After my last article explaining how to double your sales in 3 years, and what strategies to follow to do so, some of you reached out and asked me about strategies to double the size of your business in 1 year.
Many of you know that it is possible to double your business, but you are not sure about what specific strategies to follow to achieve this.
Some advisors will tell you that the best way to double your business is to double the amount of money that you spend on marketing and advertising.
This is not true.
Doubling – or even just increasing – the amount of money you spend on marketing will only bring you good results if you target the right kind of customer for your business.
So what are effective strategies that you can follow?
1. Double the number of potential customers
If more people know about your business, more people will become interested in your business, resulting in more sales.
So how do you double the number of potential customers?
If you have been following my blog for some time or if you have worked with me, you know that I believe you should focus on a particular kind of customer.
Your Most Profitable Customer.
Your most profitable customer is the type of customer that makes it easy for you to get higher sales, increase your profit and grow your business faster.
If you just try to attract any kind of customer, you are wasting money. Needlessly.
If you have not yet done so, start by defining who your Most Profitable Customer is. Then focus your marketing efforts on reaching a higher number of potential customers.
2. Double the number of interested customers
It is not enough for customers to know about your business. You also want them to start buying your products or services.
This means that you want potential customers to become interested in what you are selling.
The best way to do that is to target your Most Profitable Customers with marketing that appeals to what they are looking for.
And yes, you must first do your homework:
- understand what makes customers buy
- offer customers a clear message about why they should buy from you instead of from your competitors
- if necessary, find out why customers are not buying from you and take action to address the problem.
Then use one or more of these inexpensive and highly-effective marketing strategies to target them and find out how this can help to double the size of your business.
3. Double the number of first-time customers
Customers who do not yet know you may be hesitant to buy from you. Give them a reason to test your business.
For example:
- offer a cheap but good-quality product that interests them and is easy to try out
- host a raffle or other competition on social media to encourage them to participate
- share video testimonials from existing customers on your social media
- offer discount coupons on social media that can be used in your business by first-time customers
Look for additional creative ways to convince people to try out your product or service.
And make sure to offer the best possible customer service that you can!
4. Increase your customer retention
Many businesses focus their attention on attracting new customers.
But if you are trying to double the size of your business, it makes much more sense to focus your efforts on retaining the customers that you already have. This is because customer retention has a very high return on investment.
You see, once a customer has bought from you before, it becomes easier for them to buy from you again.
It is actually much easier to convince an existing customer to buy from you again than it is to convince a new customer to buy from you.
If you could retain more customers:
- You start saving more money. It is 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer.
- Your profit starts increasing. If you increase your customer retention by 5% your profit will increase by about 25%.
- You start seeing increased customer loyalty. Loyal customers buy more often and spend more money as compared to new customers. They keep coming back to your busiess because they understand the value of what you are offering.
- Your business starts growing faster. Loyal customers help you build your business because they encourage their friends and family to buy from you. You keep getting new customers through word-of-mouth marketing.
Higher customer retention starts with excellent customer service. When you have that in place, take a look at some of these other strategies to retain customers.
5. Double the average revenue per customer
Are you giving your customers reasons to buy more from you?
If not, you should!
If you are not sure, keep reading.
Imagine how much money you would be able to save if you could convince your existing customers to start buying more from you.
No need for huge marketing budgets. No need to chase potential customers. Less headaches. Less stress. More income. Higher savings. Faster business growth.
Reward customers for their loyalty
One of the easiest ways to convince customers to buy more from you is by using a customer loyalty system that rewards them for buying.
For example, customers can use a loyalty card to save points. These points can then be used to buy your products at a discount. Or, when they reach a certain number of points, they can choose a free product.
Learn how to upsell and cross-sell
This is a strategy that is used by businesses in many different sectors.
- Upselling means convincing your customer to buy a more expensive product or service
- Cross-selling means convincing your customer to buy additional items that complement the initial purchase
For example, let’s say that you are a sports trainer who coaches local sports teams. Your training is effective and sports teams start getting better results after you coach them. You want to make more money through upselling and cross-selling.
Upselling
- One of the ways for you to do upselling is by adding personal training services. You use your knowledge to offer group training sessions to sporters, maybe through your local gym.
- You can also offer more exclusive services through one-on-one coaching.
Cross-selling
As a sports trainer, you know how to avoid injuries and how to treat them if they occur.
- You could decide to start working with a qualified physical therapist to offer additional services to sports teams or athletes.
- You can also start offering the training materials – like weights, stretch bands and exercise balls – that help injured sporters regain their health faster. These items could also be offered through your group training classes.
Upselling and cross-selling help you increase your revenue streams, as long as you can guarantee that what you are offering is what your customers need and the quality is high.
6. Double the number of referrals
Research says that if customers are satisfied with your business, at least 72% of them will tell six other customers.
So, if your business has 100 customers, at least 72 of them will tell 432 other customers good things about your business.
This kind of positive word-of-mouth marketing is one of the best ways to get new customers and increase your sales!
Make it easy for your customers to promote your business through word-of-mouth. Some examples:
- Organise a raffle on Facebook and encourage your customeres to share it.
- Feature your customers on your social media channels
- Offer them incentives to bring other customers, like a 10% discount or a small gift
- If you keep detailed customer records, send your customer congratulations on their birthday and offer them a discount to celebrate their birthday
Test out the above and other strategies and enjoy the benefits of getting more referrals!
Bonus strategy: Reduce your marketing budget
Those of you that know me, know that I often say that marketing is the only expense that doesn’t have a maximum.
So why am I advising you to reduce your marketing budget?
I’m asking you to make strategic decisions regarding your marketing.
This is about making sure that your marketing is effective and leads to higher profits, instead of only bringing you higher sales.
So, here are 3 questions for you:
- How much are you currently spending on marketing and advertising?
- How much additional profit did that marketing and advertising bring you this year?
- Is it worth the expense? Or could you get better results if you target your marketing more strategically?
When you can make business decisions in a more strategic way, you will start seeing quick results in your business. As a result, you can cut those expenses that are not bringing in higher profits and instead focus on what is bringing you good results.
Meaning, if you can increase the effectiveness of your marketing, you can reduce your marketing budget. (Or, increase it if your business can manage the increase in growth!)
Conclusion
At the end of the day, being able to double the size of your business is all about being able to increase your profit. If you double the amount you are doing in sales, but there is no increase in profit, what is the value of increasing the sales?
Review each of the 6 strategies. Then ask yourself the following question: Suppose you were able to apply and double all 6, how much would the size of your business increase?
If you are able to double all 6, in theory, you would be able to 12X the size of your business!
But there is no need to choose all 6.
If you could choose only one strategy and focus on it, which strategy would bring you the best results in the shortest amount of time?
When you can answer that question, you will know what to do to double the size of your business in 1 year.
