If you want to take your business to the next level, growth marketing is an essential strategy worth consideration. Growth marketing is a data-driven approach that focuses on acquiring and retaining customers through experimentation and continuous optimization.
In this article, we'll discuss several growth marketing ideas that you can use to boost your business along with examples of companies that have successfully implemented these strategies.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engine results pages like Google’s. This is accomplished through techniques such as keyword research, meta tags, and link building. SEO is an extremely powerful way to drive traffic to your website and grow your business. While this is a long-term strategy that requires a lot of effort and dedication, the payoff can be significant.
In 2023 every business needs a website, and SEO is the way to get it in front of the right people. Improving your website's ranking in search engine results pages can increase visibility, drive more traffic, and ultimately grow your business. There are a variety of businesses that really benefit from SEO, but to see who’s really coming out on top, just take a look at who’s sitting in Google’s number one spot.
An SEO strategy is essential for modern businesses, but it’s not really worth much without quality onsite content. Audiences can’t search for content that doesn’t exist, so without it, you’re practically invisible online. Put simply, your content signals to search engines and your audience that you know what you’re talking about. When prioritizing onsite content, you want to make sure your business’s website has relevant material. Types of content may include blogs, infographics, and/or videos, but you have to choose what’s best for your business.
Leveraging your online content allows your business to showcase your expertise, which can help you earn your audience’s trust and gently move them through your sales funnel. Canva is a popular design tool, and they are killing it when it comes to onsite content. They offer users thousands of design tutorials through their design school. It teaches people how to use their product while also showcasing the features their service has to offer.
Digital PR is a powerful tool to help businesses build their online reputation and brand authority. With time, it can help you become a reputable industry leader. When done successfully, a digital PR campaign will result in brand mentions and backlinks from sites with quality domains, which increases a brand’s authority both in the eyes of search engines and human readers.
Any current industry leader is most likely benefiting from digital PR. Think about businesses positively mentioned on sites like The New York Times, Forbes, or Entrepreneur. Once those mentions are obtained, it heightens a company’s level of authority. So much so, it’s common practice to see “as featured in” sections on their website. Those sections speak to a level of authority and convince your audience by providing social proof. Strengthening the relationship your business has with the public is important, and digital PR does just that.
Almost everyone is familiar with who influencers are and how they contribute to the marketing space. But to define for those who don’t know, influencer marketing describes a partnership with individuals who have a large social media presence to promote their products or services. Partnering with these individuals can be an effective way to reach a large and engaged audience that is likely to be interested in your products.
With this marketing strategy, you’re able to leverage influencer connections to promote your business. An example of a company that has had great success partnering with influencers is Fashion Nova. They’ve partnered with celebrities like Cardi B and Amber Rose to promote their brand on Instagram. The company made a million dollars on the first day that Cardi B’s line dropped — and that’s largely due to her dedicated fan base.
Referral marketing encourages existing customers to refer their friends and family to your business. To incentivise these referrals, companies often offer rewards and additional perks to these existing customers. This can be an effective way to acquire new customers at a lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
Dropbox is a great example of a company who benefited from referral marketing. They grew their user base by offering more storage space to users who refer their friends to the service. Their company grew 3900% (not a typo!) in just 15 months. That’s wild, but it speaks to how capitalizing on your customer’s connections can really benefit your business.
Optimizing your website, products, and services for use on mobile devices is crucial if you want to grow your business. According to Think with Google, “Almost half (46%) of consumers prefer to use their smartphone to complete the entire process from researching to buying.” This means that having a mobile-friendly website and making sure your products and services are easily accessible on smartphones is crucial to reach customers. Through optimization, you can increase visibility, drive more traffic, and ultimately grow your business.
Personalization has become more and more important over the years as audiences expect to be treated as individuals rather than statistics — and rightfully so. However, it can make some marketing efforts more difficult. Personalization as a marketing strategy tailors messages and experiences to individual users based on their behavior and preferences. This can be a powerful way to increase customer engagement and retention.
Netflix is known for its personalized recommendations, which have been successful in keeping users engaged with the platform. According to the company, over 75% of the content that users watch on Netflix comes from its recommendation system. This highlights how effective personalization can be, especially as it keeps users engaged.
A/B testing is the process of testing two or more variations of a marketing campaign, website, or product feature to see which performs better. This allows you to make data-driven decisions about which changes will have the biggest impact on your business.
If you’re familiar with the meal kit delivery service HelloFresh, they provide a nice example of A/B testing with their menu display update. When they redesigned their menu to create a seamless user experience while also promoting upselling opportunities, they compared their original design to the update. They found the final version contributed to a 7% increase in upselling, proving the second variation performed better.
Remarketing is a strategy in which advertisements are targeted to users who have previously interacted with your business. This can be a powerful way to increase sales and customer retention. Studies show that retargeting can increase conversion rates by as much as 150%. It also helps re-engage the 98% of visitors who leave a website without making a purchase.
Amazon's retargeting ads, which show products that a user previously viewed on the website, have been very effective in driving sales. Just think about how your social media pages look after you’ve been scrolling on their product page. Those great finds sitting in your cart almost immediately end up on your newsfeed. If you’re not remarketing already, it’s an idea worth considering.
It's important to note that a single method may not necessarily drive the growth of your business. It is important to use a combination of multiple strategies and methods to achieve the best results possible. But you may also find some strategies aren’t worth the resources they will cost your company.
Growth marketing will look different for every business because not all approaches will help you reach particular goals. Continuously testing and refining your approach can help you identify what works best for your unique audience. The above-discussed growth marketing ideas are just a starting point, and you should continuously experiment with new strategies to find what works best for your business.