Most businesses can attest to the fact that the past few months have been quite rough. Amid the Coronavirus pandemic and economic and political instability, the world has experienced a massive shift in how business is conducted. As a result, many businesses have struggled.
Though 2021 has come with seemingly better conditions, many are still finding it difficult to recover. The new year has seen many businesses put in efforts to adapt to new conditions and serve customers better. The goal is not just to keep existing but also to grow and stay relevant.
6 top tips for business growth in 2021
If you are a business owner who wants to make strategic moves to grow your business, this article will give you six hacks that can help your business thrive in 2021.
1) Build solid relationships
Treating your customers right and building relevant relationships are reliable ways to invest in your business. One of the first few things your customers will remember about your business is the treatment they receive from you.
You could have the perfect products, services, and systems, but all those would easily elude a client who is not satisfied with the way they are treated. A combination of good products and great treatment is what keeps customers coming back.
However, building relationships goes beyond delivering great customer service. While great customer service would guarantee that customers keep coming back, there are more relationships you need to pay attention to.
You need not focus only on your existing customers. You can also build relationships with employees, potential customers, and other business owners. Make sure your employees feel more valued by listening to them and providing a friendly working environment.
Also, build trust with potential clients by politely attending to their inquiries and sharing useful information about your business on credible platforms. This way, you expand your reach beyond those who already know you and spark curiosity about your business among new audiences.
It is also useful to cultivate relationships with other business owners who operate in your field or render complimentary services. All these will help your business to become recognized as one that values people, and the referrals will come rolling in.
2) Deliver services according to your customers’ needs
While you may have an existing way to serve your customers, now is a good time to ask this question—Is my business really fulfilling my customers’ needs? People do business with you because of their underlying desires.
Hence, they expect your offerings to satisfy those desires. Your business will, therefore, thrive if your services can leave customers with precisely what they need.
The first step here is to make sure your business is targeting the right people. You know the kind of people who need the goods and services you provide, so your products and marketing efforts should be directed at them.
Although it is tempting to try to appeal to everyone, businesses need to be more concerned about their core customers.
Next, you need to conduct some research to discover what your customers really want. A great tool to use for your customer research is the jtbd survey template. The Jobs to be Done (JTBD) Framework helps you understand customers’ needs and develop products that address them.
It consists of templates that are straight-forward and easy to use. The templates help you figure out what questions you need to ask and how to understand answers to these questions.
When you have taken these two steps, you will discover your customers’ core needs and come up with creative ways to appeal to those needs. Hence, your business will grow into one which customers can’t get enough of.
3) Make the best use of social media
Social media is one of the most important tools you can use to grow your business. These days, nearly everyone with a smartphone uses social media. This means many of your customers can be found on one or more social networks. Hence, you need to ensure that you are gaining positive social media attention for your business.
First, identify the best social media platforms for your business. Different kinds of people use different social platforms, so you need to go where your people are.
When you find the right platforms, explore their different features and use those you know will draw in your target audience. For example, using features such as Reels, hashtags, and shopping tools on Instagram can help you create more value and reach more people.
The most important thing your business can do on social media is to put out valuable information. The content you share should attract your audience.
Some content that would serve your audience includes how-to videos, personal stories, customer testimonials, and product descriptions. These should be designed in creative and attractive ways that can hold your audiences’ attention.
A great way to ensure that you don’t waste your social media efforts is to use live engagement. Live engagement lets you connect with your customers more instantly. It involves striking up a real-time conversation with your customers at any stage in the sales process.
The best ways to implement this on social media are creating live videos and responding to comments and messages immediately. Live engagement will help your business appear more reliable and authentic.
4) Invest in branding
Your brand is what determines how your clients see you. While you may set your sights on your business processes and sales, your customers focus more on your brand. A great way to grow your business in 2021 is to make sure that customers see and feel what you need them to. You can do this by investing in your brand.
Branding helps you create and communicate value with the intangible assets of your business. These include your name, image, and reputation. You can make your work more successful by ensuring that customers see the right things when encountering these aspects of your business.
A few ways to invest in your brand include the following:
- Decide on what feelings and ideas you hope to evoke among your customers, and adjust your business elements until they can communicate these.
- Ensure that your brand’s visuals communicate the real essence of your business. Analyze what design areas might need more attention, and hire a professional to help you improve them.
- Ensure that your use of words and visuals distinguishes you from other businesses in your field.
- Upgrade your design elements such as logos, packaging, and photography. These are among the first things your customers will connect with, so they need to be created properly.
Many businesses do not invest in design and photography because of cost and legal complications. However, these are important aspects of your brand that can help you appeal to the right audience.
You can scout for an affordable photographer in your vicinity to help you create good quality images. You can also use a commercial photography contract to avoid legal complications.
5) Offer incentives
An excellent way to grow your business is to offer your customers more value than they pay for. You can do this in the form of incentives. An incentive is an offering your company makes to clients that can motivate them and stimulate greater output from your dealings with them.
Incentives come in different forms. They could be discounts, freebies, post-sale services, and so on. Offering incentives to customers is an effective way to build your brand and market your business.
It can also help to up your sales and build customer loyalty. Three ways to get the best results from your incentive program include the following:
- Have a goal in mind. Your goal may be to build loyalty, improve customer data or attract new customers. You need to design your incentive program to align with your goal.
- Establish a budget. Offering incentives should not make you run at a loss.
- Market your incentive program to the right people on the right platforms
6) Track your growth
Many business owners worry that their businesses are not growing, but they simply are not checking. You need to monitor and document your business changes as you implement different measures.
This would help you recognize the areas where growth has occurred and the areas that are still suffering. Tracking your growth also enables you to set better goals as time goes on.
Some areas to check for growth include sales, product improvement, work processes, customer satisfaction, social media engagement, etc. Google Analytics is an excellent tool to help you track your growth.
What happens when you do these things?
Now that you have all the hacks to grow your business, it’s time to put them into action. Integrating them into your plans for 2021 will surely yield great results. However, you should keep in mind that the conditions in the world could keep changing.
While we hope that these changes are only for the better, it is necessary to be ready to face any challenges that may come. The greatest hack you can have is knowing how to track changes, adapt and re-strategize as often as you need to.
Now, go on and grow that business into a total success.
