Are you looking to take your company to new heights? Expanding your business can seem intimidating, which is why you need to be prepared to ensure you don’t spread yourself too thin. Growth is an essential goal for most business owners, as it allows them to spread their products or services to more people and bring in more money. But how does one expand their business in today’s economy? Below, you’ll find our best tips on expansion strategies to bring your company to the next level.
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Tap into new territories
If you’re a local or regional business, you may want to consider expanding into new territories. Whether that means opening a store in the town over or opening multiple in your region, you need to make sure you have all the support you need to grow your business.
First, you’re going to need to look for commercial space for rent. This is important because you want to make sure you open up shop in a marketable area where you’ll garner enough foot traffic to make sales. You also want to make sure you’re renting commercial property that’s affordable and digging a hole in your reserves. Before expanding, work with a financial planner to discuss how you’re going to afford an expansion and do your market research to ensure you’re opening in the right area.
Tapping into new territories will bring in more customers from various backgrounds, who can then promote your business through word-of-mouth and online.
Offer more products or services
This may sound simple, but adding new products or services can be rather difficult. If done incorrectly, you could suffer major profit losses and maybe even end up filing for bankruptcy. To avoid the worst from happening, you need to do thorough market research.
There are plenty of market research tools you can take advantage of, such as County Business Patterns offered by the U.S. Census, Think With Google, and MyBestSegments by Claritas. With these tools, you can see what products customers may want, how much they’re willing to pay, and more.
Once you have this information handy, you’ll be able to know what products to introduce to your current line. This is a great way to attract new customers and retain current ones. You should also ask your customers in-store what products they’d like and potential price points. This can be done by a survey they can complete at checkout or through conversation.
Acquire another business
One way to double the size of your business is by merging with another or by simply buying it. Doing so can grow your revenue and sales exponentially, and will give you more storefronts to sell products and services and new customers to target. See that you have mergers and acquisitions experts that will offer a strategy to enhance bottom-line profitability by expanding the company and generating new revenue streams.
However, doing so takes a lot of time, money, and research. You first need to determine your financial position to see if you can afford to swallow up another business. You also want to determine the financial condition of the potential company you’re going to acquire or merge with, along with the strength of their management team, what their customer base is like, and any contracts they may have.
Lastly, you want to make sure the company you’re acquiring or merging with meshes well with yours. A dry cleaner and a plumbing service most likely work well together. However, a running store might mesh well with a bike shop where both services and products can be combined to create the ultimate cardio shop.
Revamp your marketing tactics
The goal of marketing is to promote and sell products to bring in profits. If you’re noticing your business is stagnating and sales are remaining the same, it may be time to look at your marketing tactics. Here are some marketing tactics you can roll out to expand your business:
- Digital marketing: With digital marketing, you’ll be able to make your business more visible online. SEO is a powerful tactic that will make your products and services rank higher search engines like Google and Bing, which will lead to increased organic traffic and more sales. Optimizing your company website through detailed product descriptions and information blog posts is one way to expand your business.
- Social media marketing: Social media is a powerful tool and is changing how businesses market themselves. Through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, you can reach a broader audience to promote your products and services.
- Influencer marketing: Influencers are people with large followings on social media platforms. You can pair with influencers to promote your product on their profiles—just make sure the influencer who partner with has an audience you’re trying to target.
The bottom line
Expanding your business can be hard work, but with these tips and tricks handy, you’ll be on your way to growing your company and reaching new heights. From revamping your marketing campaigns to tapping into more territories, these are just some of the ways you can grow your business.
