With new more and more competitors cropping up like mushrooms after the rain, it has become more important than ever for businesses to find ways to get more customers and keep the ones they have.

In response to this reality, growth marketing, also known as growth hacking, came into existence. Growth hacking is pretty old news today – tons of businesses used it as a leverage to grow their customer base as fast as possible.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Businesses such as PayPal, Lyft and Dropbox growth hacked their way to success: Learn more here:” quote=”Businesses such as PayPal, Lyft, Dropbox, and other giants all owe their success to the fact that they were able to acquire users quickly by employing some clever growth marketing strategies.” theme=”style2″]

Growth marketing strategies are penny a dozen these days. There is a reason for that – they are hard to implement and the tested and tried one will not work for every business.

Sometimes a strategy that worked for one company will go completely bust when implemented by another company. Still, companies manage to grow and expand because there is a ton of creative ways to leverage their strong points and present themselves in unique ways.

B2B marketing was a bit late to the growth marketing but it’s catching on.

It’s also a completely different beast and you simply can’t approach it as you would B2C marketing.

When using growth marketing strategies as a B2B company, you will conduct business by following these principles:

  • Measure everything – if it’s not bringing new clients or retaining old, stop wasting money one it.
  • Experiment and then experiment some more – growth marketing is about exploring new venues of how to spread the word about your business; don’t be afraid to be unconventional.
  • Creativity is the key – outthink your competitors and set trends, instead of merely following them.
  • Your work is never done – you either grow and prosper or stagnate and fade away.

So those are the principles you will end up following if you want to do growth marketing successfully. How about some concrete strategies?

Here’s a list of 5 different strategies that have helped numerous businesses grow their client base quickly and efficiently.

1. It is all about creativity

Every old marketing technique can be repurposed and used creatively with a tenfold impact. Chances are you’re doing a lot of inbound marketing, right? Also, your product is probably not appealing to the masses. You’re a B2B company that can hardly hope to produce content that goes viral globally. That’s true – if you’re sticking to the beaten path.

Why not inject your content with a dose of trendiness?

Let’s say you’re a company that sells an expensing app to large companies. Decision-makers in those companies are people too – they watch popular shows, have Facebook, play games.

Create an infographic that depicts how different houses from the Game of Thrones saga might use your app. Fill it with grasping images of shows characters and tie pertinent info about your app into it – or something similar. The point is – you’ll ride the wave of popularity by proxy and get more eyeballs on your content.

Also, you can create a game that showcases your product. Checkmarx’s target audience is security experts; they’ve created a game called Game of Hacks that attracted hundreds of security experts and landed them plenty of hot leads.

2. Gather feedback on every turn

Service-based companies such as internet and phone providers excel at this. What this is monitoring the pulse of your clients. Create a number of surveys designed to gather feedback from various groups:

  • Existing clients
  • Prospective clients
  • Churned clients
  • General public

Ask people how they would rate your service or a product; how can you improve; what more can you do to make them try out your services.

Every once in a while you will encounter little gold nuggets in the responses that you can use to better yourself. Your clients will be happy you followed their advice and will be more inclined to do business with you. New clients will follow, sometimes just because of the improvements you’ve implemented.

3. Focus on retention

There really is no point in growing your user-base if you’re bleeding customers on the other end of the spectrum. Returning customers are the cheapest customers when it comes to return on investment.

Retention marketing is not only about warm-calling your existing and past customers about special offers and deals – it can also be about changing your business model to offer discounts on repeated purchases or the possibility of signing long-term collaboration contracts at a discounted rate.

Research has shown that increasing the retention rate by 5 % can increase your profit by close to 25 %. Any investment you make in client retention will pay off – usually tenfold.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Increasing the retention rate by 5 % can increase your profit by close to 25 %. More here:” quote=”Research has shown that increasing the retention rate by 5 % can increase your profit by close to 25 %.” theme=”style2″]

One of the best ways to retain your customers is investing in adequate customer support. Train your staff and make sure they know every in and out of your product – knowledgeable support officers are the best sales people. There is no time better to pitch a client than after you were able to solve their problem in a few minutes.

Also, enable your clients to make online purchases and to make them easily. Not everyone has employees in charge of buying – making shopping as easy as possible with you is a guaranteed way to increase sales because people usually choose the simplest way, especially if products or services in the niche don’t have any discernible differences.

4. Leverage the power of social media

And concentrate on one in particular: LinkedIn. Facebook and Twitter are a must – as well as several other social networks these days, but LinkedIn is where you will grow your brand’s reliability score.

Connect to people in the niche you’re targeting. Growing a base of LinkedIn connections means that your interactions, posts, and comments on LinkedIn will get more exposure there. And that is the exposure you want – being visible to people who make decisions about whether or not to buy what you’re selling.

Participate in the conversation and join groups where decision-makers from your target industry gather. There is absolutely no need to market your brand or your products there. Simply be active and allow your profile to speak for itself.

If you instill into people a sense of know-how, a feeling that you are ready to help without asking anything in return – they will come flocking.

Also, regularly use LinkedIn blogging feature and post unique content with one purpose in mind – to help people and businesses do their job!

Publish infographics and how-to articles that teach people how to do things cost-free but always include a call to action inviting them to try out your services that will help them do the same thing faster and for a very affordable price!

You can also take this advice and head over to Quora – a question and answers network that is growing rapidly and gets over 10 million unique visits every month. A lot of people head over there to find answers that Google doesn’t have. Find questions that relate to your niche and answer them honestly, with links to in-depth articles on your site.

The point of growth marketing is that you never rely on the top of the funnel. Your customer’s journey to purchase should be unique and rewarding at every single turn.

That’s why it’s important to focus on client retention as hard as you focus on acquiring new clients. Keep in mind – regardless of the fact that you’re marketing products and services to businesses it’s ultimately people who make decisions. You have to be engaging, approachable, and deliver value in order to peak their interest and let them know what separates you from the herd!

About the Author: Tom Jager is professional blogger. He has degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+ or Facebook.

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