Every business begins small.
A business’s ability to overcome any obstacle along its journey is what determines its success.
Start identifying problems and creating solutions if you want to propel your business forward.
Learning from success stories is the best way to get inspired.
You can learn from case studies from different businesses which strategy is best for your product or attracting your target audience.
This article will focus on some of the most successful case studies that can be used to help small businesses scale.
Let’s begin.
Interesting read: 9 Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Challenges faced by small businesses
There are always obstacles to overcome when it comes to business. Entrepreneurs are proud of their achievements in starting a business, but it is difficult to maintain one.
Businesses must overcome three main challenges. These are managing expenses, hiring employees, and keeping up with new trends in order to build a customer base.
1. Increased Expenses
Money is the core of every business. Businesses must spend money in different areas. The problem is how to manage the financial hurdles. Businesses will spend more than they should if they don’t have a budget or financial advice.
It is crucial to keep an eye on your expenses as they determine how much profit you make.
It is difficult to lower the cost. Demand and supply are both factors that affect the cost. Businesses must keep up with market demands to increase their expenses by 100%.
2. Need More Skilled and Experienced Manpower
Businesses can’t be run by themselves. Businesses require staff with the skills and manpower to manage different departments. A small business typically employs between 1 and 500 employees. It is simple to find the right manpower, but it is hard and time-consuming to find skilled workers.
Businesses need to determine the skills that they are looking for in their candidates when hiring manpower. Candidates may not always meet all requirements. Hiring manpower can also increase expenses.
3. Keep up with the latest trends
Market dynamics are fluid. The market is constantly changing and introducing new trends. To keep their business growing, small businesses must keep up with changing trends. This is where many businesses begin to fail.
Businesses need to sell new trends at the right moment. This means that they must continue to study the market in order to predict their next products. A small business that fails to deliver at the peak of a trend will lose a lot.
Solutions for Growing a Small Business
Businesses have the best advantage of trying to solve every problem. This competition is great for finding different solutions that businesses can adopt.
1. Reduce your expenses
Businesses are more focused on communicating with customers and increasing revenue than they are on expenses. This is not an issue for large companies but can be costly for small businesses.
Cloud telephony has made it possible to solve the problem while still keeping business budgets in check. Because cloud phone services are less expensive than regular telephone services, they can be used by businesses.
It can reduce the initial costs of starting a business by up to 90%. Recent research suggests that cloud phone systems are a top priority for 74% of businesses.
Marketing is essential to attract customers. Advertisement costs for small businesses are prohibitively high.
This is where social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and others can be of great help. Promote and sell their products.
Case Study:Coffman Engineers
Coffman Engineers clearly states, although a cloud phone costs 50% more per employee than a regular telephone line (POTS), it still offers 25% savings overall.
Since the disaster at their office, Coffman Engineers has relied on cloud phones. They now have a disaster recovery function built into their cloud-based phone system. They were able to prepare for any kind of disaster without losing contact with their employees.
They also found all of the features they needed in one subscription package for a VoIP phone system. This allowed them to manage all of their business communications from one platform.
Key Takeaways
- Cloud telephony is essential for small businesses.
- Make extensive use of social media to market and sell your product/service.
2. Increase employee productivity
Small businesses face a lot of challenges when it comes to manpower. Higher productivity doesn’t necessarily mean more employees. To keep costs under control and increase productivity, businesses must hire the right people.
You can monitor the activities of your employees with a variety of tools. Every business requires time tracking tools and workforce management software.
These tools are essential for employees working remotely. With the help of tracking tools, companies have seen a 35%-40% increase in productivity for employees who work remotely.
Case Study: On the Map Marketing
On The Map Marketing, an agency that specializes in digital marketing, used time tracking tools to show that remote workers tend to work longer hours when they have flexible working hours.
On The Map Marketing began using the time tracking tool in Riga, Latvia when they opened their first office. The company’s CTO wanted to track the time spent on various tasks and manage remote workers.
They were able track their productivity using a time tracking tool. The tool also provides a detailed report on their office activities. They were able to calculate their salary bonuses. To determine the value of employees, they also used their productivity levels to calculate their worth to the company.
Key Takeaways
- To ensure that employees are focused on their work, small businesses should use time tracking tools.
- Small businesses can monitor the performance of their employees at work or remotely.
3. Reward your customers
When customers are happy, a business is successful. The quality of services and products has declined in small businesses trying to grow quickly. This is the main reason customers are dissatisfied.
Business professionals rank customer experience at the top of their list of priorities for growing a company by around 45%.
According to a survey, more than 85% of customers are willing and able to spend more to have a better experience. Small businesses must improve their products and services quality, as this is a strong indicator of customer satisfaction.
Case Study: Starbucks
Starbucks launched a Reward Loyalty Program, where customers can collect stars and get amazing rewards. This program generates 40% from Starbucks total sales.
Starbucks added a loyalty program by adapting the gamification technique to their existing app. This was a huge step forward in increasing digital traffic and sales. The app combines mobile payment, customer loyalty, content partnership, and mobile payment.
Customers began registering for My Reward through their app. In exchange for interaction with the app, or purchases made, they receive stars (or points). Higher star counts mean better rewards.
Key Takeaways
- For increased customer engagement, small businesses may offer different rewards.
- Customer service improvements can increase sales and help customers to buy more.
4. Create Your Brand
Small businesses need to learn how to create a brand image. The brand image is key to understanding how people see your business when marketing products and services.
First, a brand image should include the mission, vision, values. A brand positioning statement is also required to distinguish your business from its competitors.
A unique brand personality is essential. Businesses need to create a unique logo to make customers recognize the business. To create a strong brand image, they will need to identify their target market.
A study found that around 89% users remain loyal to businesses with a strong brand image.
Apple case study
The Apple logo is a widely recognized design that represents the brand’s value. The Apple logo has seen many design changes over the years.
Steve Jobs’ logo change was the most significant rebranding. This had a profound impact on the company’s personality. This logo is now the most widely recognized in the world.
Customers can sense trust, reliability and innovation when they look at the Apple logo. This is what drives the enormous sales of all Apple products around the world.
Key Takeaways
- A business’s brand helps them build relationships with prospects and retain customers.
- To sell their products effectively, small businesses must create strong brand images.
5. Prioritize Partnerships
Businesses can benefit from collaboration and partnerships to increase their savings. This allows companies to improve their programs by utilizing available resources and tools.
This directly impacts their efficiency. This increases the business’ credibility in the market.
Case study: RENAULT & NISSAN
Renault and Nissan share a strong partnership in automotives. Their partnership was able to make up 10% worldwide of new car sales.
Renault and Nissan decided to form an alliance instead of a merger, as an alliance offers many more benefits than a merger.
They can gain access to more areas that are not accessible for foreign investment by joining an alliance. The alliance gave these companies better opportunities to access each other’s territories where they had already been established.
Despite facing many challenges, including fluctuations in price share, they were able to overcome them and achieve success.
Key Takeaways
- To increase product sales and profits for all, small businesses can partner with larger businesses.
- Partnering with other businesses can allow all parties to benefit from the strengths of each other.
6. The Right Marketing Strategy
Every business needs to market its products and services. A business can’t compete on the market without marketing. Marketing starts with knowing your target audience.
Small businesses will be able to identify their competitors and see how they operate their business. This will allow them to attract customers and help them grow their customer base.
You can increase your website traffic to bring in more leads and ultimately customers. How can you increase your website traffic. SEO. Search Engine Optimization, if done correctly, can drive massive traffic to your site to achieve your marketing goals.
9 SEO Strategies that Will Last A Lifetime
Case study: Zapier
Zapier employed an SEO strategy that revolved around long-tail keywords to generate organic traffic to their site. They created 25,000 unique landing pages for unique keywords.
Zapier created a page structure and layout that included well-optimized, human-written content. They hired SEO content, and they created a playbook to guide the onboarding process. Then, they launched new apps that allow partners to create content.
They also outsourced link-building to their partners. They also provided a backlink to Zapier by allowing their partners to write valuable content for Zapier’s guest posts. This helped Zapier gain new users and increase their website traffic.
Key Takeaways
- Small businesses should increase their website traffic by creating more landing pages that contain relevant content.
- Backlinks from guest posts on other websites are a great way to drive website traffic and get more leads.
Conclusion
You now have a clear understanding of your business problems and possible solutions. This will allow you to develop a strategy that will help grow your small business.
You can also look at the case studies to see how other businesses have overcome similar situations to propel their businesses to new heights.
Understanding the needs of your customers is key to scaling a small business. To attract customers and compete in the market, you need to create a persuasive marketing strategy.
Social media is an integral part of any marketing strategy. SocialPilot is a free tool that will help you make the most out of your social media marketing efforts. Get it today!
SocialPilot’s first post was 6 Brilliant Case Studies for Small Businesses.
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