3 PROVEN STRATEGIES TO GROW YOUR BRANDS/BUSINESSES.

Growing your business can only happen when you meet consumer needs, better than competition and at a profit. There are 3 strategies to achieve this.

1. Recruitment aka “enter the place” : As a business, our consumer base is constantly evolving. It is called the “leaky bucket effect”. This means consumers are constantly joining and leaving your brand. Many join for various reasons: a random word of mouth from a friend, their preferred brand being out of stock, a favourite celebrity promoted the brand, a BOGOF discount, attractive product packaging/display trade, a recent great advert seen, curiosity etc..

At the same time, some leave: dissatisfaction at second moment of truth (SMOT= when they try the brand), change in consumer’s socio economic profile (outgrow your brand economically or vice versa), absence at First moment of truth (FMOT)- trade , Change in consumer habits e.g. lifestyle changes , change in consumer demographics e.g. hit old age and stopped some products etc.

This is why the job of marketing especially driving awareness, distribution and trial never ends. A business that must continue in growth must forever keep recruiting new customers.

TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS, ADD NEW CONSUMERS.

2. RE-PURCHASE aka “Don’t leave me” . Getting your consumer to buy your brand is one thing. Getting them to buy it again and again and again is another thing entirely. Recently, I was at a wine aisle in a modern key account store in Ghana and it hit me! The consumers had at least 30 brands of wines on that shelf to choose from! Why should they keep buying one brand over and over? Afterall, variety is the spice of life! This is where your brand equity comes in- what does your brand mean to consumers? what does choosing your brand say about a consumer? This is where constant innovation and creativity of executions differentiate brands. Also, product innovation comes in. It is a never-ending job to remain the “a new bride” to your consumers to keep them in love with you. 100% loyalty is mostly not possible as your consumers are the likely infrequent consumers of other brands and vice-versa.

TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS, GET YOUR CONSUMER YOU MORE OFTEN, MORE THAN OTHER BRANDS IN THEIR REPERTOIRE

3. SPEND MORE STRATEGY aka “chopmymoneygang“: Salons do this well. You go in just to wash your hair but before you know it, they’ve made you fix nails, lashes, they’ve convinced you to do facials and maybe even a spa session.

There are ways for brands to adopt this strategy E.g. Subscription packages/ membership deals , Bundle offers to increase consumption/purchase per time- very good strategy to drive brand affinity (you like what you see/use long enough), Large packs skus of your brands, co-bundled variety packs can achieve this.

TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS, GET YOUR CONSUMERS TO SPEND MORE ON YOUR PORTFOLIO per purchase occasion.

There are additional strategies like Trade up & trade across but these 3 are the fundamental ones.

Tolu Adedeji.

Brand, Business lover. Still in love, after 17 years!

…To be continued.