As a business you might have a great product or service but without a business growth strategy to help define where it is going it may not grow at all.

A growth strategy starts with  pinpointing opportunities within your market and progresses to finding ways you can exploit those opportunities. The strategy shows how your company needs to evolve to meet these challenges now and in the future. A growth strategy gives your company realistic objectives to aim for, and it gives you long-term plans to target.

Having a growth strategy keeps your company working towards goals that go beyond what is happening in the marketplace today. It keeps owners and employees focused and united in their aims, allowing them to think in the longer term.

The first steps you need to take to develop your growth strategy involve looking at four key areas, by addressing these it will help you develop your growth strategy:

1. Plan and think for the longer term - invest time (and money) in understanding where the general market for your products/services is presently and where it may be going in the future. You need to identify what this means for your customers. Short term decisions do not help grow a business.
2. Having a good value proposition is essential to a growth strategy – a value proposition demonstrates the relevance of your product or service to the market(s) that it is in.  This then identifies what the product does in performance and value terms and why customers need it.
3. Expanding your products reach is important to growth – who are your present and future target customers. What do you need to do to let more of them know that you exist and that your product or service is relevant to them?
4. Growth means new people, systems, and possibly different ways of doing things. But be careful you need to grow at a pace you can manage and afford. Make certain you cost up your strategy.
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Once you have taken some time to research and write up your growth strategy including where you want your business to be in the next 2 to 5 years, the next step is to work out what your marketing plan is going to be.

A marketing plan is something that outlines what your marketing strategy and tactics are going to be to meet your growth plans, in effect it is how you are going to achieve your growth strategy. It should be concentrated on a specific period of time, over the next 12 or 24 months for example. It should include a variety of marketing-related details, including costs, goals, and action steps.

A marketing plan should outline:

1. How you are going to keep existing customers happy and returning to buy more frequently and if possible in larger quantities.
2. How you are going to gain new customers and turn them into repeat customers.
3. The marketing methods you are going to use to achieve objectives 1 and 2.
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At Kaizen we have a lot of experience in helping clients grow their businesses, please do not hesitate to call us on 01482 772261 or email us at info@kaizengroup.uk if you want to learn more about how we can help you grow your business. We will be very happy to help you with any query you may have.