2020 has been a challenging year for all humanity, and of course for companies in most industries, as it has forced them to work on sustainability plans to face the different challenges left by the pandemic. Companies are planning what 2021 and the years to come will be like when they expect profitable and sustainable growth to be more and more competitive, but how to make it possible?
There is a need to compile all the previous year’s experiences and identify opportunities for growth, development, and competitiveness and make counterintuitive choices at the right times and thus obtain profitable growth.
2021 is straight around the corner and if you haven’t crafted the game plan for the year ahead, better initiate it, taking into consideration the peaks and valleys of the previous year’s plan and schemes.
Now, let’s take a rundown at some proven techniques to be applied:
Business Growth Trends to Look Out for in 2021
#Revisit the Fundamentals
Whichever business type you delve into, there are a few elements that you as a brand/identity need to focus on.
What you offer, how you want to outreach, what you will do, what you used to do, and many other interrogatives will surround you while you step into creating a growth plan for your business.
And then it’s time to re-examine the following sensitive segments that have a direct influence on business progression:
-An Ideal Customer
Ideal Customer.
Besides having the list of buyer personas and target audience, rethink the ideal customer of today and tomorrow.
Make a comparison list and pen down the features, patterns, behavior, elements, needs, etc. of the present and future customers/clients that best describe them and drive them by putting an impact.
This will help you build a robust base for customer acquisition.
-Unique Selling Proposition/Points (USP)
If you think your business is unique and no one has ever done it before, you might be mistaken as the idea or concept might be in construction or would have already been used by someone.
So again, get down to reform your unique selling points, simultaneously not keeping this misconception that you have no competition around or across the globe. Even if you are different, work on how you can be better than the rest.
Your product/service must be a revolutionary asset to promote where there is a great need for you to work on keywords so that customers can easily find you on search engines. And you are wise enough to know how Google rankings can be laddered.
-Mission Statement
Once the above crucial milestones are achieved, get set to forge a mission statement that requires you to do a ground-up on your work training, good-bad business experiences, and the real value you ought to provide to the end-users.
Well, this might consume very little time and effort as you would hardly see very little changes to make in this segment.
-Target Platform
The means of marketing and the mode of doing it are plenty and extensive both online and offline. Business marketing has a significant roleplay in accomplishing business tasks and, thus, pre-planning is what will lead you to the road of success.
Draft a listicle of 5-8 different platforms that have generated potential prospects and leads for you and act as the essential need for future business targeting.
#Customer Experience be the Utmost Priority
What actually we understand by customer experience?
If I were a layman, I would simply infer customer experience as:
An individual’s experience during his overall journey with a business or a brand (with all points of contact) matches the levels of the individual’s expectations.
You show love to customers by developing customized mobile apps, personalized beauty products, feature-rich websites, awe-inspiring sports shoes, and many others as per the different niche.
But is your love for customers reciprocal?
From many, the answer comes No.
It’s surprising and hard to believe that SaaS companies, running with a subscription-based model, generates between 70%-90% revenue from renewals and upsells bolstered by existing customers.
The health of a business is directly proportional to its ability to retain its customers and acquire new ones and to raise the banner of health it’s necessary to ensure that your customers are happy and contented.
What makes a happy customer?
Now it’s a simple thing to understand.
Customers bought a product/service from you, they showed their trust in you and expect to get a clear business benefit from you. Now, to make them happy and delighted you need to make sure that they get the business benefits they hoped for.
Thus, to achieve enhanced customer experience, make sure that the people who gave you their vote of trust must get those advantages that caused them to sign up in the first place.
Furthermore, good customer service also adds to bringing up a high-level customer experience where a short response time helps to increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and prevents losing your customer(s) to a competitor.
[Prefer Reading: ‘How to Create a Customer Journey Map that Improves Customer Success?’]
#Personalization is the Key
Earlier personalization had results like
‘Wow, they know my name!’
Now it’s more like:
‘How do they know about my last purchase?’
Personalization is no new but still is an effective technique to be necessarily applied in the new normal of doing business. It’s true that Facebook and Google kind of spy on us but that’s merely to predict our online behavior so that they can deliver the most relevant search results to the users.
And another for a cold one:
“69% of the buyers can willingly pay more to witness a more personalized experience in their purchases.”
And, that’s no harm, as it’s we who feel privileged at the moment when we get the right thing at the right time when we need it the most.
And this is exactly what your buyers and customers desire.
Personalization is an effective marketing technique that can do wonders in acquiring new customers while retaining the existing ones.
Tricks to Leverage Personalization Meter:
- Recommend products/services based on user interest
- Promote exclusive one-to-one offers, targeting individual personalities
- Allow customers to choose the mode of communication, the type of service to avail, the time intervals of delivery, and much more falling into the category
- Be aware of the customer history & intent each time they engage with you
[Prefer Reading: “B2Me: Marketing where Brands Get More Personal.”]
#Align & Streamline Sales-Marketing
Did you know?
Sales and marketing teams when alined together for work can output powerful results:
- 38% higher win rate
- 3x times growth in customer acquisition
- 32% higher revenue
- 67% hike in closing deals
- 19% faster revenue growth
This is because the right prospects are being streamlined through the sales/marketing funnel where their alignment is worth the effort. ‘Lead Quality’ is a topic for a long debate, nevertheless, the duo of both the teams working hard generate high-quality leads with more improvements in the conversion rates.
Benefits Falling Under:
- Crystal clear understanding of customer
- Better engagement between teams
- Clear mapping of the customer journey
- More feedback from the customer and better implementation of the same
- Development of a more defined and targeted strategy
#Kingpin Data-Driven Decision Making
Instincts work, but data-driven decisions are the ones that derive as expected results in real-time.
One must be relying on data today to make smart business decisions!
Suggestions, ideas, and opinions do add up so why not take them up by real people who will render real insights in the form of data which can help you make a data-driven decision that would be fast and based on practical thoughts and customer feedback.
Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) forms a base over facts, metrics, an analysis that guides business decisions that well-aligns with defined objectives, and undertaken initiatives.
[Prefer Reading: “Data-Driven Decision Making: How to Make Smarter Decisions to Fuel Business Growth.”]
Afterwords
Defining objectives and goals are old schools as at this point in time we know what we have gone through and are very clear with the business motive. The change of scenery requires the adoption of new norms more than ever as the speed of customer/consumer reaction becomes decisive.
It’s true that we are facing a 2021 scenario paradoxically of ‘stable uncertainty’ but there is a ray of hope for all types of businesses that can broaden the horizons of the road leading to success and achievements.
Companies should never stop and draw proactive strategies for the year ahead as there is always excessive hope of growth in the crisis time which only needs to be explored aggressively.
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