Whether your business has been around for 10 years or you’re just getting started, taking your company to the next level requires a lot of strategy and a rock solid plan. Though we all wish it could be easier to bring in more revenues, the fact of the matter is that if it were too easy, everyone would be doing it. The very fact that growing your business is difficult is the reason that growing your business is worth doing in the first place. Fortunately, with the proper knowledge of your particular industry, you can create a plan that will get you on top of the marketplace.

Typically, the first place you should start digging into if you want to grow your business is your marketing. By simply exposing your products or services to more potential customers, you can easily see a large boost in sales and revenues. However, wasteful spending of your marketing budget can also lead down a totally different path: insolvency. The best chance of success you have with marketing is to create a plan and slowly branch out into different tactics. This is the best way to control your marketing expenses because you can typically spot a problem before it gets completely out of control.

By and large, you should start off by only running a portion of your marketing campaign to see how it does. If you are having trouble getting a piece of your marketing strategy underway, then you may want to go back to the drawing board before you waste too much of your budget. You also need to be aware that some portions of your marketing strategy will need to be rolled out together in order to be effective, so an intelligent plan is vital from the beginning. For instance, if you mention printed coupons on a radio advertisement, you’ll need to make sure that those coupons are printed and ready for your potential customers to obtain.

Also, you want to make sure that the advertising choices you make are appropriate for the type of business that you operate. For instance, if you run a nightclub and use sparklers for bottle service to attract more sales, you can definitely spread the word through your website and social media presence, but not over the television or radio waves. On the other hand, if your nightclub offers a “ladies night” every Wednesday night, that may be a campaign that would be worth investing the time and money necessary for a television or radio ad spot. Basically, you need to balance out the end value that you expect to see and weigh that against the time and money cost of that particular marketing strategy to see if it is viable in the first place.

In the end, you will probably want to create a few different marketing strategies and research them thoroughly before putting anything into action. If you properly plan your marketing campaign and test it on a small level, you should be able to scale that strategy and expand your business in a big way.