The Beginner's Guide: Growing a Business
Growth Marketing Plan
The overarching goals of growth marketing are common goals for any business to retain existing customers, acquire new customers, and increase profits. In order to do these things, they must reach these customers.
Organic vs. External (paid) Growth
Organic growth is growth in customers within a business through using its own resources internally. Meaning, they are relying on word of mouth, growth through internal marketing (not paying for advertising or external sources to help share the product or service), and customers organically finding the company.
External growth type of growth is relying on resources outside of the company to help share your product or service.
Paid advertising: social media, google ad, collaborations with other companies, etc.
Printed materials: distribution of brochures, print advertisements, etc.
Mail: sending printed materials to prospective customers through the mail.
Digital marketing: investing in online advertising, stronger websites, apps, etc.
Digital vs. Traditional Marketing
The way we digitally market changes every day. Technology and the internet are rapidly changing. Digital marketing is sharing a product or service through the internet and our phones:
Website
Social Media
Email
Texting
In the last 30 years, digital advertising has changed the way we market products and services. However, more traditional ways companies marketed their products was through:
Print Advertising
Telemarketing
Broadcasting: radio and television
Getting in front of potential customers in as many ways as possible is very important. However, it is important to prioritize these avenues based on where your customers are and engage with. For example, a company does not need to be on every single social media platform. Instead, find the best avenues for reaching their target market.
When finding the best areas to reach your target audience, consider the following:
Age
Income
Interests
Gender
Consider these factors and how they impact where your target audience could be reached. If your target audience is 18-25, sending out paper mailers may not be the most advantageous marketing strategy.
Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Referral
Customer acquisition refers to the way you acquired or secured a new customer. Oftentimes, customers will see you from several avenues before actually purchasing from you.
Customer retention is the collection of activities a business uses to increase the number of repeat customers and to increase the profitability of each existing customer. This is done through quality customer service, building a community with the customers in the company, and rewarding customers for regularly purchasing from the company (sales/discounts for regular customers, sending them new offerings before the public, sending birthday discounts, etc.).
A customer referral is when a current or past customer refers a new customer to the company. This is through writing a review, tagging a company in a post on social media, word of mouth referrals, or email or texting a friend or family member a referral code to the company.
Tying it all together
To put it simply, creating a growth marketing strategy is to put a product or service in front of new people in the hopes that they will become a customer. To see true growth it is important to have a variety of avenues to reach new customers.
Where to start? Have a guidepost for what the company is aiming for. Create SMART Goals and establish your target market. Then create a plan to acquire new customers, retain current customers, and a strategy to encourage current customers to refer people they know.