If you have decided to promote or expand your company, it is time to implement some business strategies that will allow you to achieve the commercial success that you are projecting.
Business strategies will not only encourage business growth, but will also allow you to improve the profitability and sustainability of your business in the short, medium, and long term. Without a doubt, good business strategies will help you earn money, attract more customers, and increase your sales.
Companies like Airbnb, Uber, Tinder, Slack, WhatsApp, and Tesla are some of the cases that have implemented high-level business strategies to lead their niche markets with tremendous success.
Business Strategies You Don’t Want To Miss
Below we will present four great business strategies that will help you expand your business like a pro, and will give you examples of how some of the biggest companies in their industries built their growth upon them.
1. Control Of The Supply Chain
This is one of the most effective and complex business strategies you can imagine. Its execution requires a titanic effort because it implies taking control of one of the critical success factors of almost any company: its supply chain.
A good supply chain strategy comprises a set of elements that allow companies to develop a product or service capable of fulfilling their main objective: satisfying the needs of end customers.
Managing a supply chain optimally implies that all its elements function properly. When a company decides to take control of its supply chain, instead of outsourcing some services, it is taking charge of:
- The supervision of the process with which it obtains its raw material.
- Control of the manufacture of products.
- The evaluation of the stages of production, distribution, delivery, etc.
These tasks require time, money, and effort, but in the end, they shape one of the best business strategies that a company can implement if it wants to boost its growth.
Tesla, the giant electric vehicles manufacturer, chose to implement this strategy and the results have been amazing.
Its founder, Elon Musk, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet. He was convinced that he had to take ownership of his supply chain to achieve the expected success of his company.
Consequently, he decided to invest in the factories that produce batteries. This way, he ensured that this product was always available both for Tesla’s own processes and for the rest of its parallel businesses, such as Powerwall.
Until now, this strategy has allowed it to prevail against global giants like General Motors and Ford, and become the most valuable car company in the world and one of the most innovative businesses today.
2. Word Of Mouth Strategy
It is inevitable to talk about the best business strategies and not to mention word of mouth —the WOM) strategy. In most cases, it is applied as a marketing strategy but it can also offer you favorable results when creating successful businesses from scratch, or expanding your company.
To grow based on this strategy, you will need great support from your ideal consumer, because ultimately this is your most important asset. Your potential customers are the ones who will help you boost your business by recommending your products or services to their closest circles, such as their friends, family, colleagues, etc.
For this type of business strategy to work in your favor and not against you, you must master some important aspects.
For example, you will have to satisfy their latent needs with impeccable success. This way, you can form a chain of recommendations and good reviews, which in business translates into achieved goals —ultimately, an increase in sales.
Some important tips that will help you implement this strategy successfully are:
- Do not stop innovating: Your customers will thank you, especially if your innovations meet their requirements, preferences, tastes, or needs. Without a doubt, businesses with a future are those that apply their innovations daily.
- Earn the trust and respect of your customers: You can’t retain your customers if they do not trust your business, product, or service.
- Make an effort to earn their respect and trust so that they do not have a hard time recommending you, or extolling your attributes and strengths among their friends or family.
Sometimes you need to encourage your customers to give opinions, reviews, or recommendations about your brand, product, or service.
A study carried out in 2019 by renowned consultancy firm Simon-Kucher & Partners showed that 33% of surveyed consumers changed brands at some point after knowing their evaluations.
Ask your customers to comment on your posts on Facebook or Instagram, or any other platform that represents your business digitally. Likewise, this technique will be very useful if you have an online store, or if you sell products on e-commerce sites such as Amazon.
Slack represents a successful company story, as this team communication tool founded in 2013 opted for the word-of-mouth strategy to grow and position itself in its market niche with resounding success.
When the company started operations in 2013, it had about 8,000 active users, but in just two years it reached one million active daily users. Its growth strategy was implemented very early on when the company placed itself at the service of well-established companies in the market at that time, such as Flickr or Rdio.
The Slack team dedicated itself to offering an excellent service to users, answering their questions through platforms such as Twitter. The level of user satisfaction was so great that it led to one of the best business strategies of all time, and it was based on WOM.
3. Face-To-Face Outreach Strategy
This is one of the oldest business strategies on the market, but it is so powerful that you should not overlook it if you are planning to expand your business.
It consists of personally approaching your potential customers to “sell” them your products or services. Keep in mind that it is not about setting up empty and endless meetings that end up boring or overwhelming him.
On the contrary, it is about taking advantage of every second they give you to show them with evidence —and not just with words— how you can solve any problem they have with your value proposition.
Below we will list some actions that you can carry out to promote this strategy successfully:
- Organize promotional events.
- Attend conferences related to your niche.
- Coordinate events that allow you to network and enrich your public relations regularly.
- Hire brand ambassadors to help you strategically and personally approach your potential customers.
This approach can be very complex and challenging, but the truth is that there is no better way to measure the scope and viability of your business than by seeing your customers in the face.
Tinder is one of the greatest success stories linked to this type of business strategy. Today, it is considered to be the most popular dating app on the market, and most of that achievement is attributed to the face-to-face promotion approach.
It all started in 2013 when co-founder Justin Mateen’s brother decided to host a college party at his parents’ house.
Mateen took the opportunity to directly and personally promote his dating app, and the first thing that came to mind was to sponsor the party in exchange for each guest downloading the app on his mobile device.
Subsequently, Mateen and his team dedicated themselves to conducting countless personal meetings with their potential clients, who at that time were living in the universities and fraternities of Southern California.
They even dared to stop people on the street to show them the value of their app, and how they could take advantage of it when meeting new people and dating. In early January 2014, Tinder had 200,000 users, and by the end of the same month, they had already reached 500,000 users.
4. Referral Strategy
Stimulating the growth of your business is very feasible if you implement the referral strategy. In turn, this is a great way to boost your sales, especially if you are facing a plateau phase —or if you have just launched a company to the market.
Many times this technique is combined with a solid marketing strategy that can offer you exceptional results if you manage to implement it properly.
For instance, have you ever been offered a discount, a special offer, or even cash for inviting your friends to sign up for a page, or download an app?
If so, you have been part of a referral strategy and the truth is that more and more companies are betting on it since its results are quite positive in terms of business, expansion, and sales.
The starting point is to create an offer that is attractive to your ideal consumer so that they end up becoming a referral, and better yet, they refer your product or service to others. The more people you refer the better rewarded you will be. In the end, you will be the biggest beneficiary because your audience will be making your desired conversion.
Dropbox was the pioneer in this type of business strategy. In fact, their referral program has been listed as one of the most popular and influential of all time.
When this cloud storage company launched its program, it was very clear it wanted to greatly increase its number of subscribers. The “refer to a friend” feature allowed Dropbox to increase subscriptions by 60%, and in total, more than two million direct referral links were shared.
