Trying to grow a business seems impossible. Most of the time, the increased business from a marketing campaign disappears just as quickly as it arrived. Building sustainable growth that will drive your business forward is achievable by taking into consideration existing and potential customers.
The tips in this article is credited to Eric Ries in his book called The Lean Startup, and highlights the three engines of growth; The Viral, The Paid and The Sticky.
The 4 Ways Customers Drive Your Business
1. Word of Mouth -When people love your product, they’ll tell other people about it. It’s cheap, incredibly effective, but also difficult to build deliberately. This is referred to as the Viral Engine of Growth.
2. Side Effect of Using the Product – Many products advertise themselves. Simply by using a product, a customer advertises your product to people around them. This also could be referred to as a Viral Engine of Growth.
3. Paid Advertising/Promotion – You’re buying your customers. A built/automated system that can track the effectiveness of the ads. This is referred to as the Paid Engine of Growth. Purchasing ads, employing sales teams, are examples of the paid engine of growth.
4. Repeat Use – Many products need to be bought repeatably in order to continue to use them. Domain registration and web hosting are all examples of this. When you have a product that requires repeated purchases, you only have to obtain a small number of new customers to keep growing. This is also referred to as the Sticky Engine of Growth.
What other ways can customers help build a sustainable business model ?