Bounce Back in 2021: 7 Tips for Business Growth

With all the repercussions you’ve trudged through this past year, how do you gain the momentum and expertise to bounce back in 2021? 

Despite the challenges 2020 dumped on us and we all continue to face, we can still come out strong. Here are seven of the best ways to grow your business. Use each tip to help your team stay rooted in strategy, intuition, and hope. 

Read more articles to help grow your business in 2021:

• Boost Your Bottom Line: 10 Email Marketing Tips for 2021
• How Do You Find the Right SEO Company in 2021
• 55 Digital Marketing Stats that Will Impact Your Business in 2021

1. Budget Well & Plan Accordingly

First things first, what’s your 2021 marketing budget looking like? While it’s good to have ideas on strategies you’d like to pursue, you also need to be realistic and determine if they’re even feasible with your budget.

Take a look at your 2020 revenue to see how aggressive you’d like to invest this coming year. For guidance, use a trusted marketing budget calculator to sort out your budget. From there, you can identify how to allocate that money into different marketing channels (SEO, social media, PPC, etc.). 

Don’t hesitate to tap into industry research while you’re crunching the numbers. It can help ensure you’re investing in the right places and on track to grow. And who knows, the findings might also provide ideas on how to build more agile strategies for 2021. 

2. Make Sure Your SEO Is Up & Running

In today’s digital world, taking an agile approach often means investing more in online channels. This can give your business the extra boost it needs to consistently stay connected with your customers—no matter what circumstances arise. 

A good place to start? SEO. Ninety-three percent of experiences begin with a search engine. Not to mention, SEO leads have a 14.6 percent close rate compared to 1.7 percent for outbound leads (radio/TV ads, direct mail, etc.).

Think of SEO as the fuel to your business’ engine—you need it to consistently attract the right customers and stay miles ahead of your competition. 

Here are a few tips to stay on top of your SEO efforts: 

• Think about search intent: One of the most essential 2021 marketing trends is search intent. Google is getting better and smarter as we speak. Though keywords still play a pivotal role in search rankings, search engines are looking at the intent—why is someone searching for this phrase? Focus on this as you build out your content.
• Think about voice search: “Alexa, where’s the nearest cookie shop?“ More and more Google searches are being done this way. In fact, 76 percent of smart speaker users perform local searches on a weekly basis. Instead of simple search words, opt for full question phrases in your SEO practices. This can also help you capture the answer box snippet—at least 50 percent of searches rely on answer box snippets to deliver information to voice searchers.
• Think about your local audience/searchers: If you’re a business that provides products/services in specific geographic areas, local SEO is a must. Otherwise, your business will pop up in Google for the wrong audience. So start by ensuring your local citations are in good shape and your information is consistent across all listings. For further guidance, check out Big Leap’s local SEO tools and free expert audit checklist guide. 

3. Extend Your Reach—Invest in Paid Social

Social media provides great opportunities to build profitable relationships. And though organic social efforts can help kindle connections with your followers, you need to layer your social strategies with paid efforts to expand your reach even further. 

Paid social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn Ads let you carry out paid ad campaigns. These ads let you target and retarget specific audiences to help boost your brand awareness and encourage more site traffic. 

By incorporating a Facebook Ads and page likes campaign for Instant Tax Solutions, our social media team was able to win a 214.7 percent increase in Facebook followers and 2,000+ visits to our client’s landing page. 

4. Personalize through Automation

Eighty percent of consumers are more likely to buy from businesses that offer a personalized experience—it invokes authenticity and trust. But we understand establishing this is easier said than done. 

When you have numerous leads, how the heck do you make each person feel special? Not to mention, how do you consistently stay connected with them without wanting to pull your hair out? 

The answer is marketing automation. Automation software enables both your sales and marketing team to look at your buyer’s journey and identify ways to streamline and customize your marketing campaigns. Better yet, it allows you to automate the following tasks: 

• Segmentation: Are your leads in different stages of the buying process? With the right automation software, you can easily group them by key characteristics. That way, you can send out personalized messages to each group to better nurture your leads. Marketers who use segmented email campaigns see a 760 percent increase in revenue.
• Lead-scoring: Lead-scoring is another way marketing automation allows you to step up your personalization game. You set up a lead-scoring model that assigns a value to each of your contacts. The values prioritizes them, which enables you to invest your time and effort on the folks who matter the most. This method can bring a serious boost to your lead generation game—a lead-scoring model brought Roof Maxx a 200 percent increase in meetings with leads. 

5. Let Your Data Do the Talking

Are you tracking the performance of your campaigns? More importantly, are you monitoring them to help guide your decisions? 

Setting up SEO, social media, and marketing automation strategies is great, but to really boost your revenue, you need to let the data do the talking.

Here are a few tools to consider to help you make sound decisions in 2021: 

• Google Analytics: This free tool tracks and monitors key metrics like site traffic, bounce rates, conversions, and click-through rates. These numbers can help your team discover what’s working and what isn’t and make the necessary adjustments. You can also integrate AdWords into Google Analytics to measure your PPC campaigns.
• Buzzsumo: Buzzsumo can also be handy for guest blogging and backlinking opportunities. For example, a website that has a lower domain authority (DA) than you do might not provide you with the impactful results you need. Therefore, you can use Buzzsumo to look for sites with a larger DA that can elevate your authority. This platform also lets you monitor keyword search volume, the performance of your competitors’ content, the number of shares on your social platforms, and backlinks.
• Hubspot: This platform not only lets you execute marketing automation tactics, but it also tracks key metrics of your marketing and sales campaigns. For example, you can implement A/B testing to find the types of call-to-actions (CTAs) that bring in the most conversions. 

6. Build from Within—Elevate Your Company Culture

When you’ve got your head buried in multiple strategies and trends, it’s easy to overlook your most valuable resource—your people. 

Growing your business involves growing the team behind it. This means fostering a positive and healthy work environment that inspires your team to bring their best foot forward. Businesses that invest in the employee experience are four times more profitable than organizations that don’t. 

To enhance your employee experience, consider adopting the go-giver mentality by: 

• Sending out surveys/questionnaires: What are some common issues that your team faces? Are they making their job more challenging? Are they causing morale to plummet? Having your employee complete anonymous surveys can provide good insight into the areas that need improvement.
• Having one-on-one meetings:  One-on-one meetings can encourage people to talk to their leaders about any issues/concerns regarding their roles. This can establish an inclusive culture that can lead to better learning and performance outcomes.
• Launching a mentorship program: You can incorporate this as part of your onboarding process. Pairing new hires with mentors (those who are seasoned employees and can offer meaningful feedback) can set your employees up for success and improve the overall experience and quality of their work. 

The more you give to your employees, the more they’ll give back. And together, you can produce exemplary results. 

7. Establish the Right Connections

In addition to investing time in each employee, you also need to think of the big picture. This might involve finding ways to bridge gaps between teams and looking to resources outside your organization. 

• Reach out to your colleagues: Web development, design, sales, content, the list goes on. These teams play a large role in your marketing efforts. Remember, an impactful marketing strategy is a collaborative one; it involves the skills and expertise of various teams.
  
  So take a moment to analyze how your teams work. Do you need to bridge any gaps? Reach out to your colleagues. Give them the opportunity to share their strategies with others. And from here, find ways your teams can productively work together to drive better results.

• Reach out to thought leaders within your industry: Thought leaders can be influencers and/or people you look up to in your industry. Don’t hesitate to be proactive and reach out to them. For example, if you come across an article or video that really resonates with you, leave a comment for the writer or connect with them via LinkedIn. This can potentially lead to guest blogging or backlink opportunities. Not only will you gain a valuable connection, but you’ll also get a chance to elevate your online authority. Win-win. 

Revive Your Business with the Right Team

Uncertainties still lie ahead, but with the right team to help safeguard your business, you can have better peace of mind. After all, there’s power in numbers. 

If you’re looking for a team to help you bounce back in full force, reach out to Big Leap. Rooted in trust, quality relationships, and long-term results, our team won’t stop working until you’re satisfied. What does success look like to you? We’re ready to listen.