If you’ve established a small business, then you’ve achieved something that most people only dream of.
But, having got this far, you’ll want to make sure that you can grow and nurture your fledgeling enterprise in a way that’s going to set it up for success in the long-term. Summer tends to present several different opportunities for growth. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Seasonal Change
If you’re able to constantly provide your customers with something novel and fresh, then you’ll provide them with a reason to keep coming back to see what’s up. This is where seasonal campaigns can be so effective. Roll out deals, competitions and giveaways, and try to tweak your branding according to the feedback you get back.
You might find that certain products and messages work really well during summer time – so now’s the time to capitalise.
Loyalty and Reward Programs
Loyalty programs send out a powerful psychological message to your existing customers: that they’re appreciated and valued. In turn, they’ll also help you to promote feelings of closeness, warmth and empathy from your customers to your business. Or, at the very least, it’ll help maintain the sort of familiarity that will make a purchase easier and more likely.
Your loyalty program can provide incentives to your customers in exchange for small pieces of personal information. This will help you to tailor your marketing, and make it that much more powerful.
Attending Networking Events
Being able to make friends in an industry can make an enormous difference to your overall chances of success. You’ll obtain contacts that you can leverage, suppliers and would-be customers. One-off networking events provide a chance to meet many people in a short space of time, face-to-face. These can be smaller local events, or they can be enormous corporate ones, hosted at exhibition centres.
To get the best from face-to-face networking, a business card can be an extremely powerful tool. Make sure that you get plenty of them printed, and that they’re well thought out and professional.
Email Marketing
Email is a format that’s been with us for quite a while, but it remains a staple of any successful business’s marketing strategy. There are big differences between effective and ineffective email campaigns, however, and it’s worth taking the time to refine your approach.
Make sure that you get the subject line right. You need something snappy and evocative. You should also ensure that your email is equally pleasant to look at whether viewed on a desktop computer or a mobile screen. Good emails also tend to employ plenty of blank space and clear separation. If customers are presented with a wall of text, then they’re likely to simply dismiss the email without a second thought.
