Business Growth Blog

Business developers and marketers talk to the same people, but sellers do it one-to-one, and marketers push to a broader audience. Their roles and goals are tied together because they both approach the same people for a sales conversation. That’s why they must collaborate and cooperate in their outreach efforts.

It can be challenging to step out of the grind of everyday work to attend conferences, but in a fast-paced industry like marketing, it's vital to stay up on the trends. I went to HyperGrowth in Boston a while back, a marketing conference put on by Drift, a technology company that focuses on bots and conversational marketing. There was a good mix of motivational, strategic, and tactical ideas and insights about success and growing a business.

I took notes during the presentations and recapped the key takeaways in this article. Here are eight progressive business growth strategies that the speakers discussed throughout the day. The overarching theme between HyperGrowth and Inbound (an adjacent marketing conference) was customer experience.

Every company must invest some time and money into marketing to get customers. You can’t do business without it. The investment is usually about 7-8% of the projected gross revenue for a small business. How a company uses the money is critical to its success. The ONLY way to know if the investment is getting a return is to collect and track specific sales and marketing data.

Through co-marketing, you can achieve remarkable feats that would otherwise be impossible.

Co-marketing is when two or more companies that aren't direct competitors but share a similar target audience, work together on a marketing campaign. (Like a lawn care company and a tree trimming company.)

One popular type of co-marketing campaign is a joint webinar. I've seen companies get between 10,000 and 20,000 webinar registrants by partnering up together.

There are 3 main roles companies can play in a co-marketing webinar: host, speaker, or sponsor.

Growing an email list and generating leads online is a solid business growth strategy, but can be painfully slow. One of the most effective ways I've seen companies expedite the process is to host, present at, or sponsor a co-marketing webinar. I've seen companies that have been able to get 10,000 to 20,000 new followers using this type of strategic marketing campaign.

These days, people have two lives: offline and online. Being visible to your social network physically and virtually opens the door to innumerable opportunities. A single person, even someone you barely know, can change the trajectory of your career or life.

Developing a strong personal and professional network takes commitment and dedication, which is tough because our lives are already busy with daily work, family, and friends (and maybe time for ourselves too!). But - a little goes a long way. The key is consistency and quality.

Many people are still unsure about how this whole online networking thing works. They don't know what to do or how to get value from it. In actuality, networking online isn't much different than the offline networking you engage in throughout your daily activities:

The first place potential customers will learn about your business is most likely from your social media profiles or website. What they see there will either engage them and make them want to learn more or turn them away. If your online presence is weak, you’re putting your company at a huge disadvantage and missing out on business opportunities. Here are a few stats that show why it’s critical to invest in your online presence:

When I first started doing marketing and lead generation, I used to worry about being driving leads for my clients. I've since learned that's the easy part! As long as there’s enough marketing activity, like blogging, email marketing, and social media, people will come to the website, and lead conversion rates will increase. Cool! Job done, right? Wrong.

Someone visiting your website is analogous to someone walking into a physical place of business. In a place of business, they would typically be addressed by a salesperson. Unfortunately, there isn’t a 3D human interaction when a person visits a website, so how do you cross the line between attracting people to your site and engaging them in a sales conversation? There’s a solution for that! The following fundamental sales and marketing alignment strategies can help companies replicate that in-person experience, optimize lead conversion, and increase their return on investment.

One of the main reasons to have a website is to get found online when someone is looking for information regarding your type of products or service offerings. These days, your website is your company – it replaces a physical space with a virtual space.

Like roads lead customers to a physical place of business, keywords lead online users to your virtual place of business. Without doing foundational SEO work, your website will not have the opportunity to get found by the right people. And even worse, your competitors will have a wide opening to rank for your keywords, meaning they will get the first crack at potential customers.

As you know, virtually all buyers search the internet before making a purchase, so ranking online for the words and phrases most relevant to your products and services is essential. Business keywords are the bridges that connect qualified prospects to your website.

Here's a high-level overview of how to choose the best terms and phrases that your potential customers will most likely search online. To help illustrate, I'll refer to an example of a medical device company called Paragon28.