When you own a business, you want to make sure that everything runs smoothly. There are so many different elements of a business to think about, and you will always want to bear in mind that you want to also be able to grow and improve over the years. If you feel as if you are stuck in a rut at the moment and you need to find ways to grow, then take a look at some of these tips to boost your business before 2018.
- Talk to your audience
The first step before you start making changes to the way you run the business and how you will grow is to talk to the people who follow you. It could be that they are able to suggest a new route for you to take with the business by expanding your product range or bringing in a new service.
- Bundles
If you are a small business, it can be hard to make that steady income and to increase sales when we sell only a small number of products. One way in which many brands sell more products is to bundle them in a package together. This can be useful especially for products such as books, DVD’s and beauty products. These bundles usually sell out more quickly because the overall price will be slightly less than buying all of the products separately, and you will also be able to give them to someone as a gift much easier. Consider the products or services you provide and whether or not you can bundle the items up into a package. You could try it out as a limited edition to begin with and gauge the popularity before adding it to your range permanently.
- Ask for Referrals
If you already have a loyal fanbase, it might be worth asking them to help you out by referring your services or products to their friends and family in exchange for a cashback reward or discount on their next order. This is a clever tactic and will often land you with many more customers through the scheme.
- Have A Christmas Promotion
Now that it’s the season, why not hold some sort of special event throughout December and offer promotions on certain gifts and services? Everyone is starting to look around for the perfect gifts for their friends and family, so you can take advantage of this and offer some great deals for the festive season.
- Make A Poll
Twitter makes it easier than ever to interact with your customer base and find out what they really want out of your company. Create a poll on twitter with questions about your product or service and see what your audience prefers. It will come in handy when you come to make decisions.
- Social Media
If you are unsure about how to market your business effectively, take a look at this guide on white paper marketing from Readz. Marketing through social media platforms is probably the easiest way to speak directly to your audience and really engage with the community. Take the time to create content for your social channels and speak to people directly, help them with issues and generally be friendly. It will increase your reputation and also will mean that you can take advantage of the audience you have to share news on new releases and offers. You can even get in touch with PR companies and bloggers who will be able to market your product in creative ways and spread the word in a more organic manner.
- Raise Your Prices
Every retailer will eventually raise prices on their products- it’s a natural part of the sales cycle. You’ll notice that items such as bread and milk have risen in price over the last decade due to inflation and increased demand- and the same applies to the product or service you provide. Creating products costs money, and as wages increase each year as well as the cost of parts, you will be forking out more for the labour costs and materials to create the same product year on year. It will eventually get to a point where your profit margin isn’t good enough, so you need to raise the price. Raising the prices can be a risk, as customers come to expect a certain value- however if you make the product so good that they can’t live without it, then they will be willing to make that extra payment towards a product they love and trust.
Hi Erica, thank you for the insightful article and the link to the white paper article on Readz. Very cool!