Businesses that don’t grow rarely stay viable for long. It’s essential you’re always planning the next big thing. Beyond your plan, a strategy for the long term future of your company is paramount. This can involve a great deal of research but is also built on internal audits. Understanding where you are now is crucial to effectively plan your future. There are several ways you can approach this task:
Marketing Audit
A full marketing audit can take quite a lot of time to complete. This is why you should continually update your marketing strategy. Every campaign should be measurable and results clearly recorded. Collate them regularly for ease of reporting and auditing. If you want to grow, you need to find the gaps in the market that you can squeeze into. Look for product opportunities, new demographics, and even new media to exploit.
New Products
Developing new products can indeed take a long time. It also takes money or capital funding to ensure the projects can be completed. New products can put you on the map. They are also essential as your existing portfolio reaches the end of its product life cycle.
Why not consider redeveloping your existing product portfolio? Refreshing the packaging can bring fresh excitement and interest in an old product. Sometimes a simple change to the ingredients, design, size, color, or even use can be enough. What else can customers use your product for? Pushing this as a solution to a different problem can also help extend the life cycle of a product.
New Customers
A different target demographic or customer persona could also reinvigorate an old product. Consider a positioning shift, or simply package your product in a different way to appeal to that new target group. Chances are you’ll need to market it differently to appeal to them too.
If your current market is proving too crowded, then this shift in positioning could be ideal to reach out and pick up a bigger target audience. Don’t forget to consider changes to your pricing strategy here too.
More Products, More Promotions, More Options
Up selling added value products and services can boost profits enormously. This often relies on an excellent level of customer service. Happy customers are often more open to extras.
Cross selling gives you a chance to provide extra products and services. These should be selected to help solve other problems your customers might have. This often happens after the sale. This is why CRM is such an important strategy for growth.
Pricing And Saving
Growth refers both to size and to profits. To boost your profits without changing the quantity of sales, you need to increase your price. You might also cut the cost of production per item. Of course, any significant changes to increase production or orders might require more personnel. This will be an added cost that you need to offset. Where can you save? How high can you price before customers stop buying?
It’s not always easy to know which way to go when you want to grow. A good strategy will address every option before picking the one that is most viable and most likely to succeed today. Which way will you go?
