Growth is important to every business and is necessary for sustainability. Unfortunately, however, most people don’t understand the importance of growth in relation to raising money, and most importantly, building a strong and sustainable business. When I started off in the marketing realm, I was shocked by the amount of companies that didn’t focus on growth, which effected their bottom line tremendously.
A strong business plan, with both short and long-term goals should be in place. Increased sales along with strong content and a product/service that adapts to changing technology is a key element in a company’s growth.
Overtime, here are 7 hacks that doubled my company’s growth.
Contents
1. Hire a Growth Hacker
Consider hiring a growth hacker which are individuals who specialize in meeting growth expectations, improving business practices, and helping a business adapt to changing times. When hiring an experienced growth hacker, it is ideal to check all provided references and ask for proof of success.
Researching employee capabilities helps ensure that the right person is hired to grow your business. Some examples of a successful growth hacker are individuals who are metric driven, who try crazy yet reasonable tactics to grow quickly.
2. Review Transparency
Display your reviews, both positive and negative. Accessibility to reviews helps consumers construct an opinion of the business. In polls, 73-percent of consumers entrust businesses with positive reviews. Professional responses to negative reviews where a solution is offered helps build trust between consumers and a brand. In other words, those reviews on Yelp? Don’t worry about them!
Transparency with reviews shows confidence in the brand and product/service. It also displays to consumers that you value every opinion, whether it is favorable or unpleasant. If you do have a negative review, make sure to comment and follow up to make the experience better.
3. Fitting Markets
Your company has to make sure that its product matches the market it is categorized in. Trying to fit into a market abstractly creates confusion. Prior to launching a product/service, take the time to make sure it is pre-optimized for its intended audience.
An experienced growth hacker will define the features to make the product more in-demand upon launch.
4. SEO Copywriting
Great SEO copywriting while including pieces of information about the company within the content creates SEO articles that provide value to the reader. Each piece of content, especially those directly about a product or service should tell the item’s story. Providing the visionary stages of development along with the reason the product or service was created, grabs the attention of readers.
Good storytelling makes for great SEO copy. Content that captures the attention of one reader, enough for them to share it, increases company visibility to help generate overall growth. Many successful marketers such as Tai Lopez may tell you that SEO is dead, but in reality SEO are the building blocks for growing a successful company, which then supplemented by paid acquisition can turn a small fire into a raging on metaphorically.
5. Action Buttons
Action buttons take unnecessary steps away from sifting through multiple steps to find a product to purchase. If you operate an e-commerce website, every product should have a “Buy Now” button within its listing. Every web page should include a “Contact Us Now” button.
These action buttons reduce search times, increase consumer experiences, and bring more attention to the brand for the ease in using the website and making purchases.
6. Innovative Practices
Use innovative methods of displaying content and reaching consumers. Consumers are attracted to trendy companies that have the ability to adapt and innovate to stay relevant.
In areas where growth has slowed, a growth hacker can use innovative methods to deliver content, marketing materials, and products in a way that consumers can relate to better. This is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for brand growth.
7. Consumer Engagement
Do not ignore your audience. Engage with them as much as possible. Acknowledging a portion of the audience shows pride in a company and the willingness to listen to consumer opinion. Increasing consumer engagement and consumer experience ratings does command growth as more positive mentions surface.
8. Building Strong Culture
It can get very easy, especially in a startup to forget that your employees are working with you because they want to grow, and not be used and thrown.
Some simple things that we did to enhance our culture in our company was introduce lunch and learns with our advisors and investors, have Thursday beer nights where everyone hunkers down in the office and we have unlimited alcohol, or just having a simple buddy system with others in the team.
Conclusion
Growth is a process that takes a carefully laid-out plan with milestone goals and experts behind the scenes overseeing each step of the process.
When one method fails to work, use the next method and continue down the options until the right formula is found for your company’s audience. Just as important as the product or service offered is how it is presented along with the context of words surrounding the product.
What do you do to enhance your companies’ growth?
About the Author: Charlie Robinson is an accomplished marketer and interim VP of Marketing for high-growth tech startups. He is currently the VP of Marketing at Adling, a digital marketing agency based out of Cupertino, CA
