15 Effective Strategies for Driving Sustainable Growth Using Online Platforms
In the digital era, businesses are constantly seeking innovative strategies for sustainable growth, so we turned to industry experts, including CEOs and CMOs, for their insights. From fostering digital human interaction to engaging with meme marketing, explore the diverse tactics shared by fifteen professionals on leveraging online platforms for business success.
- Foster Digital Human Interaction
- Revitalize Email Marketing Tactics
- Leverage Short-Form Video Content
- Make Data-Driven Decisions
- Provide Value Beyond Transactions
- Implement Automation for Efficiency
- Utilize Storytelling for Brand Growth
- Adhere to Industry-Specific Budgeting
- Ensure Data Transparency and Security
- Practice Inclusive Design
- Understand Your Early Adopters
- Incentivize with Loyalty Programs
- Create a Personalized Online Playground
- Set Daily KPIs for Growth
- Engage with Meme Marketing
Foster Digital Human Interaction
With AI taking over the marketing space, human interaction is vital—even if it is digital human interaction. By utilizing community marketing, creating an online community that fosters a space where consumers can collaborate and share their thoughts and feelings about the brand is pivotal to creating long-term, sustainable growth.
While social media and paid marketing offer a great “foot-in-the-door” technique, creating a community platform solely for your community can help. In this community, you can then gamify tasks, engagement, etc., and foster a sense of belonging.
Sumarie Engelbrecht
Search Engine Optimization Specialist, TBô Clothing
Revitalize Email Marketing Tactics
I believe that email is one of those marketing tactics that people no longer contemplate. It’s surprising that one of the most commonly performed activities by internet users is also one of the least utilized when it comes to sustainable growth. If done right, email marketing can be extremely effective.
Simply keeping a few things in mind, such as the email’s body, relevant content, and a professionally designed template, might help you get the traction you need. If you want to stand out in a market where each consumer can receive up to 100 emails per day, you will have to offer them results that can’t be received from any other channel or website.
Daniel Cabrera
Owner, Sell My House Fast SA TX
Leverage Short-Form Video Content
Creating short-form videos is an excellent marketing tool for reaching millions of people interested in your services or products.
Two fine examples that exemplify the value of visual content to help businesses drive growth and connect with users are Instagram and TikTok. In addition to providing the necessary information in a brief amount of time, these videos keep viewers interested and scrolling for longer periods due to the way they portray content to their users.
Businesses can utilize this marketing approach in a variety of ways, one of which is by producing silent videos and adding textual annotations to them. So, with these platforms, building a strong consumer base is simple.
One thing that is unquestionably a concern is that you should be dedicated to updating it with new content. Hence, constantly staying active and posting content at the proper time to achieve the most exposure possible is the key to success.
Marcus Phillips
Founder Managing Director, Mortgages
Make Data-Driven Decisions
Any business looking to grow should focus on making data-driven decisions. Decisions that rely on data insights ensure every action and every effort is intentional and impactful. Businesses should use data analytics tools to track the performance of their online platforms and the effectiveness of their online campaigns, and understand customer behavior.
We focus on data when working on marketing campaigns for our clients at Promodo. We track various metrics depending on the client’s goal, but rely on data to guide our decisions.
The beauty of a data-driven approach is that you don’t have to deal with gut feelings or guesswork. It allows businesses to focus their efforts where needed, where there is hope for growth, and where the efforts matter most. Growth in business is not always about making big changes; sometimes, data provides insights on minor tweaks that lead to major growth.
Valerie Lavska
CMO, Promodo
Provide Value Beyond Transactions
Our customers’ journey doesn’t end after the purchase; it begins. We offer educational content through our social media platforms and resources on our website, including guides and tutorials on using our product.
We also have a product-comparison tool, flexible financial options, and an accessories marketplace. Thus, our customers can easily get information on where to purchase replacement parts to help extend their steam cleaners’ lifespan. Providing value even after purchase helps us become more than a steam cleaner provider; we become a trusted authority in the steam cleaning industry. It has led to customer loyalty, trust, brand awareness, and preference over other brands.
Offering a comprehensive, beneficial, and engaging customer experience after purchase ensures you do not just sell products—you sell a journey they want to be a part of, promoting your growth.
Lev Tretyakov
CEO and Sales Director, Fortador
Implement Automation for Efficiency
One effective way businesses can drive sustainable growth through their online platforms is by utilizing automation as much as possible. From my personal experience, I have seen that automation streamlines routine and repetitive tasks. Plus, since the tasks are done by machines, it eliminates the chances of human errors.
Most importantly, you can get them to work 24/7/365 days at one-tenth of the price of human resources. Plus, by automating the online platforms, you free up your team for more strategic and creative tasks. So, you can drive better innovation and growth without burning resources.
Besides, automations like adding chatbots on websites and apps are the future for improving customer experience. Till now, they are good enough for handling common queries but are expected to become better at managing complex conversations in the next few years.
Karina Jugo
Content Creator, Editor and SEO Writer, RentPost
Utilize Storytelling for Brand Growth
Every business can be a success if marketing strategies are designed to show audiences the real, sophisticated minds at work for the brand. Modern audiences anticipate mind-blowing marketing methods since they live in the digital age. They seek firms that are one-of-a-kind, creative, and sustainable, as well as those that can make a statement on a variety of issues.
Storytelling is one such effective technique to make your business grow sustainably. Ask yourself, “How can I communicate the story of my product in a way that connects audiences to my brand?” Storytelling can be a powerful tool for increasing audience awareness of your brand and comprehension of their needs. It creates avenues to demonstrate how the brand detects customer wants and uses its products or services to make customers happy.
Jonathan Palley
Partner, QR Code Generator Hub
Adhere to Industry-Specific Budgeting
It’s important to have a proper budget in place across all your online platforms. Overspending can lead to an excessive number of leads that you can’t capture, or growth that comes at a pace you can’t keep up with. Your spending is heavily industry-based.
For example, in HVAC, for sustainable growth, we look to spend 7% of gross revenue on advertising. To maintain small, organic growth, we drop it to 4%. Figure out what your number is for your industry and stick to it.
Christopher Olson
Chief Financial Officer, Surfside Services, LLC
Ensure Data Transparency and Security
One that I don’t see talked about enough is something that businesses need to do in the background of their online platforms: ensure data transparency and data security. Without doing both of these, you are unlikely to see the same levels of sustainable growth in your business from your online platforms, simply because you will not operate at the same level of trust with your customers as those of your competitors that do meet these requirements.
Stress your cybersecurity credentials, tell your customers what you do with their data, and be as transparent as possible to generate goodwill and customer loyalty.
Kate Kandefer
CEO, SEOwind
Practice Inclusive Design
For me, being sustainable in the digital world is all about practicing inclusive design. Any kind of digital innovation should really match the problem it’s trying to solve, fit the people it’s for, and work well in the place it’s going to be used. These things can be really different depending on where you are. If your tech solution doesn’t get these right, it’s not going to do well.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure digital innovations are designed with everyone in mind and focus on real human needs. This involves getting feedback from the people who will actually use your product and working with them to create it. You need to design with a clear understanding of their needs and take the time to learn about the environment where your solution will be used.
By doing all this, the people making these digital products are more likely to come up with solutions that are practical, sustainable, and truly helpful to the people who matter most.
James McNally
Managing Director, SDVH [Self Drive Vehicle Hire]
Understand Your Early Adopters
Being sustainable in today’s digital world also means understanding your early adopters. For any digital innovation to take off, you need customers and users who are ready to invest in and try your product first. The technology adoption curve is a useful guide when thinking about how to get these first customers, or early adopters, to see the value of your product and get involved. A successful launch isn’t just about reaching your target customers; it’s about turning early adopters into true believers who are invested in the success of your solution.
So, how do you do this? Start by figuring out who in your target market is open to trying a new solution and what might motivate them to do so. The right incentives for your target customers depend on what they need and want, but could include things like price cuts, special support for early adopters, or a look into how the product is being developed.
Amy Tribe
Director, OGLF (Our Good Living Formula)
Incentivize with Loyalty Programs
I’ve always been a proponent of loyalty programs to drive sustainable growth. You see this quite frequently in major shopping enterprises, as they look for ways to reward repeat customers and build that brand loyalty that is oh-so-important in their industry.
By offering exclusive discounts, early access to certain products, or various other perks, you help maintain a robust client base that is committed to using your platform. I’ve even seen this taken a step further by Orange, a major European telecom company, as they offer users of their online platform a discount on their monthly bills.
Onno Halsema
CEO, Contentoo
Create a Personalized Online Playground
Our growth magic is turning our online spot into a personalized playground. Imagine your favorite playground, but online! With smart tricks, it knows what users enjoy and suggests cool stuff. It’s like a playground buddy that never misses the fun.
This shift made visits jump by 25%. It’s not just a site; it’s a digital playmate. By adding a sprinkle of personal fun, our place feels like a playdate, keeping users happily hooked and our growth swinging high.
Al Lijee
CEO, myWindshield
Set Daily KPIs for Growth
One way businesses can drive sustainable growth using various online platforms is to set daily KPIs and daily activities to reach their goals. To elaborate on this further, the way that we do this as a company is that every day there are a minimum number of pitches we need to make on websites such as Featured.com.
By having this be a daily practice with a daily metric, it creates a sustainable process which takes only about 20 minutes a day. By doing this as a daily routine, we’ve been able to generate a lot of backlinks, which have helped our SEO tremendously. Additionally, we’ve been able to set additional KPIs for Google My Business posts on a daily basis, as well as Facebook posts.
As you can see from reading this, the most important thing is having daily KPIs, which results in activity being generated, which results in predictable results over time that create sustainable growth. Now, because we have our daily activity to do and we know the results that that should bring on average, we can predict when we will need another employee, thus resulting in a sustainable practice.
Sebastian Jania
CEO, Ontario Property Buyers
Engage with Meme Marketing
Meme marketing has a lot of scope, and social media is proof of that. It has huge power to drive sustainable growth on your page while increasing interactions as well. Gen Z is all about a sense of humor and creative thinking. And while traditional social media marketing of uploading posts might not work, uploading humorous content to grab the attention of your target audience definitely works.
Understanding that humor can be applied to any niche while keeping it respectful and not overly weird is important. Choose someone who understands your vision, and this will definitely drive growth.
Julia Lozanov
Chief Editor, Verpex
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