Get the Basics to Grow Your Business

Business Tips
grow your business

Hub Australia

3rd October 2018

Hub Australia has grown since launching in 2011, with coworking spaces open across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, helping over 3000 small businesses, entrepreneurs, project teams, and teams grow, thrive, and succeed.

Read more: How to Choose the Best Coworking Space

Check you’re on the right track and doing the most to help you grow your business.

Be Authentic

Define your brand.

What do you stand for? What do your customers care about? What pain point are you solving for them? What is your brand voice and persona? Are you funky and hip? Or classy and professional?

If you haven’t already done so, write out your own thorough brand guidelines – and make sure you and everyone you bring into the organisation sticks to them.

Ensure your marketing is always aligned with your brand identity, so that your customers and clients know what to expect from your brand.

Let your customers do the talking.

If you can turn your customers into passionate advocates, they can be an amazing tool for helping you bring in new customers. As well as word of mouth referrals, online advocacy such as testimonials, social indicators, reviews, and case studies all convey your value propositions.

Customers trust other customers more than they trust you – authenticity means that you can leverage these advocates and they will help spread the word of your business!

Speak the language

Use the types of words and language your customers use when speaking to each other – jargon is one thing when used internally, but your customers almost never want to learn a new lexicon to be able to associate with your brand.

Know how your product or service helps

All businesses and brands should be aiming to solve a need or deliver a product that can improve peoples lives in some way.

Your brand should be built around the solution you deliver – this gives you the basis of all of your marketing and communications.

Read more: 10 Things All Startups Need to Do

User-Generated Content

Brand engagements rise by 28% when consumers are exposed to a mixture of professional marketing content and user-generated content. 

Depending on your industry and customer base, there may be an amount of UGC you aren’t using yet – check your tags on social media (especially any potential common misspellings).

If you want to encourage your customers to help promote your brand, a good tip for smaller startups is to also promote your customers and clients in your own content.

It’s rare that someone can resist sharing content with themselves in it, and it’s a great way to build a mutual relationship.

Running promotions focussed on UGC with potential rewards, fostering relationships, or even blatantly asking for people to share their experiences with you are all great ways to grow your library of user-generated content, and grow your business as a result.

Social Media

Are you using every channel, every day?

Being active on social media is a necessity for this day and age  – find out which platforms your audiences are using and make the most of them, ensuring to engage with similar organisations and share content regularly.

Is your content shareable?

Once you’ve got regular content on your social media channels, you need to make sure it’s something your future customers will either want to read, or will be keen to share with their friends. Use great words and images to get the best first impression across instantly.

Are your staff promoting/cross-promoting?

Your team needs to be your biggest promoters – authenticity comes from selling a product you believe can bring value or solve an issue in people’s lives. Get your staff on board as word-of-mouth advocates, sharing your content and stories to promote your brand – each has networks that are likely to overlap with your target audience and future customers.

Are you recycling, reusing, and redistributing any content created?

Once you post something, that doesn’t mean you can tick it off your list as ‘done’. Every piece of content can be redistributed dozens of times, each giving you new opportunities to reach different people with information about your brand and mission.

Read more: How to Better Understand Your Digital Audience

If you’re part of a growing business or a motivated entrepreneur, contact Hub Australia to find out how membership at an amazing coworking space full of diverse businesses can help you grow your business.