Something is frustrating about watching a competitor seemingly bring in all the customers they need while you scrounge for pennies with your blood, sweat, and tears at your expense. Same industry, similar offerings, even a worse website than yours. They’ve got growth traction, and you’ve got stagnation.
It’s not that they’re lucky. It’s not even necessarily that their product is better than yours.
No, the difference generally comes down to a few strategic choices that most business owners overlook entirely or make mistakes on without realizing it. It’s not that these choices are secrets – they’re just not obvious until you know exactly what to look for.
*This is a collaborative post. Image Source
*This is a collaborative post. They Know Where Their Customers Are – Really
Most businesses run based on assumptions of where their target audiences spend their time online. They throw money at Facebook campaigns because “everybody’s on Facebook,” or they chase Instagram because it’s the hot thing right now.
At the same time, their actual customers are off doing who-knows-what online.
Yet businesses that seem to grow without constant contention have figured out where their audience actually spends time online – not where it’s assumed to make the most sense, not where it worked five years ago, not where they think is right, but what’s actually going on now with people with cash in hand.
This means that sometimes, your best customers aren’t on social media at all; they’re reading niche blogs. They’re traversing forums filled with their interests. They’re seeing things on sites without the clout of any other major social network. Instead, these businesses have expanded over multiple touchpoints – including display network ads that span thousands of websites – and aren’t reliant on a handful of overcrowded platforms.
When you make yourself available in only one or two places, you’re betting that all your customers are there. It’s a bet that few successful businesses actually win.
They Understand the Economics Before Growth
This is where most ambitious entrepreneurs fall flat on their faces. They get a hint of something that works – whether it be a campaign that’s generating leads or an avenue that’s driving dollars – and they try to tenfold it. Just throw money at what’s working and watch the money trees grow, right?
Wrong.
Businesses that grow without pain have their ducks in a row; they know exactly how much they can afford to pay for every customer. They understand the economics of their offering well enough to discern which customers are profitable and which would seem good on paper alone. They’ve tested enough to see what happens when they increase spending – does performance stay stable or tank?
The answer is complicated and less sexy than growth hack headlines would lead you to believe, but it’s what keeps sustainable businesses out of revenue highs and lows that come crashing down when they least expect it.
They Don’t Rely on One Channel
There’s a certain type of platform dependency that makes sense until it doesn’t. You build your entire acquisition strategy around one channel – whether it’s Google, a social platform, or even referrals from one major partner – and all is well until one of them decides to up its game.
Whether that’s an algorithm change or heightened expense or inconsistent performance, the businesses that grow effortlessly over time have diversified how they acquire new customers – not chaotically and unfocused but with strategies in play that allow for one channel to falter while still keeping the ship afloat.
This includes having several ways that customers can find you; organic search should bring in predictable traffic. You should have paid channels that you can control and boost when needed. There should be partnerships and affiliates contributing their own share. Email lists are a must – something you own with private access. It doesn’t matter which avenues are used; what matters is that there are multiple ways for people to access your business without giving someone else 100% control over your success.
They Test Without Putting Everything at Stake
There’s a sweet spot that successful businesses find; they’re not reckless, but they’re also not too conservative to never try anything new.
Instead, they treat testing like it’s testing – a small budget with critical parameters for success, a set timeline. They give each opportunity enough financial backing to acquire data, but not so much that failure would ruin the business. When something works, they succeed. When something fails, they’re able to move on without being held up by drama.
Businesses that struggle tend to go extremes; they’re either scared to death to spend money testing anything, so they never find a winner, or they overspend on things they’ve never tried before because they want a breakthrough, and their desperation guides poor decisions.
Both sides get stuck in their way.
They Know Their Numbers
It sounds easy, but most entrepreneurs are blind when it comes to their marketing data and customer acquisition analytics. They know they spent $5k on ads last month. They know they’re getting some customers from those ads – but the correlation is tenuous at best.
Businesses that grow efficiently are nit-picky with tracking; they know which customers came from which channels and who stayed versus who churned right away. They can discuss which campaigns worked when lifetime value is considered versus initial purchase alone; they’ve segmented their findings enough to know Customer Type A is worth pursuing aggressively while Customer Type B barely breaks even on acquisition costs.
This transparency allows for quick access and smart decision making; no one’s guessing where budget should be allocated or which tests should be next – it’s all right there on the page.
They Have Systems in Place That Run Smoothly
There’s one commonality between businesses that grow seemingly without effort on an exterior level – they’re not constantly reinventing the wheel week after week, trying to figure out how they’re going to acquire new customers next week or next month; they’ve figured out what works and created a repeatable system.
That doesn’t mean the business is on autopilot or they’re never optimizing any opportunities. But they’re not scrambling day by day trying to find new ideas; they’ve created systems for customer acquisition that work smoothly enough so they can focus their energy elsewhere on how to make the offering even better or serve customers better.
The businesses that struggle are often caught in motions of what seem like productive activities; they’re always rolling out a new campaign, they’re constantly testing new platforms, they’re consistently changing up their messaging – but those don’t equate to results when there’s no underlying system in place. It’s just motion without momentum.
They Meet Customers Where They Are in Their Journey
Let’s face it – not everyone who finds your business is ready to buy. Some people have never heard of you before. Others are comparison shopping (hopefully against someone else). A few are ready to purchase but just need one final thought.
Businesses that acquire customers effortlessly have different approaches for different levels of interest – they’re not hitting everyone with a “buy now” slogan without regard for what data points they’ve picked up along the way. Instead, they know someone who’s seen your brand eleven times through Google should get a different message than someone who’s never heard of you before in their life when they see you at a trade show.
This sophistication helps growth seem effortless – but in reality, it’s working smarter, not harder.
When growth seems effortless from the outside looking in, it’s usually predicated upon a handful of correct strategic decisions that too many business owners get wrong (at least two or three each) by overlooking them entirely or miscalculating them entirely, making stubborn mistakes until it’s too late.
The art of knowing where your true customers are located online, truly understanding economics before growth (let alone appealing funding), diversifying acquisition channels, testing opportunities without risking everything at once, maintaining visibility of numbers, creating systems in place that operate smoothly, and matching messaging with where people are in their decision making process is not radical or revolutionary; it’s common sense for those who have it.
But those who don’t get left behind – even those businesses with worse products than theirs seemingly sailing ahead into the great unknown without breaking a sweat.
This can all be learned; however, the businesses growing effortlessly now were likely struggling only a few years ago. They just knew what was holding them back and fixed it.
*Disclaimer – This is a collaborative post. This post has been pre-written.
