“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop” – Confucius
Every small business dreams to be a Fortune 500 company one day. However, dreams only come true when goals are met with worthwhile actions and effective planning. As an entrepreneur, you will certainly have a wide range of ambitions related to your business. However, in this highly competitive business environment, your ambitions alone cannot be your USP. Your success will rather depend on the effectiveness of your business strategies and your efficacy as a leader.
No business would want to fail on purpose but ultimately it all boils down to how efficiently a small business is run. Given the massive competition, the scope for complacency is next to negligible.
If we look at the failure rates in the context of small businesses, as per the statistics by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 20% of new businesses experience failure during the first two years of incorporation. Moreover, 45% of them fail during the first 5 years. For sure, you would not want your small business to land in a similar situation. We would love to see your small business go big.
However, given how the corporate world is shaping up, you will need massive innovation and a well-defined spectrum of business strategies to advance to the next level. What does it take to lay the foundation of a bright future for your small business? You will find all these answers in the unique strategies listed below.
5 innovative approaches to drive business growth
- Optimize your social media presence
Small businesses are achieving big milestones with the prowess of social media. In fact, social media has opened up a pandora box for small businesses to directly market and sell to a target audience of billions. Social media can make your small business viral in an incredibly cost-efficient way.
Did you know, according to Sprout Social, 55% of consumers discover a new brand through social media? Having said that, from customer engagement to their acquisition, social media is proving to be a key game changer for startups.
You may already have a social media presence but are you keeping up with the dynamic nature of social media trends? The objective should be to bolster your social media presence every day with innovative strategies. Given below are some ways in which you can unlock new verticals of success with social media.
- Posting positive customer reviews on social media
- Engaging audience with short videos, influencer marketing, and podcasts
- Enhancing response time to social media queries
- Selling directly through social media
Did you know that the attention span of a person is just 8 seconds? Having said that, you can use Instagram Reels and short videos to create a buzz on social media.
- Cultivate a high performing work culture
You will be amused to know that strong company cultures can enhance business revenues fourfold! This vital insight from Forbes explains the need for constantly investing in company culture to add more value to it every day. As a leader, you need to create a culture that inspires high productivity, incredible performances and great cohesion.
But what does it take to create a positive company culture? Given below are some of the ways in which you can create a perfect template for company culture.
- Initiate a dynamic culture of employee rewards
- Introduce mentoring programs
- Promote high trust and belongingness
- Invest in employee wellness and life insurance
- Address office politics and other toxic elements in the workplace
- Cultivate a culture of diversity and inclusion
For your small business to scale new heights, a vibrant and motivating culture can be a perfect launchpad.
- Adopt new and affordable technology
The modern business world is transforming at a swift pace and these paradigm changes are being facilitated by state of the art technology. Small businesses are now increasingly investing in technologies like AI, IoT, customer self-service tools, automation in payments and so on to bring greater scalability and efficiency in business.
In fact, technology has created more opportunities for small businesses than ever before. Besides, remote project management tools, communication tools and other advanced technologies are helping businesses reduce operating costs in a virtual environment and hence boost profitability.
Having said that, as a leader, your decision making with respect to investing in the optimum tools and technologies will determine the future of your business.
- Personalize customer experiences
Personalization is one of the most crucial trends in customer service and it will only grow bigger with time. In fact, if we look at it statistically, more than 70 percent of customers feel disappointed when their customer experience turns out to be impersonal. Thus, you could witness high customer attrition if you are not delivering personalized experiences.
In the growing competitive landscape, the key to acquiring and retaining customers is personalization. For that, you need to work in tandem with AI and other tools to understand your customers. Moreover, with technologies like AMP email marketing, you can promote greater personalization.
- Invest proactively in SEO
It is intriguing to note that 92 percent of the global web traffic is accounted for by Google Search. Besides, Ahrefs further states that SEO offers 1000 percent more traffic than organic search. This explains why small businesses are now prioritizing SEO as their top tier marketing strategy.
Customers are now interacting with brands digitally and hence, your digital marketing approach needs to be extraordinary. With SEO strategies, you can build a strong online presence and generate more leads than ever before.
If you look at the big brands, they are already well established in public perception. However, small businesses need to win more customers by increasing their rankings on search engines. For that, investing in SEO strategies like blogging, content marketing and so on becomes indispensable.
To encapsulate, small businesses have massive competition to navigate and each day needs to be about new innovations. The above strategies will definitely assist you in streamlining the growth of your business to meet your ambitions.
