When you're a business, you need to have a multitude of complementary skills and keep a constant watch. This is true for startups as well as bigger companies that have been around for years.
So, as an e-tailer, you'll need to keep a constant eye on the state of competition in your sector as well as on new demands in your industry.
At the same time, given these factors, you'll also need to implement growth levers to increase online sales. Whether you're a small business or a medium-sized enterprise, your brand needs to be known: it's up to you to create new development processes and formidable growth levers for your future!
Boost business development with strategic growth levers for online retail
Listening to consumers and being wary of competitors are essential for any business. However, with so many ecommerce sites on the market today, you also need to be inventive, take advantage of a variety of acquisition channels, and implement a solid strategy to attract attention! You need to reach out to your customers and activate as many growth levers as possible to increase your revenue and grow your business.
Definition: What is a growth lever in business strategy?
In an increasingly tense and competitive economy, it's imperative for small and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) to find ways of standing out from the crowd. Growth levers are all the methods you can use to boost your performance!
What are the stages in a company's development?
Growth levers should be used at every stage of your company's development. Whatever the size of your ecommerce business, it's important to remember that all businesses follow the same cycle, broken down into four phases. This is a theory often repeated in leading ecommerce books.
- Startup: the first steps
This is undoubtedly the most difficult stage. Growth levers are therefore essential to help you make a name for yourself in your sector, support the product launches that form the basis of your business, and publicize your products and services. They can also help you build up your customer base and develop a good marketing strategy.
- Growth: developing your business
The growth phase generally takes place during the first few years of a company's operation. This is when your ecommerce business begins to generate tangible profits. Generally speaking, growing companies already have a solid customer base and a significant presence in their sectors.
- Maturity: success and stability
The maturity stage is undoubtedly when the entrepreneur is most confident. Their customers are loyal. Competitors pose no particular threat. Cash flow is constant. But that doesn't mean you should relax your vigilance or your efforts!
- Renewal: to always stay competitive
Finally, at some point, every company may be forced to question itself. It either needs to find new customers or propose a new offer, such as an innovation in sales, in communication, or in its resources, to boost its commercial development. Whatever the case, growth models are once again essential to the success of this change.
How do you accelerate your company's internal growth?
To accelerate your company's internal growth, it's imperative to never rest on your laurels and to be constantly vigilant. As a general rule, for your online store to be sustainable, as an entrepreneur, you must do the following:
- Know your target audience perfectly, so as to meet their needs.
- Identify your company's strengths and weaknesses
- Know how to challenge yourself.
- Use the right growth models at the right time.
What are the 9 best growth drivers?
A company is considered a growth engine when its annual growth is at least 6% over the last three years. To achieve or exceed this target performance, here are a few potential growth levers that could be of great use to your business.
Conduct ongoing digital market research
To grow your business, you need to know your market inside out. To do this, you need to keep a constant watch on your customers' expectations and the positioning of your main competitors. It's essential to carry out ongoing digital market research in order to keep abreast of developments.
Build a solid customer database
While it's important to attract new users and gain customers online, it's also vital to retain the ones you already have. Paying constant attention to your customers must be a top focus! To meet their expectations, you need to know them inside out and build up a solid customer database.
Increase customer loyalty through email marketing
Newsletters are an excellent way to keep in touch with your customers and work on building customer loyalty. Having loyal customers is an essential lever for any business. Not only can they generate new orders, but they can also become true ambassadors for your brand.
Create ecommerce affiliate campaigns
Affiliates are an excellent growth vector for companies. However, to achieve the desired effect, you need to work with the right partners who are perfectly targeted. That's how you get the best return on investment and conversion.
Activate your brand's various social networks
Social networks and community management are playing an increasingly important role in building customer relationships. According to the Kantar panel for Webloyalty, 69% of e-tailers use this lever. At this point, there's no reason to hesitate in investing in this channel to enhance your image, build a loyal community, and advertise!
Avail of influencer marketing: work with content creators
Recommendations are an excellent way to earn positive word of mouth and win the hearts of the people in your audience. Going through an influencer who's well known in your field is a guarantee of great feedback and potential buyers who already trust you!
Identify the best suppliers and negotiate your margins
When it comes to suppliers, you need to find the best balance between price and quality. Your partners must be able to provide you with good products and services on time and at an acceptable price so that you can remain competitive with the competition, while still earning a comfortable profit margin.
Automate customer service for greater efficiency
The companies that adapt best and fastest to consumer needs are usually the ones that come out on top! That's why you need to rely on innovation and digital tools. Automating your after-sales service will certainly make you more efficient and yield better returns.
Choose the best partners on the market
Finally, in life as in business, it's key to surround yourself with the right partners to be able to move forward. And that includes the solution you choose to design your commerce site. WiziShop is the best solution on the market. Our subscription includes over 400 features and 50+ SEO optimization tools so that you can gain even more visibility and increase your revenue! Best of all, to ensure you have all the keys to success, we offer full training and unlimited access to the advice of our business coaches.
In addition, in order to make your content creation process all the more efficient, you can use our powerful AI tool. With this feature, you're going to be able to write various kinds of high-quality content for your online store, like product descriptions, blog articles, titles and meta descriptions, and more, in a flash. This means you'll have more time to focus on other aspects of your business, such as product development, social media marketing, etc., and achieve even greater levels of success!
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Don't hesitate to use multiple levers for the growth of your business!
As you can see, there are many growth levers startups can activate to increase their companies' activity and revenue. In fact, it's completely possible to use several at once. The right one or ones for you at any given time will depend on numerous factors. Some strategies offer immediate results, while others are going to need to be worked on over time.
If you want to get started in ecommerce and stay the course for the long haul, you should feel free to play in several categories simultaneously and take advantage of the wide range of tools available today for product and brand marketing, the analysis of key ecommerce KPIs, customer service management, and other key actions to help multiply your store's potential!
