business case study action plan

As the name suggests, business law is the set of rules that looks after the commercial dealings between any two-person or companies. But, various students getting business law case study assignments in their institutions panic over it. So, here we will make it simpler for you to understand business law, the case studies, and the examples and solutions.

Business law is also called commercial law or mercantile law. Different types of contract or agreement come under this, where the person is bind to follow the rules as decided voluntarily by the two parties. One cannot break or breach the contract in the mid of business, and if one does so, they can have severe repercussions under the business law of the country. However, you can get a concrete idea of the topic through some case studies of business law. The below-given paragraphs will help you get a clear idea about business law and its case study .

How can you write a business law case study?

Case studies investigate the problems to look for the appropriate solution. However, the cases or issues are mostly fictional or situational. Therefore, students are supposed to read and understand the particular scenario and figure out solutions to it. Also, you need to support your solution or conclusion with enough evidence and examples.

The case study of business law is also more or less similar except, the business background. It is entirely dependent on the commercial integrity between the two parties involved. So, below-given is the correct order of steps one shall take to handle case studies.

Identify the key problem

It is as simple as it sounds. Students are required to dive into the situation and identify the primary issue in their case study for business law . This is the most vital step to proceed correctly on the topic. You might deviate or extract incorrect information unless you fully understand the case. So, invest your maximum time to read it thoroughly.

Addressing the issue

The next step is to address the issue in a way to find concrete solutions. First, one has to get hold of the problem and investigate as per the legal aspects of business case studies . Also, students have to collect and gather points for a better assessment of the cases. It will further help you to suggest a solution for the problem raised.

Your views about the case

After addressing the issue, you need to present your views on the case as per the findings. Also, students have to substantiate their statements or opinions with adequate proof and examples. However, one can always avail for business law case study help services to better present your views on the topic.

Active suggestions

The final step is to conclude the case study with some effective suggestions for better business strategy or case help in the issue. The professionals of business law case study, Canada, can also provide you with enough samples to help you formulate strengthening strategies for the raised problem in your topic.

So, the above-given steps can help you actively prepare a case study business law assignment . However, these points are primarily applicable for all kinds of case study examples. But, students specifically use it in their legal case study assignments.

Why do students require case study help experts?

Students do not do case studies regularly. Only after entering into the law college or choosing one specific field, you get to write assignments on business law case studies . So, none of us is pretty familiar with the pattern or format to write one. Many students lack the basic idea of case studies on business law assignments.

Naturally, multiple students look for a platform to get business law cases with solutions to understand the concept better. There are furthermore reasons to avail for case study experts such as;

To-the-point answers

A person is called an expert for a reason. The case study help specialists have factual information for any topic given to them. Moreover, they are written both related and informative papers for your business law case study assignments. Moreover, all their solutions are topic-oriented, which perfectly resembles an issue.

Guaranteed timely delivery

One of the most immediate reasons to avail an expert is assured timely deliveries. It might take longer for students to finish their business law case studies canada as most of them are not habituated. On the contrary, experts deal with millions of business law cases with solutions to fail the deadlines. So, you can trust them for assured timely services.

Sample Question And Solution Of Business Law Case Study Help

BUSN 331 Business Law Method - Free Samples to Students

Identification of relevant legal issues Correctly identifies all legal issues and formulates them clearly with consideration of all links to relevant law with no errors. Correctly identifies all legal issues and formulates them with consideration of links to relevant law, with only minor errors. Identifies and correctly formulates most major legal issues, taking into consideration most links to relevant law. Identifies some legal issues, with some errors in formulation. Considers some links to relevant law. Identifies no relevant issues or only a few of them. Some may be unclearly formulated. Considers few links to relevant law.

Introduction

The first issue that has been identified in the given scenario is whether Richard has any contractual claim against Emma It has been held in the case Hedley Byrne v Heller [1964] AC 465 by the house of Lords that a claim to recover damages could be made by the aggrieved party in a contract is valid if it is proved that the other party had been negligent in in providing a statement and when such misstatement has caused the financial loss of the aggrieved party... Read More>>

Which is the best business law case study help platform?

MyAssignmenthelp.com is one of the best business law case study help with 3000+ Ph.D. experts and professionals of each subject. We offer instant solutions for all your queries and demand despite any level of complexities. Apart from that, we have multiple reasons for clients to go with us such as,

24*7 client’s assistance
Most updated solutions with relevant examples
Topic-oriented and informative content
Quality-driven performance

Most Popular Questions Searched By Students:

Q1. can myassignmenthelp.com solve my business law case study papers.

Ans. MyAssignmenthelp.com offers expert’s solutions for all your assignments, including business law case studies. We have LLM-qualified writers or law practitioners to handle your law case studies.

Q2. How to avail of your services?

Ans. students can avail themselves of our service in these simple steps;

Visit us at MyAssignmenthelp.com
Fill in the required details in the space provided
Make payment to process your order.

Q3. How many days do you require to finish a business law case study paper?

Ans. Though we try to finish your assignments as early as you want. But it will be convenient for us to have some time to write a paper. This will be helpful in the thorough research and strategy formulation in your business law case studies.

Q4. Can you provide samples of your work?

Ans. We fulfil the customer’s wish to check our samples. However, you can also read reviews and feedbacks of our valuable customers to place your trust with us.

Testimonials

Myassignmenthelp has good professional t... Myassignmenthelp has good professional team. I appreciate their woks for the quality and commitment. Also they provide satisfactory assistance. Great work team. Sarah brown Canada

Myassignmenthelp team I am very much sat... Myassignmenthelp team I am very much satisfied from your support as you are meeting my needs and making changes again and again according to my needs. I really appreciate your customer support service who are very supportive and taking my assignments to the best experts. Thank you to all of you. James Wilson Canada

I am very happy to see my good grades an... I am very happy to see my good grades and i can say proudly, yes this is the best service. I was stuck with 24hrs deadline and lengthy assignment but you guyz made all easy for me. Thank you so much. Martin Jackson Canada

I really felt with the service. You guys... I really felt with the service. You guys are amazing and proved that you are one of the best assignment service providers in Canada. I always suggest my friends to take help from myassignmenthelp.com. Josh Smith Canada

Myassignmenthelp.com has very good acade... Myassignmenthelp.com has very good academic writers. I have been using their services for really long time and I am so happy with it. Regarding the price, I do not think you will find better price. And their customer service is very helpful. Jessica Mills Canada

TO DOWNLOAD " Company Law Case Studies

The best expert top experts, fraser kirk.

MS in Biology...

I am skilled to do research to find proper content for research papers, thesis and dissertation. I give only verified co...

Fitzgerald Ru

M.sc in Electronic...

Allotting responsibilities and giving directions on achieving the targets within the team. Excellent research and creati...

Frost Barlow

MS in Statistics...

I am skilled in creative writing to craft any kind of assignment especially essays, thesis and dissertations of any kind...

Finley Estrad

MS in Computer Sci...

I boast excellent observation and analysis skills. I am excellently thorough with the subject knowing all the aspects, a...

Fernando Orr

I took a MBA degre...

Along with an in-depth knowledge in marketing I am also skilled in composing assignments especially case studies with pr...

Forbes Dennis

Masters in Account...

I am thorough with the changing financial scenario in US and the factors behind it. I am also updated with the changing ...

Fisher Long

Msc in Nursing fro...

I am in this field for 15 years, which helps me come up with unique topics and cases for students’ papers. I have comp...

5% Cashback

On APP - grab it while it lasts!

Download app now (or) Scan the QR code

*Offer eligible for first 3 orders ordered through app!

GET BEST PRICE FOR YOUR WORK.

5000+ experts.

ONLINE TO HELP YOU 24X7

GUARANTEED GRADE

OR GET MONEY BACK!

RATED 4.9/5

OUT OF 38983 REVIEWS

Business Intelligence

Received my assignment before my deadline request, paper was well written. Highly recommend.

Have any Query?

Contact with us.

Only one step away from your solution of order no.

Attached Files

Climate Action Plan Case Study

The travel corporation’s climate action plan: commitment to net zero.

Global Sustainability Manager at TreadRight and The Travel Corporation (TTC)

Expert Team at TrainingAid

Business Example : The Travel Corporation

Location : The Travel Corporation is active in over 70 countries (with multiple offices, accommodation, depots, vehicles and service facilities).

Key Lessons :

Identify and measure where your business operations and trip related activities are causing emissions. "You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure".
Set targets for emission reduction that your business is obliged to achieve in a certain amount of time
Foster exchange with others to continuously evolve and learn about new technologies and opportunities moving towards a low carbon economy.
Initially, find "low-hanging fruit" opportunities to start implementing climate action without requiring major change / investment, while continuously working to develop or accelerate low-carbon alternatives.
DON'T wait for others to catch up. Proactively advocate for low-carbon solutions, and work with others seeking to achieve net zero to demonstrate collective action.

Climate Action Plan and Commitment to Net Zero

Our industry was sent into disarray when COVID came about, and now, two years later, we’re finally beginning to regain the ground under our feet because of vaccines. But there’s no vaccine for climate change – and if we don’t act now to rebuild our industry in a sustainable way – one that takes responsibility for our emissions, prioritizes reduction efforts, and strives for net zero we will find ourselves reeling from the impacts of climate change – as so many places around the world have experienced with extreme wildfires and flooding for example.

TTC’s Climate Action Plan supports the commitments laid out in the company’s sustainability strategy, “ How We Tread Right ” - to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 or sooner, and to sourcing 50% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Measure : Measure the emissions from our business and trips.
Reduce : Build on reduction efforts and set ambitious reduction targets by mid-2022. These targets are currently under review by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Remove : Through our TreadRight Foundation, invest in new technologies and nature-based solutions to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.
Offset : Engage in carbon offsetting for select operations as we transition to net zero. We will not use carbon offsets to achieve our reduction targets.
Evolve : Continue to learn from others, invest in new technologies and support strategic alliances that enable us and the industry to move to a low carbon economy.

TTC’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Shannon Guihan, led the development of the Climate Action Plan, closely supported by TTC’s Sustainability Manager, Nadine Pinto. The plan was developed on behalf of TTC’s 40 travel brands with close engagement from brand leaders, and was signed off in early 2021 by Brett Tollman, Chairman of TTC.

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure

The first of TTC’s five-point Climate Action Plan is “Measure”.

The company started working on carbon footprint measurement in 2019 by implementing measurement tools for both business operations and trips. Arguably this was the most important step as you can’t manage what you can’t measure - and this became the foundation of the Climate Action Plan.

Given the company’s scale - 21 offices, 22 depots, 24 hotels and facilities, 13 river cruises, and 500 vehicles - this carbon footprint measurement effort required a single cloud-based system to report and manage all energy data.

For measuring the footprint associated with tours and activities, a custom Trip Carbon Calculator was developed, addressing the emissions from transport, accommodations and meals. These constitute the majority of TTC’s “Scope 3” emissions.

According to the GHG Protocol corporate standard , a company’s greenhouse gas emissions are classified into three scopes.

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.
Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions (not included inScope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.

Setting Targets

TTC was a launch signatory of the Glasgow Declaration , which launched at COP 26 in November 2021. The declaration obliges signatories to commit to delivering and reporting on climate action plans that align with the global commitment to halve emissions by 2030 and reach Net Zero as soon as possible before 2050.

Through TTC’s Climate Action Plan, the company has made a public commitment to setting carbon reduction targets and annually reporting on the progress. Since the publication of the plan, TTC has also begun working on science-based targets for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions that have been internally approved.

The targets will undergo review by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) later this year and then will be communicated externally. TTC will also publish its first Impact Report in 2022, demonstrating progress against all 5 points of the Climate Action Plan.

Achieving Impacts

Publishing a Climate Action Plan is a way of signaling to TTC’s whole supply chain - and the wider tourism industry - that the company takes climate change seriously. As a major tour operator with operations in over 70 countries, TTC has significant influence over thousands of transport providers, accommodations and experience providers.

A key part of TTC’s climate action is to regularly inform others throughout the supply chain on the company’s sustainability initiatives. In 2022, TTC has also provided resources on how to develop a climate action plan with all suppliers.

In addition to scaling climate action through its global supply chain, TTC, through its commitment, aims to encourage the wider tourism industry to develop their own climate action plans.

Challenges with Implementing Climate Action Plans

For TTC, the most significant challenge in implementing the Climate Action Plan has been helping its employees and consumers understand it. For example, the language used in the plan contains several technical terms such as “net zero”, “carbon removal”, “nature based solutions”, which are complex, nuanced terms for the average person to understand.

To combat this, TTC developed a training course for all employees on the Climate Action Plan. It is an interactive course featuring quiz questions and visual representations. A series of podcasts has also been made available for employees to learn about the Climate Action Plan and concrete examples of TTC partners supporting positive climate solutions.

For consumers, easily digestible ways to communicate about TTC’s climate efforts are needed. Topics around climate are not always glamorous messaging, so the marketing teams have focused on breaking down complex concepts and strengthening the storytelling aspects of the company’s climate-related efforts. It’s also necessary to ensure communications are clear, concise and not greenwashing, so messaging is often a significant bulk of work.

The last point in the Climate Action Plan, “Evolve” is meant to address the inevitable challenges along the pathways to net zero. As new climate studies become available and low-carbon technology begins to accelerate, changes are inevitable, and it’s necessary to remain flexible and update the plan when and where necessary.

For instance, since launching in 2021 the language in the plan has been updated from “carbon neutral” to “net zero”, to better reflect TTC’s journey on setting science based targets and alignment with the Net Zero Standard . This space is continually evolving and so too must our approaches to planning and communicating about climate action.

This does, however, pose additional challenges to helping employees and consumers understand these efforts.

TTC’s Advice for Other Tourism Businesses

Creating a climate action plan can be overwhelming and you might fixate on changing the largest sources of emissions, however this is not always possible due to insufficient low-carbon alternatives. Don’t let that dismay you. Focus on low-hanging fruit that’s easier to implement and may require smaller behavioral challenges.

Simultaneously, seek out opportunities to develop or accelerate low-carbon alternatives if possible. The important part is to not “sit back” and wait for the industry to catch up - advocate for low-carbon solutions where possible and align your organization with others seeking to achieve net zero to demonstrate collective action. The Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism is one forum that may be useful.

Related resources

STC Expeditions: Commitment to Engagement and Education

Spring Ecommerce Sale...Save $1500 on Gretta van Riel's Start & Scale!

Skip to primary navigation
Skip to main content

A magazine for young entrepreneurs

The best advice in entrepreneurship

Subscribe for exclusive access, 4 product marketing growth hacks that actually last.

Written by Amy Rigby | February 5, 2021

Comments -->

Want a heads up when a new story drops? Subscribe here

Growth hacking all too often means quick wins that just as quickly fizzle out. Sure, it’s great to host a giveaway to gather leads, but giveaways can only last so long. And yeah, a PR stunt might amass hundreds of thousands of visits to your site, but most of those visitors will lose interest as soon as the next wild news breaks.

Below, I’ll share some product marketing growth hacks that have the power to last.

I’ll also include case studies so you can analyze what worked for others and then reverse engineer them for your own business.

EXCLUSIVE FREE TRAINING: This New Free Masterclass Will Make You Unstoppable

What Is Product Marketing?

Product marketing is a term that gets used pretty loosely and means different things across organizations. One popular definition, as explained by Dave Gerhardt of Drift , is that product marketing sits at the intersection of product, marketing, and sales.

Another solid definition comes from Hiten Shah, who said, “Product marketing is the art and science of conveying to people what your product can do for them with the goal of engaging, converting, and retaining.”

READ MORE: Checklist for Starting a Consulting Business

4 Lasting Product Marketing Growth Hacks to Try Right Now

1. create a sales funnel.

The fastest way to scale is to automate what you’re currently doing manually. More specifically, a sales funnel is an automation that will allow you to make sales while your sleep, or at least save time for your sales team, because they’ll only need to step in toward the end once the lead has been warmed up.

The Basic Stages of a Sales Funnel

Stage 1 – Awareness: Create content that attracts your ideal customers who are just becoming aware of the problem they have and the problem your product helps them solve. With this content, entice them to join your email list through an irresistible lead magnet. Optional: You can also create a tripwire, which is a low-cost purchase that warms them up for a bigger purchase (your core offer) later.
Stage 2 – Consideration: At this point, the prospect is considering the different options they have for solving their problem. This is the stage of the sales funnel where you continue to nurture the relationship with your subscribers by sending them automated emails that educate them further on their problem and how you can help.
Stage 3 – Decision: Now, thanks to your sales funnel, your prospect should be ready to buy! Close the deal with a sales pitch in a final email, landing page, webinar, or sales call. You can also offer a product demo, free trial, or discount.

Case Study: Foundr Attracted 30,000 Opt-Ins From a Simple Instagram Sales Funnel

Here’s an example from right here at Foundr. We set up an Instagram sales funnel that attracted subscribers interested in skyrocketing their Instagram followings. Eventually, that list would be invited to join our flagship course (core offer), Instagram Domination.

Captivating content. For the first step in our sales funnel, we designed eye-catching graphics to post on our Instagram account to capture the attention of entrepreneurs we knew would love to learn more about Instagram marketing.
Call to action. In the caption of those posts, we included a strong call to action to download our free ebook on how to get your first 10,000 Instagram followers.
Lead magnet. When a follower clicked that link in our bio, they were led to a landing page designed to get them to take the action we wanted: downloading our ebook. By doing so, they were added to our list, where we could continue sending them quality content on using Instagram to grow a business.

READ MORE: How Much Should I Charge as a Consultant? A Consultation Fee Breakdown

Case Study: Black Dog Traders Uses a Sales Funnel for its High-Dollar Product

To prove a sales funnel works even for high-priced physical products, let’s take a look at Black Dog Traders, which sells custom-built vintage Land Cruisers.

Because of the premium price tag, many visitors to the site just aren’t ready to commit to that kind of investment on the first or second touchpoint. But instead of losing the potential sale then and there, Black Dog Traders has a sales funnel that allows them to get the visitor on their list and warm them up.

Step 1: Lead magnet. When a visitor is on a Black Dog Traders product page and then tries to close the tab, an exit-intent popup entices them with the promise of photos and specs of the vehicle they were eyeing.

Black Dog Traders Uses a Sales Funnel to market its product

Step 2: Welcome email. Once a lead joins the list, Black Dog Traders sends an email with the technical specs, as promised, but also throws in a discount code for their much lower-priced merchandise ( tripwire offer ). They then remind the subscriber of their core offering, custom-built Land Cruisers, and encourage them to reserve a build or schedule a visit.

Black Dog Traders welcome email with a discount code for their much lower-priced product is one of their product marketing growth hacks

Steps 3 and beyond. They continue to send informative emails, featuring shop news and photos of their builds. On many emails, they remind subscribers that they can contact the company to schedule a call or tour the shop.

Thanks to having this sales funnel in place, Black Dog Traders doesn’t have to risk losing a sale because a visitor bounced and then never came back. They also save time because they’re not having to constantly follow up with the prospect manually; the process is automated with emails until the prospect is ready to schedule a call or a tour.

Quick Action Plan to Create Your First Sales Funnel

Identify your core offer. What’s your bestseller or main product you want the prospect to buy?
Create a compelling lead magnet. Now that you know the core offer, work backward and scale it down. For example, to attract leads to Foundr’s Instagram course, our lead magnet was an ebook on getting your first 10,000 Instagram followers.
Create content that attracts ideal customers to the lead magnet. Once you have a lead magnet in place, you need to get eyeballs on it. Again, work backward. If your lead magnet is a free video series on sustainable gardening, maybe your content consists of blog post tutorials on how to start a hydroponic garden or the best types of plants for new gardeners. Then, embed calls to action to get the visitors to sign up for the lead magnet.
Continue to deliver value on autopilot. Set up at least three or four emails that seek to educate around the same topic of your lead magnet and core offer.
Don’t forget the sales pitch! This is a sales funnel after all. After the first few emails, make a sales pitch that shows them how your core offer will solve the exact problem you’ve been educating them on in your content, lead magnet, and previous emails.

2. Conversion Rate Optimization/Landing Page Optimization

Again, sometimes it’s best to improve existing content rather than create something new. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is all about taking what you already have and making it even better. Specifically, you want to increase your conversion rate, which is the number of conversions (sales, signups, etc.) divided by traffic (the number of people who visited the sales page or signup page) and multiplied by 100.

Conversion Rate = Conversions/Traffic X 100

First, audit your current marketing materials and find out what the conversion rates are across the board. You can enter these figures into a simple spreadsheet. This helps you set a baseline.

From there, make tweaks to keep upping those stats—one at a time. Conversion rate optimization is especially useful if you’re not great at driving traffic. You don’t need to worry about volume, just the rate of conversions using the traffic you already have.

READ MORE: How to Write the Perfect Consulting Proposal With The Best Tools and Templates

Case Study: Express Watches Clocked a 107% Increase in Sales by Changing 4 Words

Sometimes what you think your customers want isn’t what they want at all, and this case study shows how conversion rate optimization can solve that. Express Watches, a luxury watch online retailer, A/B tested two messages that would appear on the product page near the “Add to Basket” button:

“Never Beaten on Price” (highlights a bargain)
“Seiko Authorized Seller Site” (highlights authenticity)

What they found was that the second message resulted in a 107% increase in conversion rate during the 30-day test. A simple four-word message more than doubled their sales!

Case Study: Airstream Drove a 13.3% Increase in Leads Thanks to CRO

Airstream hired Element Three to run some CRO testing to improve lead generation and increase conversions without doing a total website redesign. Using multivariate testing and CRO software, the team was able to:

Increase leads generated by 13.3% by changing CTAs to download brochures
Increase traffic to Airstream’s Build Your Own Touring Coach Tool by 24,000%
An estimated 375% increase in newsletter signups by testing variations of the opt-in form

Quick Action Plan to Get Started With Conversion Rate Optimization

Step 1: Identify your biggest driver of sales. Do you have a landing page that sends the most leads to your sales funnel? Or maybe there’s a sales email that converts really well?
Step 2: Find the baseline. Review the conversion rate data for that element. This is just so you can have a baseline to refer to and see if you’re improving.
Step 3: Pick one variable and run an A/B test. To keep things simple, choose one variable to test. This could be the call to action, the timing of an email, the color of a CTA button, an image on the sales page, and on and on.
Step 4: Use the results to improve, then re-test! Once you’ve run a few A/B tests, review the data and find your winner. Tweak the element based on what you’ve learned. Now you’re ready to further optimize by running a new A/B test on a new variable!

READ MORE: The Complete Guide to Getting Clients for Your Consulting Business

The Best Software for CRO

Optimizely – Allows you to test headlines, in-code pricing algorithms, colors, images, and more.

Optimizely Allows you to test headlines, in-code pricing algorithms, colors, images, to help market your product

MailChimp – This email marketing service has simple A/B testing and even a free plan for businesses with up to 2,000 subscribers.

Unbounce – This landing page builder is great if you’re focused specifically on landing page optimization.

Unbounce landing page builder is a great product marketing growth hack

3. Customer Service as Marketing

But if I ever have the chance to go to a Trader Joe’s, I am there in a heartbeat!

Why the big difference? Well, besides their ridiculously low prices (two-dollar wine, anyone?) and their one-of-a-kind snacks (have you tried the Truffle Marcona Almonds?), Trader Joe’s beats the competition in customer service. Seriously, it routinely tops the lists in grocery store customer satisfaction.

Okay, that’s nice. But how does that affect a business’s bottom line? Well, a 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report found that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, and 89% of U.S. adults went to a competitor after a poor customer experience. According to Bain & Company, increasing customer retention by 5% can mean anywhere from 25% to 95% more in profits.

If you already have customers, instead of focusing on constantly acquiring new ones, do your best to retain the current ones. Think long term and look at the lifetime value of a customer. One way to increase retention is through customer service.

READ MORE: 3 Ways to Create a Facebook Sales Funnel That Will Convert Customers on Autopilot

Track Your Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Before you begin using customer service as a marketing strategy, you’ll want to get a baseline against which you can compare results and track improvement. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the gold standard in measuring brand loyalty and gauging customer experience. Sounds fancy, but calculating it is simple. It’s just one question: “How likely is it that you would recommend to a friend or colleague?” and is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10.

Here’s an NPS email I got from Greetabl after purchasing some gifts from them:

NPS email from Greetabl is an example on how to market your product

Some software you can use for your own Net Promoter Score survey:

Promoter.io – This is what Greetabl used in the above email.
Zendesk – This is a customer service software that allows you to send NPS surveys.
SurveyMonkey. You can send all sorts of detailed surveys with this software, including an NPS option.

Provide Moments of Delight to Your Customers

Trader Joe’s knows how to delight its customers. Another company that does this well is Buffer, a social media scheduler.

At its start, Buffer had a Community Champion whose job involved things such as sending handwritten notes and branded stickers to customers. Sure, doing so might cost a couple of bucks per customer. But Buffer knows the lifetime value of each customer is so much more important (the company’s CEO even publicly shares this stat and much more). As of November 2018, Buffer’s customer lifetime value was $437.27.

Warby Parker’s customer service is so good it creates its own referral effect.

Alexander Taub writes in Forbes about how a friend loved his Warby Parker glasses so much that she bought a pair for herself and her husband. When she received them in the mail and they were too tight, she was so impressed by how Warby Parker covered the bill for adjustments that she told everyone about it.

The value of these moments of delight might be hard to measure, but I’d recommend starting with calculating your customer lifetime value and then pre-authorizing your customer support reps to spend a set amount beneath that in order to delight customers or rectify mistakes.

This is what The Ritz-Carlton does:

“At The Ritz-Carlton, everyone has $2,000/day per guest to make it right or delight.”

While your budget may not be anywhere near a luxury hotel’s, you can set aside a little bit to delight your own customers.

Create a Customer Feedback Loop

Beyond giving their customers some love, Buffer listens to what they have to say. To gather customer feedback that drives product development, Buffer uses UserVoice . This software makes it easy to capture feedback like feature requests and use it in a meaningful way later.

“An hour of customer development or research or user testing can save us 10 hours of engineering time,” Buffer product designer Tom Dunn told UserVoice.

So instead of wasting time guessing what your customers want, validate it through the customer feedback you gather from social media comments, support emails, and product reviews.

Quick Action Plan to Use Customer Service as Marketing

4. Affiliate or Referral Programs

Need help incentivizing customers to spread the word about your product? An affiliate or referral program may be just what you need. If you lack a big marketing budget, this can be a cost-effective way to spark word-of-mouth referrals, because you don’t have to pay the affiliate or referrer unless they make a sale.

What’s the difference between an affiliate program and a referral program? Typically, an affiliate program rewards the affiliate with a cash commission on each sale they make through a customized link, while a referral program rewards the referrer with credits or other non-cash gifts. And usually, affiliate programs are geared toward bloggers or business owners who recommend your product to their readers, customers, or the general public, while referral programs are geared toward existing customers who are encouraged to recommend your product to friends and family.

Case Study: Online Mattress Retailer Leesa Gets a Third of its Sales from Customer Referral Program

In the competitive online mattress industry, customer acquisition is tough. That’s why Leesa chose to start a customer referral program . After purchase, each of their customers gets invited to their referral program, allowing customers to give a discount to their friends and earn cash for each referral.

Because Leesa’s referral program is automated with ReferralCandy, they don’t have to waste time manually sending coupons, tracking analytics, or sending payouts. More than 3,000 customers have joined, and one-third of the mattress company’s sales come from referrals.

product marketing growth hacks of Leesa’s where their referral program is automated with ReferralCandy

Case Study: Shaving Brand Harry’s Gathered 100,000 Leads Pre-Launch Via a Referral Campaign

You don’t have to be an established brand to have a successful referral campaign. Let’s take a look at how Harry’s managed to get 100,000 emails on their list before they even launched.

First, they set up a simple landing page that read “Invite Friends & Earn Product.” Visitors were given a unique referral URL and were encouraged to email it or tweet it.

Second, Harry’s created a reward system to further incentivize shares and gamify the process. The rewards included:

Third, they made sharing easy with social share buttons, pre-populated messages, and referral links for each user.

The results? In just one week, they scored 100,000 emails!

Quick Action Plan to Start Your Referral Program

Go Forth and Hack That Growth!

You already have what it takes to implement your own product marketing growth hacks. That’s why I specifically chose growth hacks that focus on working with what you’ve got:

I challenge you to pick one growth hack from that list and run with it for the next 30 days. You’ll be surprised how much of a difference you can make with the singularity of focus.

Do you have a favorite product marketing growth hack that’s worked for your business? Share the knowledge with your fellow founders in a comment below!

About Amy Rigby

Amy Rigby is a freelance writer who specializes in content marketing and copywriting for startups. She's written for ABCNews.com , GoDaddy , Outdoorsy , and Trello . Connect with Amy on LinkedIn

Psychographics 101: How to Think Like a Customer

Buyer Persona vs. Customer Profile. What’s the Difference and Why It Matters?

The Guide to Defining Your Target Market

Hate Creating New Content? Cut Your Content Creation Time in Half with This Strategy

How Video Marketing from Creators Is Boosting Sales

How to Get More Views on Snapchat with These 11 Tactics

How to Create a Marketing Campaign That Makes You Stand Out

What Is a Media Kit: How to Make One in 2023 (With Examples)

Influencer Marketing 101: How to Build Strong Relationships with the Right Influencers

How Much Do YouTube Ads Cost? A Beginner’s Pricing Breakdown

The Ultimate Content Marketing Strategy for Startups

The Small Business Guide to Branding

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel & Gain Subscribers Quickly

Namestorming: How to Choose a Brand Name in 20 Minutes or Less

How to Create a Marketing Plan In 2023 (Template + Examples)

FREE TRAINING FROM LEGIT FOUNDERS

Actionable Strategies for Starting & Growing Any Business.

From 0 to 500K+ Instagram Followers In Under 12 Months

Learn the exact strategies we used in our free instagram masterclass today, the big spring sale for gretta van riel's start & scale, save 75% & get an advanced ecommerce course free.

The Leading Source of Insights On Business Model Strategy & Tech Business Models

Business Strategy Examples In 2023: Examples, Case Studies, And Tools

A business strategy is a deliberate plan that helps a business to achieve a long-term vision and mission by drafting a business model to execute that business strategy. A business strategy, in most cases, doesn’t follow a linear path, and execution will help shape it along the way.

What is a business strategy?

At this stage, it is important to clarify a few critical aspects.

As an HBR working paper entitled “From Strategy to Business Models and to Tactics” pointed out:

Put succinctly, business model refers to the logic of the firm, the way it operates and how it creates value for its stakeholders. Strategy refers to the choice of business model through which the firm will compete in the marketplace. Tactics refers to the residual choices open to a firm by virtue of the business model that it employs.

Personally, I have a controversial relationship with the concept of “strategy.” I feel it’s too easy to make it foggy and empty of practical meaning.

Yet strategy and vision matter in business.

A strategy isn’t just a calculated path, but often a philosophical choice about how the world works.

Usually, it takes years and, at times, also decades for a strategy to become viable. And once it does become viable, it seems obvious only in hindsight.

In this guide, we see what that means.

In the real world, the difficult part is understanding the problem

In the real world, a lot of time and resources are spent on defining the problem.

Classic case studies at business school assume in most scenarios that the problem is known and the solution needs to be found.

In the real world, the problem is unknown, the situation is highly ambiguous, and the most difficult part is making the decision that might solve that same problem you’re trying to figure out.

How do you execute a strategy in that context? Business modeling can help!

Is a business strategy the same thing as a business model?

As the business world started to change dramatically, again, by the early 2000s, also the concept of strategy changed with it.

In the previous era, the strategy was primarily made of locking in the supply chain to guarantee a strong distribution toward the marketplace.

And yet, the web enabled new companies to form with a bottom-up approach.

In short, product development cycles shortened, and frameworks like lean , agile , and continuous innovation became integrated into a world where software took over.

Where most of the processes before the digital age, were physical in nature. As the web took off, most of the processes became digital.

In short, the software would become the core enhancer of hardware.

We’ve seen how in cases like Apple’s iPhone , it wasn’t just the hardware that made the difference.

But it was the development ecosystem and the applications that enhanced the capabilities of the device.

Thus, from a product standpoint, hardware has been enhanced more and more with the software side.

At the same time, the way companies developed products in the first place changed.

Software and digits-based companies could gather feedback early on, thus enabling the customers’ feedback as a key element of the whole product development cycle.

Therefore, wherein the previous era, companies spent billions of budgets to release markets, and products, with little customer feedback.

In the digital era, customer feedback became built into the product development loop.

That led to frameworks with faster and faster product releases, which also changed the way we do marketing .

In a classic MVP approach, the loop (build, measure, learn) has to be very quick, and it has to lead to the so-called product/market fit .

As the web made the ability to gather customers’ feedback early on, and as the whole process becomes less and less expensive, also lean approaches evolved, to gain feedback from customers as early as possible.

From build > demo > sell, to demo > sell > build , lean approaches got leaner.

And the era of customer-centrism and customer obsession developed:

This whole change flipped the strategy world upside down.

And from elaborate business plans , we moved to business modeling , as an experimental tool, that enabled entrepreneurs to gather feedback continuously.

In a customer-centered business world, business models have become effective thinking tools, to represent a business and a business strategy on a single page, which helped the whole execution process.

The key building blocks of a classic business model approach, like a business model canvas or lean startup canvas move around the concept of value proposition , that glue them together.

And from the supply chain , we moved to customer value chains .

Where most digital business models learned to gather customers’ feedback in multiple ways.

The business strategy formed in the digital era, therefore, developed its own customer-centered view of the world, and the business theory world followed.

Academics, following practitioners, moved away from traditional models (like Porter’s Five Forces ) to more customer-centered approaches ( business model canvas , lean canvas).

The mindset shift flipped from distribution and optimization on the supply side.

To optimize on the demand side, or how to build products that people want, in the first place. This is the new mantra.

No more grandiose business plans, just substantial testing, iteration, and experimentation.

In this new context, we can understand the strategy developed by several players and how business modeling has become the most important strategy tool.

And the interesting part is, whether you want to scale to become a tech giant, or you just want to build a small, viable business, it all starts from the same place!

Is business strategy a science?

Business strategy is more of an art than a science.

In short, a business strategy starts with a series of assumptions about how the business world looks in a certain period of time and for a certain target of people.

Whether those assumptions will turn out to be successful will highly depend on several factors.

For instance, back in the late 1990s when the web took over, new startups came up with the idea of revolutionizing many services.

While those ideas seemed to make sense, they turned out to be completely off, and many of those startups failed in what would be recognized as a dot-com bubble.

While in hindsight certain aspects of that bubble came up (like frauds, or schemes).

In general, some of the ideas for which startups got financed seemed to be visionary and turned out to work a decade later (see DoorDash , or Instacart , in relation to Webvan’s bankruptcy).

For instance, some startups tried to bring on-demand streaming to the web (which today we call Netflix ). Those ideas proved to be too early.

They made sense but from the commercial standpoint, they didn’t.

Thus, if we were to use the scientific method, once those assumptions would have proved wrong in the real world, we would have discarded them.

However, those assumptions proved to be wrong, in that time period, given the current circumstances.

While we can use the scientific inquiry process in business strategy, it’s hard to say that it is a scientific discipline.

So what’s the use of business strategy?

In my opinion, business strategy is useful for three main reasons:

As a practitioner, someone who tries to build successful businesses, I don’t need to be “scientific.”

I need to make sure not to be completely off track. For that matter, I aim at creating businesses.

Thus, I need to understand where to focus my attention in a relatively long period of time (3-5 years at least) and make sure that those ideas I pursue are able to generate profits, which – in my opinion – might be a valid indicator that those ideas are correct for the time being.

If those conditions are met, I’ll call it a “successful business.”

Those ideas will become a business model , that executes a business strategy.

This doesn’t mean those ideas, turned into a business model , pushed into the world will always be successful (profitable).

As the marketplace evolves I will need to adjust, and tweak a business model to fit with the new evolving scenarios, and I’ll need to be able to “bet” on new possible business models .

Survivorship bias

Survivorship bias is a phenomenon where what’s not visible (because extinct) isn’t taken into account when analyzing the past.

In short, we analyze the past based on what’s visible.

This error happens in any field, and in business, we might get fooled by that as well.

In short, when we analyze the past we do that in hindsight.

That makes us cherry-pick the things that survived and assume that those carry the successful characteristics we’re looking for.

For instance, for each Amazon or Google that survived there were hundreds if not thousands of companies that failed, with the same kind of “successful features” as Amazon or Google.

So why do we analyze successful companies in the first place? In my opinion, there are several reasons:

Those successful companies have turned into Super Gatekeepers to billions of people : as I showed in the gatekeeping hypothesis , and in the surfer’s model , a go-to-market strategy for startups will need to be able to leverage existing digital pipelines to reach key customers.

Modeling and experimentation : another key point is about modeling what’s working for other businesses and borrowing parts of those models, to see what works for our business. By borrowing parts you can build your own business model, yet that requires a lot of testing.

Skin in the game testing : therefore business models become key tools for experimentation, where we can use real customers’ feedback (not a survey, or opinions but actions) and test our hypotheses and assumptions. When we’re able to sell our products, when people keep getting back to our platform, or service, there is no best way to test our assumptions that measure those actions.

Lindy effect and aging in reverse

Nicholas Nassim Taleb , in his book Antifragile , popularized a concept called Lindy Effect .

In very simple terms the Lindy Effect states that in technology (like any other field where the object of discussion is non-perishable) things age in reverse.

Thus, life expectancy, rather than diminishing with age, has a longer life expectancy.

Therefore, a technology that has lived for two thousand years, has a life expectancy of another thousand years.

That is a probabilistic rule of thumb that works on averages.

Thus, if a technology (say the Internet) has stayed with us for twenty years, it doesn’t mean we can expect only to live for another twenty years at least.

But as the Internet has proved successful already, the Lindy Effect might not apply.

In short, as we have additional information about a phenomenon the Lindy Effect might lose relevance.

For instance, if I know a person is twenty, yet sick of a terminal disease, I can’t expect to use normal life expectancy tables.

So I’ll have to apply that information to understand the future.

Strategies take years to fully roll out

It was 2006, when Tesla, with his co-founder Martin Eberhard , launched a sports car that broke down the trade-off between high performance and fuel efficiency.

Tesla, which for a few years had been building up an electric sports car ready to be marketed, finally pulled it off.

As Elon Musk would explain Back in 2012:

In 2006 our plan was to build an electric sports car followed by an affordable electric sedan, and reduce our dependence on oil…delivering Model S is a key part of that plan and represents Tesla’s transition to a mass-production automaker and the most compelling car company of the 21st century.

The beauty of a strategy that turns into a successful company, is that it might take years to roll out and seem obvious only in hindsight.

This connects to what I like to call the transitional business model.

Or the idea, that many companies, before getting into a fully rolled out business strategy, transition through a period of low scalability and low market size, which will help them gain initial traction.

As a transitional business model proves viable, it helps the company shape its long-term vision, while its built-in strategy is different from the long-term strategy.

The transitional business model will guarantee survival. It will help further refine the long-term strategy and it will also work as a reality check.

As the transitional business model proves viable, the company moves to its long-term strategy execution.

As the business strategy gets rolled out, over the years, it becomes evident and obvious, and yet none managed to pull it off.

When Netflix moved from DVD rental to streaming. DVD rental was the transitional business model that helped Netflix stay in business in the first place.

And yet, when Netflix moved from DVD to streaming it had to apparently change its strategy.

When, in reality, it was rolling out its long-term strategy, shaped by the transitional business model.

Caveat: Frameworks work until suddenly they don’t

When you stumbled upon a “business formula,” you can’t stop there.

That business formula, if you’re lucky, will allow you to succeed in the long term. Yet as more and more people will find that out, that will lose relevance.

And the matter is, the reality is a villain. Things work for years until they suddenly don’t work anymore.

We’ll see some frameworks, but the real deal is not a framework but the inquiry process that makes us discover those frameworks.

In short, the value is in the repeatable process of discovery and not in the discovery itself. A discovery, once spread, loses value.

Master a business strategy process

There isn’t a size-fits-all business playbook that you can apply to all the scenarios.

Some of the business case studies we’ll see throughout this article will show companies that have dominated the tech space in the last decade and more.

While the playbook executed by those companies worked for the time being.

That doesn’t mean you should play according to their playbook. If at all you’ll need to figure out your own.

Thus, what matters is the process behind finding your business playbook and my hope is that this guide will inspire you and give you some good ideas on how to develop your own business strategy process!

Business strategy case studies

We’ll look now at a few case studies of companies that, at the time of this writing, are playing an important role in the business world.

What is a business model’s essence?

Keeping in mind the distinction between business strategy and business models is critical.

The other element used in this guide is a business model essence.

Shortly, I’ve been looking for a way to summarize the key elements of any business in a couple of lines of text:

Therefore, for the sake of this discussion, you’ll find each company’s business strategy, a business model essence that will help us navigate through the noisy business world.

From there, we’ll see the business strategy of a company.

Alibaba Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : Online Stores Leveraging On An E-Commerce/Marketplace Distribution And Monetization Strategy

As pointed out in Alibaba’s annual report for 2017:

We derive revenue from our four business segments: core commerce, cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, and innovation initiatives and others. We derive most of our revenue from our core commerce segment, which accounted for 85% of our total revenue in fiscal year 2017, while cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, and innovation initiatives and others contributed 4%, 9% and 2%, respectively. We derive a substantial majority of our core commerce revenue from online marketing services.

Alibaba, like Amazon , became an “everything store” in China.

It leveraged its success to build also other media platforms ( Youku Todou and UCWeb). The e-commerce, marketplace business model has become quite common since the dawn of the web.

From that business model tech giants like Amazon , eBay and Alibaba have raised.

Alibaba’s vision, mission, and core principles

Alibaba’s Business Strategy starts from its core values defined in its annual report:

Alibaba’s mission is “ to make it easy to do business anywhere, ” and its vision is “to build the future infrastructure of commerce… a company that would last at least 102 years.”

For that vision to be executed it has three major stakeholders: users, consumers, and merchants.

The focus on the “at least 102 years” might seem fluffy words, yet those are important as this kind of goal helps you keep a long-term vision while executing short-term plans.

It isn’t unusual for founders to set such visions, as they help keep the company on track in the long run.

And this is where a business strategy starts.

All the business models designed by Alibaba will follow its vision, mission, and values they aim to create in the long run.

Read : Alibaba Business Model

Alibaba ecosystem and value proposition

These elements gave rise to an ecosystem made of “consumers, merchants, brands, retailers, other businesses, third-party service providers and strategic alliance partners.”

As Alibaba points out in its annual report “our ecosystem has strong self-reinforcing network effects benefitting its various participants, who are in turn invested in our ecosystem’s growth and success.”

Network effects are a critical ingredient for marketplaces’ success.

To give you an idea, the more buyers join the platform, the more Alibaba’s recommendation engine will be able to suggest relevant items to buy for other customers, and at the same time the more merchants will join in, given the larger and larger business opportunities.

Keeping these network effects going is a vital element of long-term success but also among the greatest challenge of any marketplace that wants to be relevant.

Even though Alibaba’s essence is in online commerce, the company has several business model s running and a business strategy that at its core is evolving quickly.

Thus, the core commerce has made it possible for Alibaba to build a whole new set of “companies within a company.”

From digital entertainment and media, logistics services, payment, financial services, and cloud services with Alibaba Cloud.

Thus, from a successful existing online business model , Alibaba has expanded in many other areas.

And its future business strategy focuses on developing, nurturing, and growing its ecosystem.

More precisely, its strategic long-term goal is to “serve two billion consumers around the world and support ten million businesses to operate profitably on its platforms”

To achieve that Alibaba is focusing on three key activities:

For its core commerce activities, Alibaba has designed a value proposition that moves around a few pillars:

From that value proposition , Alibaba has been able to grow its customer base and offer wider and broader products, until it expanded in the service and cloud business.

Amazon Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : E-Commerce/Marketplace Distribution And Monetization Model Leveraging On Proprietary Infrastructure To Offer Third-Party Services

Starting in 1994 as a bookstore, Amazon soon expanded and became the everything store.

While the company’s core business model is based on its online store.

Amazon launched its physical stores, which generated already over five billion dollars in revenues in 2017.

Amazon Prime (a subscription service) also plays a crucial role in Amazon’s overall business model , as it makes customers spend more and be more loyal to the platform.

Besides, the company also has its cloud infrastructure called AWS, which is a world leader and a business with high margins. Amazon also has an advertising business worth a few billion dollars.

Thus, the Amazon business model mix looks like many companies in one. Amazon measures its success via a customer experience obsession, lowering prices, stable tech infrastructure, and free cash flow generation.

Therefore, even though in the minds of most people Amazon is the “everything store.”

In reality, its revenue generation shows us that it has become a way more complex organization, that also has a good chunk of advertising revenue and third-party services.

For instance, Amazon is also a key player with its AWS in the cloud space.

And is well a key player in the digital advertising space, together with Google and Facebook :

Amazon has been widely investing in its technological infrastructure since the 2000s, which eventually turned into a key component of its business model .

Read : Amazon Business Model

Amazon’s vision, mission, and core values

amazon-vision-statement-mission-statement (1)

Jeff Bezos is obsessed with being in “day one,” which as he puts it , “ day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1. “

It all starts from there, and to achieve that Jeff Bezos has highlighted a few core values that makeup Amazon ‘s culture and vision :

As pointed out by Amazon , “w hen Amazon.com launched in 1995, it was with the mission “ to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. ”

This goal continues today, but Amazon ’s customers are worldwide now and have grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers, Content Creators, and Developers & Enterprises.

Each of these groups has different needs, and we always work to meet those needs, innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and more cost-effective.”

In this case, Amazon ‘s mission also sounds like a vision statement.

Whatever you want to call it, this input is what makes a company look for long-term goals that keep them on track.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a well-crafted vision and mission statement is all that matters for business success.

Yet, it is what keeps you going when things seem to go awry.

Amazon moved from an online book store to the A-to-Z store it kept its mission almost intact while scaling up.

Start from a proof of concept, then scale up

It is interesting to notice how businesses evolve based on their commercial ability to scale up.

When Amazon started up as a bookstore, it made sense for several reasons, that spanned from logistics to pricing modes and industry specifics.

Yet, when Amazon finally proved that the whole web thing could be commercially viable, it didn’t wait, it grew rapidly.

From music to anything else it didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen quickly.

Thus, this is how Amazon’s mission shifted from “any book in the world” to “anything from A-Z.”

This isn’t a size-fits-all strategy. Amazon chose rapid growth, similar to a blitzscaling process as aggressive growth was a way to preserve itself.

Hadn’t Amazon grown so quickly, it could have been killed.

The opposite approach to this kind of strategy is a bootstrapped business, which is profitable right away and self-sustainable.

Decentralized and distributed value creation: the era of platforms and ecosystems

Before we move forward, I want to highlight a few key elements to have a deeper understanding of both Amazon and Alibaba’s business models and their strategies.

Before digitalization would show its use and commercial viability, most of the value creation processes were internalized.

That meant companies had to employ massive resources to generate value along that chain.

That changed when digitalization allowed the value creation process to be distributed, and we moved from centralized to grassroots content creation.

This is even clearer in the case of platforms, and marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba.

For instance, where in the past the review process and quality insurance would be done centrally by making sure that the supply complied with the company’s quality guidelines.

Introducing distributed review systems, where the end-users checked against the quality compliance, allowed companies like Alibaba and Amazon to generate network effects, where the more users enriched the platforms with those reviews the more the platform could become valuable.

For that matter though, the main platform’s role will be to fight spam and attempt to trick the system.

Other than that (fighting spam is a challenging task) all the rest is managed at the decentralized level, and the value creation happens when more and more users review products and services on those platforms.

We’re referring here to the review system, but it applies almost to any aspect of a platform.

Amazon for years allowed third-party to feature their stores on Amazon ‘s platform, while they kept the inventory.

This meant an outsourced and distributed inventory system, spread across the supply side.

Therefore, the supply side not only made the platform more valuable by creating compelling offerings.

But it also made it more valuable from the operational standpoint, by allowing a better inventory system, which could be turned quickly.

Therefore, the critical aspect to understand in the digital era is decentralized value creation, which makes the value creation process less expensive for an organization, more valuable to its end users, and more scalable as it benefits from network effects.

How do decentralize value creation?

Many platform-like business models have leveraged a few aspects:

This implies a paradigm shift.

When you start thinking in terms of platforms, no longer you’ll need a plethora of people taking care of each aspect of it.

Rather you’ll need to understand how the value creation can be outsourced to a community of people and make sure the platform is on top of its game in a few aspects.

For instance, Amazon and Alibaba have to make sure their review system isn’t gamed. Airbnb has to make sure to be able to guarantee safety in the interactions from host to guests and vice-versa.

Quora has to make sure to keep its question machine to keep generating relevant questions for users to answer (the supply-side).

If you grasp this element of a platform, you’re on a good track to understanding how to build a successful platform or marketplace.

Apple Business Strategy

Business Model Label : Product-Based Company Leveraging On Locked-In Ecosystems With A Reversed Razor And Blade Business Strategy

Apple sells its products and resells third-party products in most of its major markets directly to consumers and small and mid-sized businesses through its retail and online stores and its direct sales force.

The Company also employs a variety of indirect distribution channels , such as third-party cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers, and value-added resellers.

During 2017, the Company’s net sales through its direct and indirect distribution channels accounted for 28% and 72%, respectively, of total net sales.

Many people look at the iPhone, or the previous products Apple has launched successfully in the last decade and assume that their success is due to those products.

In reality, Apple has followed throughout the years a strategy that focused on five key elements:

In short, Apple can sell an iPhone at a premium price because it employs a reversed razor and blade strategy.

This strategy implies free access to Apple’s Ecosystem (ex. iTunes, and Apple Store).

That makes the whole experience through Apple’s devices extremely valuable.

Thanks to that experience, the perception of high-end (luxury-like) products, together with a reliable distribution, justifies Apple’s premium prices.

Apple’s managed to build a business platform on top of the iPhone, thus creating a strong competitive moat, which lasts to these days:

Therefore, Apple’s future success can’t be measured with the same lenses as the last decade.

The real question is: what product will Apple be able to launch successfully?

And keep in mind it’s not just about the product. Apple’s formula summarized above can be replicated over and over again.

But it isn’t a simple formula. And as locked-in ecosystems, in which Apple controls as much as possible, the experience of its users has proved quite successful in the last decade.

That might not be so in the next, given the rise of more decentralized infrastructure.

For that matter, Amazon might be well moving from a reversed razor and blade model:

To a service-based model:

This isn’t surprising, as a service business has a few compelling advantages:

As Apple has relied on home runs with its products, from the new Mac to the iPod, iPhone, and iPhones, that kind of success isn’t easy to replicate, and it makes the company relies on a continuous stream of fresh sales to keep the business growing.

A service business would balance things out.

It is important to remark this isn’t something new to Apple :

When Apple introduced the iPhone, it isn’t like it was an overnight success. It was successful, but it had to create a whole ecosystem to make the iPhone a continuous source of growth for the company!

When it comes to business strategy, as pointed out in Apple’s annual reports:

The Company is committed to bringing the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software and services. The Company’s business strategy leverages its unique ability to design and develop its own operating systems, hardware, application software and services to provide its customers products and solutions with innovative design, superior ease-of-use and seamless integration.

Understanding this part is critical. As I explained above, at the time of this writing many think of Apple as the “iPhone company.”

Yet Apple is way more than that, and its business strategy is a mixture of creating ecosystems by leveraging on these pillars:

Those elements together make Apple ‘s products successful. As Apple further explained:

As part of its strategy, the Company continues to expand its platform for the discovery and delivery of digital content and applications through its Digital Content and Services, which allows customers to discover and download or stream digital content, iOS, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV applications, and books through either a Mac or Windows personal computer or through iPhone, iPad and iPod touch® devices (“iOS devices”), Apple TV, Apple Watch and HomePod.

Once again, it isn’t anymore about creating a product, but about generating self-serve ecosystems.

How do you support those ecosystems?

It depends on what’s your target. A media company will primarily need an ecosystem made of content creators (take Quora or Facebook or YouTube ).

In many cases, a digital media company over time has to be able to nurture several communities to create a thriving ecosystem.

For instance, large tech companies or startups, often rely on several communities:

In Apple ‘s case though, the first ecosystem is the community of developers building third-party software products that complement the company’s offering:

The Company also supports a community for the development of third-party software and hardware products and digital content that complement the Company’s offerings.

When you combine that with a high-touch strategy (where skilled and knowledgeable salespeople interact with customers) you create a flywheel, where customers are retained for longer, the brand grows as a result of this high-touch activity which creates a better post-sale experience and triggers word of mouth and referral from existing customers:

The Company believes a high-quality buying experience with knowledgeable salespersons who can convey the value of the Company’s products and services greatly enhances its ability to attract and retain customers.Therefore, the Company’s strategy also includes building and expanding its own retail and online stores and its third-party distribution network to effectively reach more customers and provide them with a high-quality sales and post-sales support experience.The Company believes ongoing investment in research and development (“R&D”), marketing and advertising is critical to the development and sale of innovative products, services and technologies.

Read : Apple Business Model

Airbnb Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : Peer-To-Peer House-Sharing Network With Fee-Based Monetization Strategy

As a peer-to-peer network, Airbnb allows individuals to rent from private owners for a fee.

Airbnb charges guests a service fee between 5% and 15% of the reservation subtotal; While the commission from hosts is generally 3%.

Airbnb also charges hosts who offer experiences a 20% service fee on the total price.

The digitalization that happened in the last two decades has facilitated the creation of peer-to-peer platforms in which business models disrupted the hospitality model created in the previous century by hotel chains like Marriott, Holiday Inn, and Hilton.

Airbnb is quickly branching out toward offering more experiences. We can call Airbnb the “marketplace of experiences.”

In short, just like Amazon started from books, Airbnb has started from house-sharing.

But that is the starting point, which gives the innovative company enough traction to validate its whole business model and expand to other areas.

The principal aim of Airbnb is to control the whole experience for its users. This means creating an end-to-end travel experience that embraces the entire process .

Thus, it’s not surprising that we’ll see Airbnb expanding its marketplace to more and more areas. This is also shown by the fact that Airbnb might soon offer bundled travel packages .

Just as we’ve seen in the case of Alibaba and Amazon , Airbnb follows a marketplace logic, where it needs to make the interactions between its key users (hosts and guests) as smooth as possible, with an emphasis on safety.

As a platform, Airbnb initially used a strategy of improving the quality of its supply by employing freelance photographers that could take pictures of host homes.

This, in turn, made those homes more interesting for guests, as they could appreciate those homes more.

As many people in real estate might know, the quality of the pictures is critical.

Although this might sound trivial, this is what improved the Airbnb supply side.

Indeed with better and professionally taken images, Airbnb improved its reach via search engines (yes, search engines are thirsty for fresh and original content, images comprised).

And it enhanced the experience of its potential customers.

Now Airbnb is converting its business model to digital experiences. In addition to changing the whole strategy.

Whereas Airbnb focused in the past on covering major cities across the world.

Changing travel habits made Airbnb focus on digital experiences and local, extra-metropolitan areas throughout the pandemic.

While, post-pandemic, as people travel for longer stays, the whole platform has been structured around these.

Read : Airbnb Business Model

Baidu Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : Online Marketing Free Services Advertising-Supported Revenue Model

Baidu makes money primarily via online marketing services (advertising). In fact, in 2017, Baidu made about $11.24 in online marketing services and a remaining almost $1.8 billion through other sources. According to Statista,

Baidu has an overall search market share of 73.8% of the Chinese market. Other sources of revenues comprise membership services of iQIYI (an innovative market-leading online entertainment service provider in China) and financial services.

At first sight, Baidu might seem the mirror image of Google , but in China.

However, this is a superficial view. While Baidu has followed in China a similar path to Google , it did take advantage of the fact that Google wasn’t available there, to build its dominant position.

Baidu also has a more efficient cost structure than Google. It had also introduced innovations in its search products (like voice search devices for kids) at a time when Google wasn’t there yet.

Read : Baidu Business Model

Baidu mission: two-pillar business strategy and value propositions acting as a glue for its key users/customers

In the past years, Baidu has followed an expansion business strategy focused on acquiring assets and companies that complemented its core business model .

As the leading Chinese search provider, in 2017, Baidu updated its mission to “ Baidu aims to make a complex world simpler through technology.”

This mission is achieved via a two-pillar strategy:

Baidu’s key partners comprise users, customers, Baidu union members, and content providers.

For each of those critical segments, Baidu has drafted a fundamental value proposition .

Thus, to generate a value chain that works for these stakeholders, Baidu has to balance it with a diversified value proposition :

Understanding how the value proposition for each player comes together is critical to understanding the business decisions a company like Baidu makes over time.

For instance, as Baidu (like Google ) moves more and more toward AI, the need to balance the value proposition for Baidu Union Members might fickle.

Booking Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : House-Sharing Platform Leveraging On A Two-Sided Marketplace With A Commission-Based Revenue Model

Booking Holdings is the company that controls six main brands that comprise Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable.

Over 76% of the company’s revenues in 2017 came primarily via travel reservations commissions and travel insurance fees.

Almost 17% came from merchant fees, and the remaining revenues came from advertising earned via KAYAK.

As a distribution strategy, the company spent over $4.5 billion on performance-based and brand advertising.

Read : Booking Business Model

Booking mission, value proposition, and key players

Booking’s mission is to “help people experience the world.” Booking does that via a few primary brands:

The mission of helping people experience the world is executed via three primary value propositions delivered to consumers, travelers, and business partners:

Boomedium-term term strategy is focused on:

DuckDuckGo Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : Privacy-based Search Engine Built On Google’s Weakness With An affiliate-based Revenue Model

DuckDuckGo makes money in two simple ways: Advertising and Affiliate Marketing.

Advertising is shown based on the keywords typed into the search box. Affiliate revenues come from Amazon and eBay affiliate programs.

When users buy after getting on those sites through DuckDuckGo the company collects a small commission.

While this model might not sound that exciting. DuckDuckGo managed to grow quickly by leveraging Google’s primary weakness: users’ privacy. Where Google’s primary asset is made of users’ data. DuckDuckGo throws that data away on the fly:

It is important to remark that DuckDuckGo is still figuring out a business model that can make it sustainable in the long term.

Indeed, the company got a venture round of $10 million back in August 2018.

DuckDuckGo will be tweaking its business model in the coming years, to reach a “ business model /market fit.”

Read : DuckDuckGo Business Model

Read : DuckDuckGo Story

Google (Alphabet) Business Strategy

Business Model Essence : Free Search Engine Distributed Across Hardware, Browsers, And Members’ Websites With An Hidden Revenue Generation Model

As of 2017, over ninety billion dollars, which consisted of 86% of Google ’s revenues came from advertising networks.

The remaining fraction (about 13%) came from Apps, Google Cloud, and Hardware. While a bit more than 1% came from bets like Access, Calico, CapitalG, GV, Nest, Verily, Waymo, and X.

Google business model is changing over the years.

Even though advertising is still its cash cow, Google has been diversifying its revenues in other areas.

While in 2015 90% of Google’s revenues came from advertising, in 2017, advertising revenues represented 86%.

Other revenues grew from about 10% in 2015 to almost 13% in 2017.

Why did Google get there? And where is Google going next? To understand that you need to understand the “moonshot thinking.”

Read : Google Business Model

Read : Google Cost Structure

Read : Baidu vs. Google

Understanding Google’s moonshot thinking and a breakthrough approach to business

As highlighted in the Alphabet annual report for 2018:

Many companies get comfortable doing what they have always done, making only incremental changes. This incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, where change tends to be revolutionary, not evolutionary. People thought we were crazy when we acquired YouTube and Android and when we launched Chrome, but those efforts have matured into major platforms for digital video and mobile devices and a safer, popular browser. We continue to look toward the future and continue to invest for the long-term. As we said in the original founders’ letter, we will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects that we believe in because they are the key to our long-term success.

Understanding the moonshot approach to business is critical to understanding where Google (now Alphabet) got where it is today, and where it’s headed next.

Since the first shareholders’ letter from Google’s founders, Brin and Page they highlighted that “ Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

Google has successfully built ecosystems that today drive

To understand where Google is going next, you need to look at the AI Economy , in which the tech giant is trying to lead the pack.

Whether or not it will be successful will highly depend on its ability to keep creating successful ecosystems, just as Google has done with Google Maps (you might not realize but Google Maps powers up quite a large number of applications) and Android.

At the time of this writing, Google is widely investing in other areas, such as:

If that is not sufficient Google has made several moves in different spaces, to keep its dominance on mobile, while moving toward voice search, like the investment in KaiOS, which business model is interesting as it finally allows an ecosystem to be built on top of cheap mobile devices in developing countries:

That is why Google keeps making “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to its current businesses.”

Those other bets made “just” $595 million to Google in 2018.

This represented 0.4% of Google ‘s overall revenues , compared to the over $136 billion coming from the other segments.

Google ‘s North Star is its mission of “ organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.”

Read : KaiOS Business Model

Let’s go through a few other tips for a successful business strategy.

Problem-first approach

The customer-problem quadrant by LEANSTACK’s Ash Maurya is a great starting point to define and understand the problem, that as an entrepreneur you will going to solve.

Indeed, a successful business is such, based on the market’s rewards for the entrepreneur’s ability to solve a problem.

Keep in mind that defining and understanding problems in the real world is one of the most difficult things (that is why entrepreneurship is so hard).

To properly stumble on the right definition of the problem you’re solving, there might be some fine-tuning going on, which in the business world we like to call product-market fit .

Business engineering skills

Another key element is not to lose sight of the context you’re operating.

As such, analyzing that properly might require some business engineering skills .

To simplify your life you can use the FourWeekMBA business analysis framework.

Don’t strategize on a piece of paper

Strategies always work well on a piece of paper.

Yet when execution comes suddenly we can realize all the drawbacks of that.

In very few, rare cases, a designed strategy will work as expected.

However, the reason we plan and strategize isn’t just to make things work as we’d like them to.

But to communicate a vision we have to those people (employees, customers, stakeholders) who will help us get there.

That is why when we strategize it’s important not to lose sight of the essence of our strategy, which is the long-term vision we have for our business.

The rest is execution, practice, and a lot of experimentation!

The innovation loop

Innovation starts by tweaking, testing, and experimenting also in unexpected ways.

Often though, as a business strategy is documented after the fact, it seems as if it was all part of a plan.

In most cases, the innovation loop starts by stumbling upon that thing that will have a great impact on your business.

Therefore, as an entrepreneur, you need to keep pushing on those models that worked out.

But also to be on the lookout for new ways of doing things.

Barbell approach

In a barbel approach we want to have a clear distinction between two domains:

For instance, a tech giant like Google, has a part of its business skewed toward a few bets it placed on industries that are completely unrelated to its core business (search).

Those bets are not contributing at all to its bottom line (only some of those bets are generating revenues but those are extremely marginal compared to the overall turnover of the company).

However, those might turn out widely successful (or huge failures) in the years to come.

Thus, with a barbell approach, we want to consolidate what we have. But also be open to what might be coming next!

Strategic analysis thinking tools

Strategic analysis is a process to understand the organization’s environment and competitive landscape to formulate informed business decisions , to plan for the organizational structure and long-term direction. Strategic planning is also useful to experiment with business model design and assess the fit with the long-term vision of the business.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas aims to provide a keen understanding of your business model to provide strategic insights about your customers, product/service, and financial structure;

so that you can make better business decisions.

Blitzscaling canvas

In this article, I’ll focus on the Blitzscaling business model canvas. This is a model based on the concept of Blitzscaling.

That is a particular process of massive growth under uncertainty, and that prioritizes speed over efficiency. It focuses on market domination to create a first-scaler advantage in a scenario of uncertainty.

Pretotyping

Pretotyping is a mixture of the words “pretend” and “prototype,” and it is a methodology used to validate business ideas to improve the chances of building a product or service that people want.

The pretotyping methodology comes from Alberto Savoia’s work summarized in the book “The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed.”

This framework is a mixture of the words “pretend” and “prototype,” and it helps to answer such questions (about the product or service to build) as: Would I use it? How, how often, and when would I use it?

Would other people buy it? How much would they be willing to pay for it? How, how often, and when would they use it?

Value innovation and blue ocean strategy

A blue ocean is a strategy where the boundaries of existing markets are redefined, and new uncontested markets are created.

At its core, there is value innovation, for which uncontested markets are created, where competition is made irrelevant. And the cost-value trade-off is broken.

Thus, companies following a blue ocean strategy offer much more value at a lower cost for the end customers.

Growth hacking process

Growth hacking is a process of rapid experimentation, coupled with the understanding of the whole funnel, where marketing , product, data analysis, and engineering work together to achieve rapid growth.

The growth hacking process goes through four key stages analyzing, ideating, prioritizing, and testing.

Pirate metrics

Venture capitalist , Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables us to understand what metrics and channels to look at. At each stage of the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.

Engines of growth

In the Lean Startup, Eric Ries defined the engine of growth as “the mechanism that startups use to achieve sustainable growth.”

He described sustainable growth as following a simple rule, “new customers come from the actions of past customers.”

The three engines of growth are the sticky engine, the viral engine, and the paid engine. Each of those can be measured and tracked by a few key metrics, and it helps plan your strategic moves.

The RTVN model is a straightforward framework that can help you design a business model when you’re at the very early stage of figuring out what you need to make it succeed.

Sales cycle

A sales cycle is the process that your company takes to sell your services and products.

In simple words, it’s a series of steps that your sales reps need to go through with prospects that lead up to a closed sale.

Planning ahead of time the steps your sales team needs to take to close a big contract can help you grow the revenues for your business.

Comparable analysis

A comparable company analysis is a process that enables the identification of similar organizations to be used as a comparison to understand the business and financial performance of the target company.

To find comparables, you can look at two key profiles: the business and economic profiles.

From the comparable company analysis, it is possible to understand the competitive landscape of the target organization.

Porter’s five forces

Porter’s Five Forces is a model that helps organizations to gain a better understanding of their industries and competition.

It was published for the first time by Professor Michael Porter in his book “Competitive Strategy” in the 1980s.

The model breaks down industries and markets by analyzing them through five forces which you can use to have a first assessment of the market you’re in.

Porter’s Generic Strategies

Porter’s Value Chain

Porter’s Diamond Model

Bowman’s Strategy Clock

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. This is a model that is used in marketing to describe the potential journey a customer might go through, before purchasing a product or service. The variation of the AIDA model is the CAB model and the AIDCAS model.

PESTEL analysis

The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization.

This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses. That can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.

Technology adoption curve

The technology adoption curve is a model that goes through five stages. Each of those stages (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggard) has a specific psychographic that makes that group of people ready to adopt a tech product.

This simple concept can help you define the right target for your business strategy.

Business model essence

A Business Model Essence, according to FourWeekMBA, is a way to find the critical characteristics of any business to have a clear understanding of that business in a few sentences.

That can be used to analyze existing businesses. Or to draft your Business Model and keep a strategic and execution focus on the key elements to be implemented in the short-medium term.

FourWeekMBA business model framework

An effective business model has to focus on two dimensions: the people dimension and the financial dimension. The people dimension will allow you to build a product or service that is 10X better than existing ones and a solid brand.

The financial dimension will help you develop proper distribution channels by identifying the people that are willing to pay for your product or service and make it financially sustainable in the long run.

TAM, SAM, and SOM

Understanding your TAM, SAM and SOM can help you navigate the market you’re in and to have a laser focus on the market you can reach with your product and service.

Brand Building

Value Proposition Design

Product-Market Fit

Freemium Decision Model

Organizational Design And Structures

Speed-Reversibility Matrix

Minimum Viable Product

SWOT Analysis

Revenue Modeling

Business Experimentation

Business Analysis

Ansoff Matrix

Key takeaway

I hope that in this guide you learned the critical aspects related to business strategy, with an emphasis on the entrepreneurial world. If business strategy would only be an academic discipline disjoined from reality, that would still be an interesting domain, yet purely speculative.

However, as a business strategy can be used as a useful tool to leverage on to build companies, hopefully, this guide will help you out in navigating through the seemingly noisy and confusing business world, dominated by technology. As a last but critical caveat, there isn’t a single way toward building a successful business.

And oftentimes the way you choose to build a business is really up to you, how you want to impact a community of people and your vision for the future!

Other resources:

Things like product differentiation, business model innovation, technological innovation, more capital for growth, can all be moats that organizations focus on to gain an edge. Depending on the context, industry, and scenario, a business strategy might be more or less effective; that is why testing and experimentation are critical elements.

Connected Strategy Frameworks

ADKAR Model

Business Model Canvas

Lean Startup Canvas

Blitzscaling Canvas

blitzscaling-business-model-innovation-canvas

Blue Ocean Strategy

Business Analysis Framework

McKinsey’s Seven Degrees

McKinsey Horizon Model

Porter’s Five Forces

Porter’s Value Chain Model

PESTEL Analysis

Scenario Planning

STEEPLE Analysis

FourWeekMBA Business Toolbox

Business Engineering

Tech Business Model Template

Web3 Business Model Template

Asymmetric Business Models

Business Competition

Technological Modeling

Transitional Business Models

Minimum Viable Audience

Business Scaling

Market Expansion Theory

Speed-Reversibility

Asymmetric Betting

Growth Matrix

Revenue Streams Matrix

Pricing Strategies

Other business resources:

IMAGES

Example Of Plan Of Action In Case Study
PPT
Case Study: Job Seeker Action Plan
14+ Business Action Plan PDF Templates
Barely There
Easy: Business Case Analysis Format and Guidelines for Students

VIDEO

The Village Of Millionaires
Entrepreneurship case study Keep
Love Story South Superhit Action Movie South Dubbed Hindi Full Romantic || Murder Plan
How Pulse went VIRAL without ADS?
Rs 9.65 Lakh Domino's Pizza 🍕 For Rs 400/- #shortvideo #shorts
THIS MAN SAVED ROYAL ENFIELD FROM BANKRUPTCY!! #shorts

COMMENTS

Sriracha Case Study Action Plan
Save Sriracha Case Study Action Plan For Later. Case Study Action Plan Full description. The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea
Action Plan Case Study Examples That Really Inspire
WowEssays.com paper writer service proudly presents to you a free database of Action Plan Case Studies intended to help struggling students tackle their writing challenges. In case this is not enough to slake the thirst for efficient writing help
Case Study Action Plan
This paper briefly summarizes the action plan case study of Johnson and Johnson. Free Essay: RUNNING HEAD: Johnson and Johnson Case Study Action Plan Johnson and Johnson Case Study Action Plan PHL/323 Abstract This paper briefly
Climate Action Plan Case Study
The Travel Corporation's Climate Action Plan: Commitment to Net Zero. TTC's Chief Sustainability Officer, Shannon Guihan, led the development of the Climate Action Plan, closely supported by TTC's Sustainability Manager
4 Product Marketing Growth Hacks That Actually Last, With Action Plans and 6 Case Studies
Case Study: Foundr Attracted 30,000 Opt-Ins From a Simple Instagram Sales Funnel. If you're looking for marketing strategies that last, try these!