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Growth Hacks for Businesses
Growth is essential for all businesses. It doesn’t matter if a company has one or 1,000 employees; if it isn’t attracting new customers and expanding, it won’t be successful.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that large businesses can easily grow because they already have established customers and a solid standing in their marketplace. While it’s true these factors can help large businesses find new customers and lead to new sales, these businesses need to grow at a more significant scale to see a benefit.
For instance, if a small business that makes $100,000 annually wants to grow by 10%, it would need to increase sales by $10,000. A company that makes $10 million annually would need to add a million dollars in sales to attain the same goal.
So, what’s the best way for large businesses to grow when they’ve already tried the basic marketing best practices? This article will explain how a few digital marketing growth hack ideas can generate new leads to expand your business.
Why large businesses sometimes struggle to grow
Marketers have been struggling for years to discover the right formula to find the perfect customers. In fact, in countless surveys over the past decade, marketers have admitted that lead generation is one of their biggest challenges.
Small companies often say they don’t have the budget to give lead generation the attention they’d like but while larger companies don’t have the same challenge, these large brands still face unqualified leads, low traffic, and consumers who don’t convert.
Spending more money doesn’t necessarily mean better leads. You might get more potential leads in your pipeline, but if they don’t convert, it doesn’t help your bottom line. It might actually hurt it since you spend more money for nothing.
Growth hack ideas for your business
Rather than throwing more money at lead generation problem, companies should evaluate the tactics they use to attract new customers.
In some cases, there are simple changes or other strategies they can use that will deliver better results.
Here are five growth hack ideas that will help your business attract new leads and generate more sales.
1. Use interactive content to engage with customers.
Most successful large brands already use some form of content marketing. In most cases, companies create blog articles or landing pages that feature thought leadership pieces and their products. Both tactics are great for attracting leads, but if you really want to grow your business, you need to take your content marketing a step further.
Interactive elements such as videos, infographics, and quizzes keep people on your web pages and increase engagement.
Rental property website Rent.com uses local quizzes to interact with consumers and direct them to more personalized landing pages catered to their specific quiz results.
Source: Rent.com
The best marketing teams from large brands have been using interactive content for years. Other marketers have started to pick up this trend recently. In fact, a B2B study by the Content Marketing Institute found that 64% of marketers plan to create more audio or visual content in 2019.
2. Target prospects and new leads by using social media.
Social media is much more than a tool to determine your most engaging content. Social platforms also bring leads back to your website to complete purchases and to sign up for your email lists.
If a prospect on your website searches for a specific product without buying, retargeting works by presenting an ad on social media or Google for that same product or service. Research shows that users who are retargeted are 70% more likely to convert, but only one in five marketers have a dedicated budget for retargeting. This is an area of opportunity to help convert those leads that got away.
In addition, Facebook lead ads are a great way to build your contact list. For example, when TheSkimm used a targeted ad to promote its newsletter, they increased its lead quality by 22% using this tactic.
You can try a similar tactic by posting something for free that only your followers will see, but paid ads can help get your brand in front of new potential leads.
3. Nurture and convert leads with email marketing.
Email is one of the most cost-effective and personalized marketing methods because it allows you to build individual relationships with your contacts that’s not possible through other digital channels. In fact, we’ve found that email marketing is more than 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media.
Chances are that your large business already uses email in some capacity to connect with customers. If so, you’re on the right track. However, to get the most bang for your buck, you should create email campaigns aimed at nurturing leads and guiding them through their customer journey.
A welcome campaign is probably the most effective lead nurturing campaign (and arguably the most important) you can create for your business. Not only do they explain what leads should expect from your messages, they perform exceptionally well because customers expect—and want—to receive them. According to research, welcome emails lead to 320% more revenue and 86% more opens than regular promotional emails.
Beauty retailer Sephora takes advantage of the increased engagement to offer discounts to new customers in their welcome email.
4. Harness the power of customer reviews and recommendations.
You could spend countless hours focusing on your messaging and what you’re saying about your brand, but what customers say about you matters more.
Harvard Business School found that each additional star your business has on Yelp equates to a 5 to 9% increase in revenue. That means your million-dollar, three-star Yelp rated business could earn as much as $90,000 more with four stars and an additional $188,000 if it reaches five stars.
The best way to earn positive reviews is with quality service and products. However, you can also ask customers to share their experience or recommend their friends. New leads are 90% more likely to convert if they have been referred by a friend or family member.
Don’t be afraid to send an email to your satisfied customers to encourage them to send a referral to their network and write a review.
The best time to send this email is after they’ve made a purchase and had time to use your product. To sweeten the deal, you could even offer them a discount or promotional code for each person they recommend to your business.
Referrals are a prime way to grow your contact list and convert new customers.
5. Offer freebies when people sign up.
Satisfied customers aren’t the only ones who should get incentives. You should also offer special deals to new contacts for your business. Sometimes simply providing a slight nudge to a prospect who is close to converting can be enough to push them over the edge. According to a study by NCBI, incentives can increase conversions by up to 30%.
The tactic can also be used as part of an email re-engagement or reactivation campaign for formerly active leads or customers. Fortnite uses this tactic by promising a free Battle Pass to passive gamers who complete a certain number of challenges.
Source: Really Good Emails
While it’s great that these leads might make a purchase, there’s a chance it could be a one-time action. You’ll get the short-term boost in revenue, but if they don’t become a consistent repeat customer, you’ll need to find another source to maintain that growth.
Be sure that you use this time to really impress these customers so they become lifelong brand advocates.
Wrap up
Finding new leads and generating new sales can be just as challenging for large businesses as it is for start-ups, but it’s far from impossible. Here are a few of the business growth hack ideas that you can implement as part of your digital marketing strategy today:
- Use interactive content to educate and engage with leads and customers
- Implement retargeting and lead ads on social media to drive customers back to your website
- Send compelling and relevant emails to build relationships and nurture leads
- Focus on customer reviews and the public perception of your brand
These initiatives likely won’t create results overnight. However, if you stick with these growth hacks and ideas, you’ll begin to attract additional, more qualified leads that will help you generate new sales and grow your business down the line.
Turn these growth hack ideas into real campaigns to expand your business. Sign up for free and see how easy it is to use emails to engage with your leads and customers.
