Regardless of the potential of a business, there are always periods of unprecedented slowness, over which you have little or no control.

Economic downturns happen for many reasons – in this case due to the disruption caused by Coronavirus lockdowns – and can last for months or even years. In a downturn, you may experience a sudden plunge in your revenue or cash flow difficulties, or it may be harder to make sales.

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is what defines the uniqueness of your business in a competitive marketplace. In other words, it’s what distinguishes your business from competitors X, Y and Z, and is the reason for a prospect to choose your service over theirs.

From your USP flow all the core messages and value propositions you use to make sales. A lot rests on your USP, and it is essential to make it as strong, compelling and clear as possible, regardless of how crowded or niche your sector happens to be.

For a business starting out, the prospect of attracting the right type of customers, with the value you need to grow your enterprise, can be daunting. Fortunately, digital technology allows you to target very specific markets with valuable content and highly tailored marketing messages. You no longer have to rely on word of mouth referrals, cold calling or scattergun advertising.

Yet, simply reaching a market is not enough to turn leads into customers.

As a business owner, whenever you engage a person using a marketing technique – e.g. email marketing, an online advert etc – that person becomes a lead. Lead generation is the process of creating interest in your products and services in the hopes of turning them into paying customers.

As the result of lead generation is ultimately sales, rather than enquiries, finding the best ways to increase the quality and relevance of your leads is central to lead generation, as is the process of nurturing a lead from first contact to first purchase.

The ruthlessly competitive business environment for SMEs means any edge can be a huge advantage. Getting your marketing right could massively boost your sales this year.

Follow these five digital growth strategies to get you started.

The days when online marketing was a non-issue for the construction sector are gone. The power of the Internet is now being harnessed at every level of the industry – and your competitors know this. Internet marketing is an excellent way for your business to optimise resources and improve its bottom line.

Here are five ideas to help you.

As the world's largest professional social network, LinkedIn membership can bring profound benefits to any business development strategy. The platform offers different levels of paid membership, which offer varying advantages and provide different business functions.

Here's a quick summary.

Investing in marketing is the foremost way to increase sales and revenue for your business. One of the most effective ways of promoting your products and services to a tightly selected audience is content marketing.

Content marketing, such as on blogs, websites, social media and so on, focuses on creating content for your audience that is engaging, informative and ultimately so enticing they will be persuaded to become customers.

As such, arriving at the right content marketing strategy for your business is imperative to maximising sales.

While business meetings are a common routine in corporate life, too often they are either badly structured or poorly timed to create much positive impact. For example, many businesses have sales meetings but neglect to include their marketing staff, which should be an important part in the process of making sales.

Meetings are essential for the direction and growth of your business, and it is important to know what kind of meetings your business should be having, how regularly they should be held and how to make them as productive as possible.

In today’s online world, businesses must rely on digital marketing strategies to turn leads into customers. Yet just like your customers, not all marketing activities offer the same value and returns as others, and some will prove more effective in certain instances than others.

Therefore, it is useful to examine different marketing activities and what they can offer – in order to maximum your potential revenue.