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5 Ways to Expand Your Business

Evesham

It can be a daunting task when your looking to expand your business

t can be a daunting task launching your own business, especially in the world of digital where there are so many companies looking to be found in Google.

Owning a small business in itself can be stressful if it’s a first time experience, without having to think about how you are going to make sure it grows. There are lots of different ways in which you can grow your business that you may not have thought of before, or you just haven’t gotten around to yet. We’ve put together a list of ideas that may help you out with this and hopefully make life a little easier for you.

Networking
You never know who you might meet at networking events, and these connections can always come in handy at a later date.  Make sure that you have lots of business cards handy to dish out and create a rapport with the view develop long-term relationships with these people.  That will mean if them or any of their outside network ever may need a product or service that you offer, you will be the first on the list. First impressions here count, so make sure you have a fantastically designed business card that people will remember.  You can even get digital business cards, where you can direct people straight to a link or offer. There are networking events such as BNI where you meet every week and end up with people that effectively become an extension of your business.

Get Yourself Online
As well as making a first impression in person, you need to do this online too.  This is where your website comes in. There are free tools that you can use to build your website, or of course you can outsource this to a web design agency.  It may however be that you want to take control of this element of the project yourself, or make sure there is something within your team who has the skills to do this.  There are plenty of web development courses around where you can develop your knowledge in this area, and in effect become your own expert. However, you might want options that you can work around your schedule. If this is the case have a look at some of the part-time courses available on Red Academy that may suit your requirements.  They have courses running from over 5 weeks to 10 weeks in the evenings.

Use Social Media to Build your Brand
Social media is a free tool to use and is a great way to grow your business.  If you do have any budget for marketing, you could spend it on some targeted ad campaigns to increase your follower count or to send traffic to your site – but even without spending any cash it is incredibly effective.  First of all, it’s a great way to show the personality of your company. It’s becoming increasingly important with millennials that they get to know who you are and what your values are before making a purchase. It’s also a great way to show yourself as a leader in the industry.  You can do this by posting industry news, giving people factual information about your product or service, and more.

Build up your Brand Reputation
Word of mouth is a wonderful thing.  If your company has a good reputation this will go a long way in getting you more business.  If you list yourself on 3rd party review sites such as Trustpilot and encourage your happy clients to leave reviews this will have a positive effect in your company overall. Not only will it let prospective consumers know that you are a trustworthy company and offer great customer service, it will also help with search engine visibility.  Make sure that you moderate these effectively so that if anything negative occurs you can respond straight away.

Say it with Video
Video marketing is becoming increasingly important in the world of marketing.  Social media channels have algorithms to favour this kind of content over any other, and it is a fantastic way to get your message across.  You don’t always have to spend a fortune on getting a videographer to do this for you, there are some great video maker tools that you can make use of that already have templates and stock images for you to use.  This gives you a cost-effective marketing tool that you can use across several channels to inform people more about your business.

We hope you have found this useful, and you now have 5 takeaways that you can use to grow your business effectively.  Some of these cost little to now money, which means you can also do this on a budget.

Source bmmagazine.co.uk ..