5 Actionable Growth Hacks for Small Businesses to Make Most of 2019

Are you hoping to see your business touching new heights?

Do you want to write a new growth story in the New Year, or for that matter, many more years to come?

Well, you are attentively poised to work on your New Year resolution for 2019, which is to grow by leaps and bounds. So let us be upfront with the fact that the purpose of running a business is purely to achieve the commercial success, of which growth is a logical testimony.

Today, the market is crowded with big and small companies, startups and multinational conglomerates, promising entrepreneurs and established business tycoons. Thus in this noise, you have to pave way for your business to thrive and reach as many people as possible. You have to make your foundation even stronger, leverage the advancements in technology, and prioritize how well you can cater to your customers. From workplace employees to your sales and marketing teams, you need to motivate your staff. You need to track time at work as well as monitor your employees’ productivity so they can make most of the resources at hand.

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There are basically four important areas where you can find new avenues for growth, these are:

  • Market Expansion
  • Product Expansion
  • Talent Investment
  • Customer Experience

In the coming New Year, all of your focus and strategies should revolve around these areas. Working on these key spheres will have a huge impact on your revenue, brand recognition, and customer loyalty. That said, with a well thought-out plan in place, you can ensure your business growth will be led by informed and intentional decision-making.

Here are some actionable growth hacks for your business in 2019 and beyond:

 1. Expand Your Reach

You need to increase your business’s reach, both online and offline.

  • Hosting/attending events

Events are one of the effective ways to boost the awareness of your brand. The type of events that you choose should largely depend upon your business type. For example, workshops, seminars, or demo can be used in support of a worthy cause that would appeal people across the board. Also attending more events that are along the interests and values of your potential customers can get your business on the radars of more people. It gives you the opportunity to network with other attendees.

  • Team up with another business

Partnerships are a great way to expand the reach of your business. If you work with businesses that are in your same niche, it can complement you in many ways. For one, you can tap the customer base of your partner and reach out to them. If you and your partner company have different strengths, the partnership will double the power of your respective teams. Deepening the ties between you two will foster collaboration and longevity, which will further help you broaden your relevance and increase your addressable market.

  • Leverage offline marketing

There are many offline tactics with which you can expand your business reach. You can include print ads, flyers, billboards, banners, segments in the newspaper, and so forth. Guerrilla marketing is another powerful offline marketing strategy that can make a lasting impression in the minds of your prospects. All you need to be creative and think out of the box.

  • Optimize your website

To make your business more visible in your audiences, you need to get your website on top of the search engine results. For that, nothing is better than search engine optimization. SEO involves various website elements so that search engines like Google will give preference to your website. As a result, it will lead to increased awareness of your brand and more site traffic.

  • Get more email signups

For a long time, email marketing has been a profound way to nurture leads; it still continues to be so. It is both affordable and cost-effective, making it a great option with a limited marketing budget. With email marketing, you can target specific audiences with your specific content and messaging. It will definitely increase your chances of bringing qualified leads.

 2. Partner With Influencers

Today, people like bloggers and social media personalities have a huge influence on the general populace, especially the millennials. Over a period of time, these influencers have built a huge following by creating interesting, informative, and high-value content for them. These influencers are relatable and their opinions are largely respected as well as acted upon.

Thus working with influencers can give your business a strategic edge in terms of reaching and engaging new audience base. Influencer marketing is a great way to broadcast your message as told by a trusted and authoritative source that people actually pay attention to. According to a report, 94% of marketers who use influencer marketing find it an effective practice. Bigger companies use celebrities, athletes, and models as part of their strategy, but smaller brands can use social media micro-influencers with a large following and high engagement.

Now the question is, how will you leverage right influencers? For that, you need to find bloggers who have a good following within the niche as that your business. Sharing the similar values and inclination will likely to give the influencers a reason to share positive feedback regarding your brand with their readers and viewers.

3. Expand Your Products or Services

The growth of your business reflects not only by your market expansion but also by how you are introducing new products or services into existing markets. Though adding more products or services to the mix might sound relatively simple, but executing it can be a bit challenging. By reading the previous data or record, you need to figure out with products or services your customers are buying more. It will give you an insight as to which other products they will like and whether they would be willing to pay for them. It will help you determine if you can sell these products at a profit.

You can also conduct thorough market research before committing to new product or service expansion. To do this, you can prepare a questionnaire and ask your current customers what they think about your new product or service ideas. The research should be focused purely on consumer demand.

Diversification of new products to new markets can be a drastic step to take and can bring a certain degree of risk. You are actually providing products and services that are different from your core offerings. To guarantee the effectiveness of diversification, you need to perform a market segmentation analysis that will help you identify the customer segments that are more likely to buy your products or services.

4. Hire Right People

Every business owner understands the importance of talent acquisition for their business. The quality of your products or services largely hinges on the talent that is utilized to produce and provide them. Thus investing in right employees adds a much-needed element to a company looking to grow.

Hiring the right people is crucial for the success of your business, which is why you need to have an effective hiring process in place. It is important to put time and effort to find people that are best for your company and that truly represent your business.

To recruit the best talent, you also have to assess your organizational culture so that you get to know what your company really needs. You need to lay down what your mission is, what your values are, and what type of individuals can fit in your culture. So look for potential candidates with this bigger picture in mind.

5. Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Your mission of business growth in 2019 cannot be completed in 2019 without harnessing the full power of social media to your advantage. The popular social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Snapchat can give your business an exposure of the next level. In addition to the usual content, live video is the key area that you need to focus on. The interactivity of live videos on social platforms makes them a powerful tool for you to engage with your audience and strengthen your relationship.

User-generated content (UGC) posted on social media will be a win-win for you and your audience. It’s practically free to use – with the consent of its creator, of course. Even for your audience, the UGC is a potential avenue to get featured and noticed by others. Thus it encourages others to submit their content, which can potentially spread brand awareness like a wildfire.