way to success.
