Expanding Your Local Business: 5 Tips For Success
If you’ve been operating a small local business for a while and been successful, you may have noticed that there is an opportunity to expand and grow bigger.
There will be many ways you can make this happen, but there will be some things to be wary of. With all that in mind, we have put together six tips that could help you achieve success when expanding your local business into a national brand or even an international brand. Read on to get started.
Create An Expansion Plan
Once you’ve researched the market and the competition, you will then have to think more about your expansion in general. It depends on the type of expansion you’re doing too. For example, it will be a smaller plan if you’re expanding into the next town other than another country.
International expansion is an effective way for any business to grow, but there will be challenges along the way. Different countries will have different tax issues and legal matters, and the fact you will have to deal with different cultures and languages. A major part of this involves you researching as early as possible to give yourself the best chance of success.
You may have more luck with expanding internationally if you plan and create a global expansion strategy. This involves detailed market analysis, establishing some structure, and creating a roadmap for success. When expanding domestically, you may still need to incorporate some elements of this expansion plan so you have a direction to head towards. If you are considering combining your business with another business in an effort to reach new markets, ensure you seek a broker who can sell-side mergers and acquisitions. Merging with another company can also give you access to all of their existing customers, giving you a quick and easy way to expand your client-base.
Engage In Marketing
You will find that you can expand your business easier when more people are ready to receive your brand. As you well know, marketing is one of the most effective ways to get your brand out there, which makes it an important time to focus on marketing when looking to expand.
You should look into a few different marketing techniques to maximise the chances of success for your expansion. For local expansion, it will be beneficial to look into physical-based marketing, such as posters and billboards. However, you should also be looking into digital marketing even if you’re still expanding locally. If you’re considering expanding into the global market, be sure to check out wirtschaftsforum.de to find out more about the world of business from a German perspective.
Digital marketing could be conducted through social media or it could be through search engines. One of the most effective ways you can advertise through google is with a PPC campaign. This is a pay-per-click campaign and helps you to increase sales and get more leads. You can specialise the campaigns for specific keywords in certain areas. You should work with PPC experts such as Big Surf Digital to run a cost-effective campaign. They have thirteen years’ experience with PPC, so you know you will be getting a good, personalised service.
Visit Networking Events
If you want to expand effectively, you and the business will benefit from attending some local networking events. These events could help you meet other businesses that could benefit your own business and get your brand out there in the business world.
Networking events don’t just have to connect you with other businesses. You could attend networking events that connect you with potential customers. These events could be marketing events where you give a few samples of your product or discounts to help grow your brand.
You may also attend a networking event that helps you find potential employees to add to your business. These job fairs can help you find interested individuals who could play a major part in your future expansion.
Explore Franchising
Expanding your business can happen in a few different ways. One of the ways that you may wish to make it happen is by franchising your business in some way. If you currently have a strong brand but only in one store, then it could be time to look for new opportunities.
There is very little formal regulation over franchising your business in the UK. You could open the extra branches yourself or appoint someone else to do this on your brand’s behalf. If you believe your brand is strong enough, then you will be able to franchise it.
You will need to ensure that any new franchise set up in your brand’s name does everything the same way. This means you should document your procedures and protect your brand through trademarks and copyright.
Diversify Your Products
Lastly, it’s worth talking about the benefits of diversifying your product lines. When you are looking to expand your business in any way, it will help if you come up with new products at the same time of any new launch.
It may be that you come up with some completely fresh products that compliment your current product line. Or you may want to come up with something completely different to compliment a new market. Either way, it is worth thinking about your products when expanding the business, as this could be the perfect time to change things up.
