5 Powerful Growth Strategies for SMEs

Every entrepreneur starts out full of enthusiasm and yet according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of small businesses fail to survive their first year. For those who do, within five years that number rises to a startling 70%.

Despite these disturbing numbers, with an effective business growth plan in place, you can make it past the first year’s goalpost and continue to see progress toward your bottom line.

You need to know what to do when your business hits a plateau and how to accelerate business growth so that you’ll see success sooner.

Read our five strategies to ensure that your small business grows.

1. Increase Market Penetration

Market penetration means the sales volume of goods or services in relation to its total target market. Increasing your market penetration should in turn increase your market share for the product or service that you are selling. Ramping up your advertising efforts and creating attractive promotional offers are two reliable ways to boost market penetration. Broadening the range of products or services that you offer may also prove effective.

2. Embrace Digitisation

There are many cost effective cloud based services available that do not require complicated in-house set up. This allows businesses to operate digitally and remotely, which can greatly increase the efficiency of your operations by creating streamlined systems to manage your workflow. These systems facilitate seamless collaboration and ensure that clear lines of communication are in place.

3. Outsourcing

As business owners we can totally appreciate the concerns when it comes to letting a ‘virtual stranger’ into your business, sharing delicate and confidential information and ensuring that the tasks are professionally and effectively carried out to a high standard and providing excellent service in return for your investment.

Once you have an idea of what you would like to delegate, look for a VA who specialises in this particular area. At Venice Virtual our professional VAs cover everything from Administration, to Business, Finance, Events Planning & Management, Marketing, Social Media and much more…

4. Wise Marketing Budget

Media spend for both above and below the line media strategy includes paid activity. This can be in the form of more traditional print, out of home, digital, TV, radio, social media, to less conventional leafleting, events…..

Businesses should spend approx. 40% of digital marketing budget on paid media channels to reach new audiences. Increased spending should be allocated for B2C brands, with B2B businesses often finding that content that is built for unpaid social channels can offer a higher return on investment.

5. Going Virtual

As a single vital function, your virtual shop window acts to generate leads and turn them into conversions. Regardless of all the efforts put into your marketing or social media campaign, if your landing page is unappealing, then your audience will be turned off.

Your landing page should be geared towards converting leads and generating sales. Do it right and your site will become the primary driving force for business growth.

Paying attention to critical aspects of an effective landing page will create an excellent impression with your customers and help your business grow.

Summary

If you’re struggling to grow your small business, the above strategies, when employed correctly, should help you to grow at a steady and sustainable rate. Of course, the effectiveness of the above strategies will depend on the needs of your specific business. Take some time to sit down and develop a plan that is realistic for your specific business and monitor your progress carefully to help you optimise growth.