You pour money and energy into marketing a new business (and even get traction!). But down the line growth can grind to a halt. Here’s seven steps to avoid the plateau.
The early years of growing a business are exciting (if exhausting!) but when your marketing growth starts to level out the instinct is often to double down: increase ad spend, churn out more content, push harder on every marketing front. You might even contract new people to fix the problem with ‘fresh’ ideas. But, alas, hopes are dashed and returns diminished.
Sound familiar? It might be time to rethink your strategy.
Focus on refining rather than expanding
As experienced marketing strategists, we see many businesses set ambitious goals for growth with only the barest bones of a marketing strategy in place. They then wonder why they fail to get the results they need. Having supported many businesses through this tricky growth period, we’ve put together our seven steps to get your marketing back on track:
Start with an audit: Step back and assess what’s really happening
Understand what’s working. Are campaigns aligned with business goals? Are you targeting the right segments? Are decisions data-driven, or are you relying on what Steve your SEO man has always done?
Action: Conduct a full marketing audit of every tactic. Dig deep into the data and identify where you get the most return and where you fall short. This will indicate where to focus your efforts.
Refine Your Targeting to Increase Engagement
Are you segmenting your audience effectively? The more refined your targeting, the more relevant and engaging your marketing will be.
Action: Use your CRM to collect deep customer insights and draw on predictive analytics to assess audience behaviours and preferences. Create highly specific segments that allow for personalised messaging.
Refine your messaging to stand out in a crowded market
Even with targeted strategies, many businesses struggle to grab the attention of their audience – often because their marketing fails to address customer pain points.
Action: Revisit your messaging – is it relevant, clear and compelling? The StoryBrand framework is an excellent 7-step tool to guide you. It focuses on placing your customer at the heart of your messaging enabling you to gain trust as their guide. At STORY22, we use this approach to craft narratives that are highly effective at engaging and converting.
Make your ad spend work smarter
Ads may be essential but many businesses aren’t strategic in their approach. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut and deploy the same tactics again and again. Meanwhile ad spend increases and returns disappoint.
Action: Optimise your ad spend with advanced audience targeting and retargeting techniques. Use your freshly refined messaging (from step 3) and A/B testing to continually refine and improve campaigns – always starting with a low budget until the returns warrant opening the tap. Get to know your audience properly. Don’t be afraid to bring in expert help.
Unlock niche opportunities with advanced SEO Strategies
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the long game in marketing and most businesses dabble with it. But without specialist knowledge, you risk missing out on deeper, more lucrative opportunities by neglecting specific, less obvious niches where you can establish authority and attract high-intent traffic.
Actionable Tip: Go beyond basic keyword research. Use advanced SEO strategies like topic clusters and long-tail keywords that align with your specific niche. Conduct competitor analysis to identify content gaps where you can position your business as a leader.
Align content marketing with strategic business goals
Is your content marketing truly moving the needle? It’s not just about creating more; it’s about creating content that directly supports business objectives. Don’t let the topic of that weekly blog or email be decided on a whim.
Actionable Tip: Focus on creating content that addresses the unique pain points of your most valuable customer segments. Use data to identify which content formats and topics perform best, and double down on those. Align this with your SEO strategy and make sure every piece of content has a clear purpose.
Optimise your marketing funnel for maximum conversion
You’ll likely have a clear marketing funnel, but is every step optimised for conversion? Are you losing potential customers through weak links in the funnel? Confusing landing pages? Hiccups in the sales process? Lacklustre follow-up emails?
Actionable Tip: Use tools like heatmaps and A/B testing to analyse user behaviour and identify drop-off points in your funnel. Ensure each stage has a strong, compelling call to action and that messaging is consistent from start to finish.
Conclusion: Stay strategic to unlock growth
It’s not about doing more marketing; it’s about doing better marketing. By auditing your current activities, refining your messaging and targeting, optimising your ad spend, using the right data to drive decision-making, knowing when to bring in the experts, and aligning marketing with strategic goals, that higher ROI will be within reach.
