Small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurial enterprises tend to go through a cycle of growth and plateaus that can happen relatively quickly or on a slower basis. Adjusting your marketing and advertising efforts during those plateaus will be essential to keep your business steadily growing.

The problem with many of the business growth ideas you hear at conferences or even when reading online is the cost factor. As a startup business, you don’t have the budget to be able to hire a full marketing company or to bring in a powerful and recognized business consultant to help you to develop a new marketing plan.

The good news is that you can find ways in your own community, online or through traditional types of advertising and marketing to continue to grow your business without a big cost factor. The more you have a strategy in place and follow it the more you will see positive growth on a regular basis.

Look for Allies

Small businesses tend to have limited product and service lines. Perhaps you only market a handful of products and services that may have a very specific target audience.

By thinking about what other companies or businesses also sell different goods to the same target market audience, you can reach out to other small business owners and network or create formal or informal cross-selling opportunities.

Additionally, by forming a small group of businesses catering the target group you can choose business growth ideas that will work for everyone. This could include hosting a mini trade show or even doing demos and YouTube videos together to share information and become seen as a resource in your area of expertise.

Create More Interest

There are a lot of different options for boosting business growth using free software or programs that are readily available online. Developing a set of YouTube videos that provide necessary information for your target market, even if not directly to your products or services, is one of the business growth ideas.

Don’t forget to blog, guest blog, submit articles and even call around to local radio stations and newspapers. Typically they have reporters that are always looking for new companies, products or services to write or talk about, and you might as well take full advantage of free advertising to a much wider audience.

Online Business Growth Ideas

Just because you are online and tweeting, posting, pinning and commenting doesn’t mean you are being effective. There are some more effective options you may want to consider, and these business growth ideas all start with having a plan and a comprehensive, branded approach.

Some quick but effective low-cost options for using online advertising to boost your business growth include:

  • Google my business – this is a simple online form submission through Google that will put your business literally on the map on related Google searches. You can also list all your business information, including links to your website, business hours, address and your phone number.
  • Check branding – make sure all your social media sites, pages and information are accurate and correct. Also, check to make sure you are using the same logo, company name, and advertising information across all sites.
  • Update your website – if your website is more than a few years old, if it doesn’t have full mobile compatibility or if it is using outdated videos, apps or software, upgrade to a new version. Hiring a professional web designer is an effective option if you have the budget, or do some research and upgrade on your own.

Finally, you may want to look into the new advertising program offered by Facebook. This allows you to custom design your own ads that will show on feeds, and you can set the budget so you never have to worry about not knowing just what you have spent.

Cap't Jim Palmer, The Dream Business Coach

Cap’t Jim Palmer, best known internationally as the Dream Business Coach, is creator of the Dream Business Mastermind and Coaching Program and host of Dream Business Radio – a weekly podcast based on Jim’s smart marketing and dream business building strategies. Claim your FREE Dream Business Transformation now!

Leave A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.