75 Business Strategy Examples to Help You Win in 2022

Choosing the right business strategies for your company has never been more important. This article will help you find the best business strategies for your company to achieve its growth and profit goals.

Today’s entrepreneurs have more strategy options than ever before. While this can be confusing, the fundamental considerations of how to choose the best business strategies have not changed. It is super important that your choices fit within the framework of your company’s vision and current state of reality. Most importantly, the strategies should complement each other.

Business strategies are often categorized, but it is important to remember that the ultimate goal of every business strategy (with the possible exception of certain social responsibility initiatives)  is to increase sales and profits, either directly or indirectly.

I have created this blog article to summarize the diverse types of business strategies available to entrepreneurs in today’s digitally connected business environment.

Business Strategy Examples

Sales Growth Business Strategies

Grow market share

Market share strategies are focused on taking a larger piece of your market versus the competition. Market share can be measured in units or in dollars and is expressed as a percentage. Market share compares a company’s performance to its peers as compared to sales growth which is an internal metric, and it is important to measure both.

Cross-sell more products

Cross-selling is a way to increase the share of wallet you realize from your customer. Up-selling an upholstery clean during a carpet cleaning service call is an example of a cross-sell strategy in action.

Grow sales from new products

Providing a broader range of products or services to your existing customer base can be a powerful strategy when you have experience understanding the needs of your target market.

Enter a new market

Entering new markets typically costs more and the start-up phase can be risky when you consider the need to invest in an innovative marketing, sales, and distribution infrastructure. However, for example, if you are a residential cleaning company, expanding into the commercial cleaning market will be less risky because you already understand the cleaning business in general.

Product differentiation

A product differentiation strategy is designed to beat the competition by standing out on one or more criteria that customers deem valuable with your product or service. examples of such differentiators might be performance, quality, durability, brand image, or price.

Exploit a technological advantage

Exploiting a technological advantage does not have to be a specific product advantage. For example, Walmart has long been deemed to have a technological advantage in its logistical and distribution system, which allows it to have a lower cost structure and thus offer lower prices.

Pricing strategies

Pricing strategies involve more than raising or lowering prices. Through understanding a company’s market elasticity and its product’s value proposition, strategic pricing moves can be made that significantly increase value for the company. A key advantage of a price increase is in its ability to leverage profits. For example, a company that sells a product for $100 with a profit of $30 can increase profits by 10% with a 3% price increase.

Convenience

Added convenience can be a crucial factor in the success of a product or service. Uber Eats and Grub Hub have made new markets out of consumers’ desires for convenience when it comes to home food delivery.

Referrals

Referral based strategies, often with incentives tied to customers that make the referral, can be high ROI ways to acquire new customers.

Provide incentives

Incentive targets can work at every level of the sales funnel. Email coupon incentives can create awareness, and discounts targeted to customers that have bounced out of shopping carts can reverse a sales loss. Incentives targeted towards getting customers to switch from a competitor’s product are designed to lower the perceived “switching cost” of making the move.

Using testimonials

A testimonial strategy can be highly effective in convincing customers who are on the fence about making a purchase to take the decisive step to buy. Testimonials are super important to enhancing a brands authority and should be part of every company’s strategy kit.

Customer Retention Business Strategies

Onboarding programs

Onboarding programs are designed to make sure customers remain satisfied after a purchase. They are particularly valuable for complex products where training is involved. But, even for everyday products, onboarding can carry a message that the company cares which is what every consumer wants to hear.

Set expectations

Every company have and communicate the set of expectations about how their product’s use and under what conditions returns can occur. Smart companies find ways to communicate these expectations to clients without coming across as unreasonable or difficult to work with. A strategy to set and communicate expectations is an important customer retention tool.

Collect customer feedback

The goal of collecting customer feedback is to gain knowledge of what improvements need to be made to the product or organization to improve the customer experience. One of the most powerful tools for collecting customer feedback is the Net Promoter Score, which measures the percent of customers willing to recommend your product to others.

Newsletters

A newsletter strategy is designed to promote your company or product by creating an individual touchpoint with your email subscribers. Email is one of the highest ROI marketing channels a company has available to promote its goods and services.

Specialized offers

A specialized offer strategy is often positioned as a short-term or one-time offer around a specific product or service. This allows a company the flexibility to make an offer that does not modify the original product offering. Specialized offers can be great for selling excess inventory or earlier generation models.

Personalization

People love to feel like they are special. Advances in online technologies and AI make it possible for companies to tailor customers’ buying experiences to their individual likes and dislikes. Facebook’s look-a-like audiences represent an effort to do this at scale.

Follow through

Good follow through sounds like an easy decision, right? However, it is not as easy as it seems when companies erect silos where one side does not know what the other is doing. Having a clear process for follow-up on commitments made to clients and business partners can set a company apart from its competition.

Reward programs

A reward or loyalty program strategy, when well-designed and implemented, helps to retain existing customers, gain more repeat business, attract new customers and drive profits.

Centralize customer communications

Having a robust centralized hub to capture and manage all customer communications helps to both acquire new and retain existing customers by answering questions and solving problems quickly. The centralized hub makes it easier to capture and analyze the data and trends for improving customer satisfaction.

Cost Improvement Business Strategies

Lower product cost

Companies that take steps to lower their product costs create more opportunities for themselves. Lowering product costs can translate to more profits, increased sales through a more competitive pricing strategy, and ability to invest in new projects to drive even further growth.

Streamline key processes

By streamlining key processes, companies can take cost and waste out of their supply chains, leading to a host of benefits that can positively impact every aspect of the company operations.

Self-service

Self-service, whether it is pumping your own gas or bagging your groceries, represents a way for a company to lower its cost of operations. Often, doing so can create new product opportunities, such as a self-serve car wash that operates at a lower price point.

In-source

In-sourcing can take many forms. One of the most common strategies young companies take is to outsource their manufacturing components until they reach a certain size. Then they bring them in-house at a lower cost point.

Quality Improvement Business Strategies

Implement Lean Manufacturing

Lean Manufacturing is a strategy that focuses on streamlining operations to improve cost, quality, and delivery. While the concept started with manufacturing companies, it is useful to any enterprise.

Implement Six Sigma

A six-sigma strategy represents both a target and a goal. The idea is to implement error correction systems that reduce errors in key platforms to 1:1,000,000 or six sigma.

Improve customer service

A well-implemented customer service strategy can dramatically change a company’s position in the market. The internet has brought wonderful technology that makes it easier for companies to get closer to their customers, resulting in increased retention, more referrals, and greater sales.

Track complaints

A basic strategy to track and resolve customer complaints is a great starting point for a company that does not have the systems or capital to implement more expensive quality management systems.

Reduce errors

Errors lead to complaints, cost overruns and lost sales opportunities. While it is preferable to focus on identifying the root cause of the errors, a focal point on catching the errors can be a starting point to improve quality and customer satisfaction.

Invest in TQM

Total Quality Management is a comprehensive strategy that is designed to ensure long term company success. This is achieved by improving customer satisfaction through better quality across all critical systems in the business.

Sustainability

Environmental concerns continue to gain ever increasing awareness and companies can enhance customer perceptions of their brand by taking material steps to reduce the environmental impact of their operations.

Corporate responsibility

Corporate responsibility, also known as corporate social responsibility, is a form of self-regulation that focus on the ethics of how the company operates and its impact on the well-being of society.

Improve workplace safety

All businesses that have workers should have a safety program linked to following OSHA guidelines.

Sales and Distribution Business Strategies

Outsource sales force

Outsourcing a sales force can be a good strategy if a company needs to get into a marketplace quickly, but this can be costly and lead to problems over the long term if the company does not embrace owning its customer interface.

Create an applications support team

Companies that sell specialized products or services that require significant onboarding often have specialized teams that only produce this level of deep customer support. This frees up the traditional sales force to focus on selling. While more expensive on the face, this can lead to greater productivity in acquiring and retaining clients over the long term.

Outsource customer service

Outsourcing a call center or customer service can be a solid strategy if a company is looking for specialized expertise to manage customer inquiries.

Develop a call center

Companies opt to create their own call centers when they have multiple product lines that use the same customer. Large franchise systems that offer a set of home services through the different franchises they own, leverage their own call center into a profit center by charging their franchisees for the service.

Use a distributor

Use of a distributor can be an effective channel strategy. Most distributors carry multiple product lines, and they prioritize their sales time to the opportunities that make the most profit for the distributor.

Financial Management Business Strategies

Grow earnings per share

The key metric for publicly traded companies is earnings per share as this sets the value of the stock price and is tracked quarterly by Wall Street.

Leverage debt

Because debt does not dilute share value it can be a highly effective source of capital for investment in the growth of the business.

Ensure financial sustainability

Every company should have a financial sustainability strategy in place to ensure funds are available for future investments, debt payments and rainy-day issues.

Digital Marketing (Online) Business Strategies

Develop your customer personas

Customer personas provide great insight into a company’s target market. Because customer personas represent homogenous groups with specific needs and traits, they allow digital marketers to create tailor made offerings that link to the specific needs of the persona group.

Use the right sales channel

Using the right digital marketing channel requires an understanding of the customer segments served by the channel and the stage of the sales funnel the message is intended for. For example, Facebook is more appropriate for targeting Boomers and Millennials, whereas Instagram and Tik Tok cater to Gen Z consumers.

Leverage video channels

Video channel strategy allows a company to connect more on a deeper and more emotional level than other digital media. Video channels are a terrific way to reach and connect with customers.

Create High-Quality Content

A high-quality content campaign included regularly matching website and social media content with search intent and the prospect’s stage in the sales funnel.

Focus on SEO

An SEO strategy is critical to building long term equity and recognition for your company and brand. SEO has a higher ROI versus paid advertising as results come from organic search.

Utilize paid advertising

Because an organic presence through a well-executed SEO strategy takes time, companies can opt to get page 1 SERP by running paid advertising campaigns. These campaigns are highly targeted and can be managed to effective ROI by detailed analytics

Run a Referral Program

A referral program is a marketing business strategy that encourages your existing customer to share their knowledge of your brand to their friends and family.

Create optimized landing pages

Landing pages are a key component of a sales funnel. Optimized pages included well designed content and call to actions that drive increased sales conversions.

Improve website engagement

A company’s website is the hub for all its digital marketing efforts and its goal should be to turn visitors into prospects and customers.

Develop your owned customer list

Email marketing represents the best way with the best ROI for connecting with customers on the internet.

Utilize Influencer Marketing

An influencer marketing business strategy can be a fast way to connect with a large audience and can outperform paid advertising as the alternative.

Create website FAQs

Having FAQs on your website can be one of the most effective strategies you can employ for your website. FAQ’s serve to quickly answer customers’ questions and build connections with your audience.

Online Business Model Strategies

The internet has allowed the creation of new business models. A business model is a framework that defines how a company will conduct business with its products, customers, and market.

B2C

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies sell their products directly to consumers.

B2B

Business-to-Business (B2B) companies sell their products or services to other companies.

C2B

Individuals who sell their products to companies are following a Consumer-to-Business (C2B) business strategy. C2B models often include an intermediary company who aggregates the consumers in a platform that provides access to the market. Examples of C2B models include Shutterstock, where individuals sell their photos to companies, and Amazon.com with its stores.

C2C

Individuals who sell their products to other individuals are implementing a Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) business strategy. eBay is a fitting example of a platform that enables C2C commerce.

Affiliate Partnerships

Affiliate partnerships entail an individual or company acting as a marketing partner to a brand. The marketing partner gets a percent of the sale when the transaction is completed.

Freemium

Freemium stands for Free + premium. A freemium strategy is where a company offers a free product, but charges for additional features. A software company that offers a free version of its product, along with paid upgrade versions is following a freemium strategy.

One-for-One

When a business attaches a non-profit contribution to each sale it is following a one-for-one strategy. An example would be Patagonia’s commitment to donate 1% of all revenues to environmental sustainability causes.

SaaS

Software-as-a-Service strategies involve a business licensing and providing access to its software via online subscription rather than allowing installations on individual computers. This ensures an ongoing revenue stream. Quicken is an example of a company that has aggressively moved away from its desktop product to a SaaS subscription model.

Peer-to-Peer

Businesses that serve as matchmakers between buyers and sellers via a platform and take a commission from each transaction are following a peer-to-peer business strategy. eBay and Amazon are examples.

Ecommerce Business Strategies

D2C

D2C or direct-to-consumer historically has referred to industry disrupting companies that are cutting out the go-between. A true D2C company has no brick-and-mortar storefront, but hybrid models are common, as for example Barnes and Noble bookstores.

White label and private label

To white label or private label is to add your brand to a generic product produced by a manufacturer for you. White label and private label strategies allow companies to save on R&D and manufacturing costs while leveraging their brand name and marketing expertise.

Wholesaling

Retailers or manufacturers who offer their product at a reduced price for bulk purchase are wholesaling. This has traditionally been a B2B strategy but big box stores like Sam’s Club and Costco have made it available to consumers.

Drop shipping

Drop shipping saves a retailer the time and cost of in-bound freight, stocking, and out-bound shipping to the consumer by using a third-party fulfillment company. The third-party company is called a drop shipper.

Subscription Service

Companies can use a subscription service strategy to deliver products to their customer base on a regular basis. This ensures repeat business sales.

Corporate Business Strategies

Horizontal Integration

Horizontal integration strategies can take a number of forms, but the key is that they represent opening a new market or product that leverages an existing product or technology capability or cutler base. Apple’s move from computers to music leveraged its technology platform and customer base.

Vertical Integration

This growth strategy involves gaining greater control of an existing product’s supply chain by integrating a key segment. Intel’s decision to self-manufacture a key component of its computer chips rather than outsource is an example of vertical integration. Vertical integration provides greater cost benefit or quality control over a company’s supply chain or both.

Diversification

This growth strategy involves the decision to move beyond what your company does in making and marketing its products or services. Diversification strategies can insulate business from disruptions in one area through providing multiple revenue streams. A hardware store owner who buys the building her store is located in and then rents it out is diversifying the business operation. going too far afield w=from what you know can be risky in itself, and the key is to find the connection to what you are already doing to make this strategy work.

Consolidation Strategies for Growth

Consolidation strategies involve combining two or more businesses to achieve greater economies of scale in operations and serving a common customer base. A local service company that acquires a competitor to gain access to the additional customers, and then reduces the sales team, moves to one location is enacting a consolidation strategy.

Think globally while acting locally

When McDonald’s in Tokyo offers a teriyaki flavored burger and a shrimp sandwich, they are catering to the local market’s needs. At the same time, McDonald’s is leveraging their global supply chain to bring those products to market in the most efficient manner possible.

Acquisition Business Strategies

Create market access for products

Often new companies have difficulty penetrating markets quickly because they do not have the infrastructure or customer relationships. Existing companies, on the other hand, can find their product portfolios stale, yet they have well developed marketing and sales systems. This is common in the biotechnology industry where large pharmaceutical players will acquire a biotechnology company with an innovative product.

Acquire skills or technologies faster or at lower cost than building them in-house

Traditionally the purview of larger companies flush with cash, this strategy has possibilities for the entrepreneur too. A carpet cleaning company that acquires the assets of a competitor that is going out of business in order to obtain specialized cleaning equipment is implementing this strategy on a smaller scale.

Acquire scale economies

Achieving scale economies is all about getting bigger in one area, so you can spread your fixed cost across a larger unit base. Increasing volume can also result in lower per unit variable costs due to manufacturing and purchasing efficiencies. This is a common strategy spoken about manufacturing, but a distributor is a notable example of scale economics in action outside this area.