Now that we’re well into 2023, this is a great time to take a look at your expenses and the revenue coming in to see what’s working for you and what you should pivot away from. Maybe there are people in your business who are no longer serving you or your goals. Or, maybe your advertising dollars aren’t being spent in the best way.
I met with a client recently who closely tracked where all of their customers in 2022 came from. They quickly realized that the $100k they spent on radio advertisements didn’t get them any return. Not a single one of their customers last year learned about them by hearing a radio ad. Instead, they had 33% of customers come from Google searches, 23% from Facebook and Instagram and 39% were unknown.
A few things stuck out to me after meeting with this client. The first: Stop spending big advertising dollars on radio ads. You will be better off putting that money toward Google and SEO. It’s always hard to stop doing a strategy you’ve done for years, but when it’s no longer working, you have to pivot. Tracking your customers is the best way to find out what’s working and what’s not. What is working is what you do more of, what is not working, you stop.
If you want to see your business continue to grow this year, I came up with six business strategies I recommend implementing.
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Have a growth mindset.
Too many people watch the news and get scared about the economy, which causes them to pull back on their marketing. What they should be doing instead is ramping up their marketing while the competition is sleeping. Costs to earn a customer are going down because many companies are pulling back. Now is the time to get aggressive to get ahead of your competition.
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Create multiple channels for lead generation.
Most people have one source for lead generation, but in my opinion, that isn’t enough. I recommend these three ways to get more leads:
- Prioritize advertising on Google, so when people search for your product or service, your business comes to the top.
- Implement a digital marketing campaign to go after your ideal audience. The biggest platforms are still Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Identify which platform your audience spends the most time on and prioritize it.
- Start a referral program. The best lead you can get is from a happy customer who refers friends and family your way.
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Hire sales reps and appointment setters.
You’ll only get so far if you are handling all the sales yourself. If you want to grow, it helps to have multiple people pursuing new leads, nurturing them and closing. Even if you aren’t ready for someone to take over the closing process, you can hire appointment setters. These people can tee up calls for you to close.
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Have multiple front-end offers.
What is your “offer” that brings people in? You should have a “hook” in place to get them through the door and then upsell them with backend offers. An example of this process in the marketing world would be to do a free website audit to get them in, share the information you gathered, then upsell them a new website based on your findings. This strategy is a great way to give them value with an audit and also make them realize they need something better.
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Put real case studies on your website and share them on social media.
Testimonials are great, but if I can look at a real case study with a similar client, I’m sold. You should include information about where your client was before they started working with you, the strategy you used to improve their business, and the final results.
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Find a coach who can guide you along the way.
Coaches can see things in your business that you can’t see and can objectively tell you what needs to change. Every successful entrepreneur has a coach, a mentor or someone else on their team who holds them accountable and pushes them to greatness.
