How To Grow Your Business- 6 Tips To Implement Today

If you follow us on our social media channels (@ONMonitoring on Twitter and ONMonitoring on Facebook), you’ll know that we’ve started #TipsTuesday, where we’ve been giving marketing advice once a week to help businesses grow and gain recognition. Today, we decided to take things a step further and write an entire blog post dedicated to growing your business and reaching those vital targets. It would be impossible to share every marketing tip out there, so we’ve narrowed it down to what we believe to be the 6 most important pieces of advice that you should take away with you today:

1. Buy our ONMonitoring tool

We believe that without buying our specially designed tool, you’ll grow far slower, even if you’re implementing the techniques shown below. In short, our tool tracks visitors to your website and allows you to pick out potential clients from this visitor list, which notes what time a potential client has visited your website, how long they spent on there, what pages they viewed and how close they were to buying a product from your site at any point. Based on the extensive market research we provide to you, you can decide how your website needs to be tweaked in order to bring more customers in, and how you can encourage more clients to complete a purchase. You can also get in touch with potential clients via personal information obtained by us, meaning you can gain new leads, generate more business from new clients and upsell to existing clients who are searching for more. Follow the link for our free, no obligation 14-day trial.

2. Use social media every day

When you set up your business, there’s a good chance social media didn’t even exist. But don’t be put off by the fact that it’s still a fairly new concept- it’s grown so massively in the past few years that you’re actually missing out now if you don’t have social media accounts set up. Use social media to your advantage while it’s still largely free, and make sure you have at least a Facebook, Twitter and Google+ account set up as this is where the majority of your clients will find you. If you’re feeling creative, Instagram is also a brilliant platform for gaining new customers, but you have to be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into creating a feed that stands out from the rest, whereas on Twitter and Facebook your focus should be on social engagement and creating interesting reads. A great example of how you can utilize social media to your advantage is to provide a discount or host a competition, where potential customers must follow your social media accounts to receive the discount or enter the competition.

3. Consider an agency

There are dozens of marketing agencies to choose from, whether you’re after some specialised help or all-round general business growth. When you’re running a business, it’s understandable that you won’t have time to put in the required amount of marketing effort to help your business stand out from the rest. Working with a marketing agency takes the pressure off yourself and minimises any guilt you may feel on your part for not helping your business reach its full potential. Most marketing agencies are fully flexible, and allow you to choose a package to suit your budget and requirements, so there’s no discrimination when it comes to professional business growth.

4. Don’t forget about offline advertising

We know what you’re thinking- you’ve just been nagging us about the importance of online platforms and social media, and now you want us to go back to offline advertising? But while it’s true that more and more of us are glued to our phone screens today, that doesn’t mean we don’t still see the outside world as much as before. Billboards, vehicle advertising and direct mail are still your best friends, and you shouldn’t forget about them. If you’ve never seen the point in offline advertising, it’s time to start now. How often has something caught your eye during your daily commute so many times that it becomes engrained in your mind? Need a new phone? *insert that phone company that’s been advertising phones in your city centre for weeks now.* Boiler broke down? *insert the plumbing company you’ve seen advertised on the side of bus stops for years.* Without you even realizing, you’ve become a likely future customer to these companies, because they’re the first name you think of when it comes to needing what they provide. Proof that offline advertising still works.

5. Get an app

We’ve all heard about apps in this day and age. They’re easy-access computer programmes that can be downloaded to your phone, and they’re essential for businesses. Now that we access everything from our phones, rather than our laptops, we want something that is compatible to our phone screen (ever been on the web version of a website and been frustrated with the way the words and images are jumbles around all over the screen?), and quick to access. Apps guarantee faster loading time, less fuss, a more aesthetically pleasing appearance and a more personal business-to-customer relationship than a website. You can use your app to provide easy booking for customers, as well as giving them the option to pay online by card for your product, book in advance and access search and purchase history.

6. Use video

It’s all about moving with the times, and video is one of the latest techniques being used by the most successful brands and businesses. For a generation of TV lovers, YouTube watchers and Facebook scrollers, video is up there as one of the best ways to capture the attention of your potential audience. Your clients may not want to read through an entire webpage full of information, so producing a short, summary video to post above is a great way to get your info out there before your clients get bored and move on. You can also use video to showcase real life examples of your team at work, whether you work in retail, construction or technology. Your customers want to see proof that you’re professional, friendly, and most importantly, will do a good job, and a short video is all they need to be satisfied.