All small businesses want to find success, and once they’ve found it they want to grow. Although that seems obvious, it’s easier said than done. How do you know where the growth opportunities are? When you identify them, how do you capitalize?

When it comes to cultivating your own growth, the first place to direct your attention is your customers. You can seek to find growth in winning more business from your current customers. Or, you can seek to find growth in targeting a new group of similar potential customers. We say, do both.

Here’s how.

1. Segment Your Current Customers

Audience segmentation is an age-old practice in marketing. To effectively target the right groups of people with the right positioning to ultimately win their hearts and minds, you must have a solid understanding of your buyer personas. The same is true of your customers. Building ideal customer profiles based on data surrounding purchase history, website activity, email interaction, etc. will give you a leg up when it comes time to identify areas for growth.

Upon segmenting your current customer base, you’ll quickly realize which types of people are your repeat customers. These customers are the ones effectively poised to become customer champions and expand their relationship with your brand as you release new offerings.

2. Analyze Trends in the Marketplace

Keeping your finger on the pulse of your own market positions you to capitalize on economic shifts, evolving trends, and ever-changing customer needs. It’s imperative to understand what’s happening in your customers’ lives, because after all they are human. Ask your current customers what their goals are and what the biggest barriers are in their way to achieve them. Could you somehow innovate or offer a new solution to help in solving their pain?

Iterating on your offering based on the needs of your current customers puts you in a better position on the learning curve when targeting new customers.

3. Experiment with New Marketing Strategies

Once you have your current customer base segmented and can leverage the information you know about the state of your business environment, you can strategically experiment with how you go to market with new audience groups. Comb through the data to find messages that resonated best with your customer champions – elevate and repeat those messages for similar buyer segments.

Assess your company’s current capabilities against the criteria your customers use to make purchase decisions – position your company to outperform competitors on that criteria. Never stop trying new strategies, marketing is about tinkering. Keep tinkering.