Top 3 strategies for growing businesses bigger, faster in 2020!:
Markets are changing daily and wreaking havoc on large, fairly traditional businesses and this is not going to change anytime soon. Businesses need to adapt or die and for corporate South Africa, that could seem daunting. Jacqueline Raw, Owner and Founder of marketing consultancy, Ycagel says, “Staying relevant is the name of the game in 2020 and this is going to be the difference maker to businesses that thrive versus business that just survive. It’s no longer good enough to simply ‘do’ social media, invest in some obscure brand CI or remain in the dark ages around lead generation – 2020 is going to be a catalyst for businesses that are taking the Fourth Industrial Revolution seriously and leveraging against every ounce of its potential.”
Jacqui gives three fundamental strategies businesses need to win at in 2020 in order to pull ahead of the pack and become best of breed from a consumer perspective (whether B2B or B2C by the way).
1. Brand Awareness: With the potential reach that new technologies offer, having no share of voice in your market through positive brand positioning is simply unacceptable. Your target audience is not unaware of the power technology holds to reach them, so if your brand is not one they are familiar with, make no mistake, they know it’s through lack of trying.
The reality is that if you fail to invest in brand awareness, you are going to keep paying top dollar for each sale you make. If you have no brand equity to leverage when talking to potential customers or when you’re advertising; you will have to spend a longer time talking through your product, more money trying to reach customers through advertising and more money communicating your product’s USP’s. This is a quantifiable brand truth and not some marketing positioning for more budget. No brand – no leverage – it’s that simple.
The alternative is that potential clients have already heard about your brand in some way and are curious to know more (or aware of your brand at the very least) by the time you start the sales conversation. The cost of sale is the biggest beneficiary of brand awareness and so the greatest indicator of ROI.
2. Social Engagement: We cannot stress this enough. A post a day does not make a social strategy! Businesses that ‘do’ social in this way (as a box ticking exercise) are soon going to realise that this is not how social is designed to be used. There are billions of pieces of social media content going out every single day. The sheer volume of content is mind numbing – and it does numb your market in a very real way. Stopping the scroll has long been the objective of social media strategists and their key strategy has been to create engaging, scroll-stopping content to delight their audiences! Now, multiply this by the 1000’s of solid social media strategists out there and you start to see my point. Creating great content is not an option to good social media, it is now the fundamental requirement to be in the game. In order to leverage the power of social media, business can no longer just do social, they have to get social. Spending time engaging with your target audiences, addressing their concerns, getting involved in their conversations is the new black. Dedicated community managers that form relationships with your would-be customers and add value to their lives daily through content sharing and value adds the only way forward for pace-setting organisations.
3. Lead Generation: This is probably my biggest passion when it comes to supporting client growth. Lead generation, when done well, can explode business growth exponentially. It’s all about integration, automation and micro-targeting. Get these three fundamentals right and your lead generation will take wings. Be clear on your micro-segments, distil their journey through your lead generation process and minutely as possible and create automation strategies to engage with them throughout the pipeline. You cannot position a product set to a wide audience anymore, it’s wasteful and expensive. Businesses have got to become the best at putting very specific products or services in front of very specific personas within their target segment at the right moment of truth.
“Get these three strategies right in 2020 and you’ll never look back,” Jacqui concludes.
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About Jacqueline Raw:
Jacqueline Raw is a Sales and Marketing strategist. She is the founder of Ycagel, a Marketing consulting and services firm and SkillX an online skills incubator for entrepreneurs and professionals. As a thought-leader and influencer in her markets, she is passionate about driving change and equipping people with the skills they need to grow successful businesses and brands.
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