Marketing Masterclass 5.1

How to build a marketing strategy for better business growth

• A growth marketing strategy founded in data brings huge potential for businesses of all sizes.
• Strengthen the building blocks of your strategy with search visibility, reviews and customer retention.
• Use data based on your previous customer profile to target your marketing at the right next customers.

“A good marketing plan flexes and grows with your business. It needs to keep evolving for you to find new customers and deliver targeted messages on the right channels,” says Lauren Begley, founder of Propel Digital. “Your marketing needs to be able to scale as your business grows.”

How to build a growth strategy into your marketing structures

Here are Lauren’s five top tips for building sustainable marketing ideas.

1. Make the most of search: To help customers find you now and as you grow, your business needs to show up on search. “Set up your Google Business Profile so that clients can leave and read reviews about your business,” says Lauren. “It’s free to do and immediately makes you look more credible online.”

2. Ask for reviews: The more your customers are talking about you and leaving reviews, the better your SEO (search engine optimisation) will be. “This is important in the early days of business to help you become visible,” says Lauren. “It’s equally important as you scale. Over time you’ll develop a bank of reviews that will help new customers decide to purchase from you.”

3. Increase the lifetime value of your customers: Finding a new customer can cost several times more than keeping an existing one. “If you offer a repeatable service or a product that needs to be refilled, diarise and automate getting back in touch with your customers that have subscribed to your marketing,” says Lauren.

4. Set up measurements on your website: Analytics help you understand who your customers are and what products are resonating with them. This information then helps you scale your marketing with content and products you know are working. “There are a lot of tools you can use to do this, like the free Google Analytics,” says Lauren.

5. Build a ‘like list’: “Your most-likely next customer is going to be pretty similar to your last customer," says Lauren. "So when you’re using search engine marketing tools or doing social media advertising, build a list of ‘like’ customers based on the demographics of your previous customers,” she adds. “These are the people you can target with your marketing activity.”

Consider how you talk to your customers

Relationships matter. Regular, friendly communication doesn’t have to always be about pushing sales. “Things like checking in, sharing useful info or doing clients a favour builds trust over time,” says Lauren. “Customers who feel that trust and two-way engagement are far more likely to not only stay with you but to recommend your business to others. They essentially become advocates because they know you truly care.”