Are you in a place where you’re thinking of growing your business? Whether you’re ready to scale up now – or simply want to be ready when the time comes – one thing you’ll need is a solid action plan.
There are lots of ways you can stimulate growth in a B2B operation, but which are the most effective? Remember that any tactic or activity you try should be closely linked to strategy. Set out what you want to achieve, how you’ll reach your goals and how you’ll track your progress.
Here are 7 of the best tried-and-tested B2B business growth strategies to start thinking about:
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Expand your raw customer pool
In order to grow, you’ll either need more new customers or a greater spend from each of your existing customers. Or ideally, both. Start your planning by finding ways to give your business a bigger audience. You can do this in many ways, but it all starts with identifying and targeting your ‘ideal’ customer.
Craft seamless integrated marketing campaigns to best engage these buyer personas, across email, social media, professional networks and more. You can also try referral and affiliate schemes, as well as using B2B marketing and lead generation techniques such as telemarketing.
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Fine-tune your customer conversion system
It’s no use attracting a large number of new leads if you’re not able to convert them into customers and sales. You’ll need to make sure your customer conversion system is working effectively. Are you meeting customer needs and moving leads along the sales funnel, or are potentially lucrative customers falling through the cracks?
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Retain your current customers
Again, there’s no point bringing in new business if you’re neglecting your existing customers. Remember these stats:
- It can cost 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one
- Your success rate of selling to an existing customer is around 60-70%, compared to just 5-20% for a new customer.
This is why customer retention should be a core part of your business growth strategy. So, stay in touch with your customers, give them exceptional service and tailor your B2B marketing to encourage them to make repeat purchases.
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Step up capacity to cope with demand
You want your business to grow, but are you ready for it? Put a plan in place to scale up your capacity as demand on your sales, marketing and customer service teams increases.
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Prioritise quality and helpfulness in your content marketing
Successful B2B businesses know the value of quality content marketing, which answers specific needs and solves real problems. All your B2B marketing should be targeted to your buyer personas, prioritising quality over quantity every time.
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Become a leader in your niche
Some B2B businesses with ambitions for growth make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone. Spread your net too wide, and your resources will be wasted. A far more effective strategy – especially when it comes to B2B marketing – is to become a true expert in your field. Know it inside out, be a thought-leader and a specialist.
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Partner with an expert
All of this sounds extremely time-consuming, and it is. In order to scale up without overextending yourself, you might want to consider outsourcing in some areas.
For example, grow your raw customer pool using an IT lead generation specialist like IT Focus. We’ll bring in fully qualified leads while you focus on honing your conversion strategy, as well as helping with integrated marketing and other strategies for business growth. Get in touch to find out more.
