3 Advanced Marketing Strategies That Work to Grow an Established Business
TL;DR: Key Takeaways
- Customer Database Strategy: I'll show you how to leverage your existing 1,000+ customers through top-of-mind email campaigns and Meta retargeting (but not about what they already bought)
- Expanded SEO Approach: Target "problems that precede the purchase" - keywords people search before looking for providers like you
- Lookalike Campaign Method: Use your buyer database to find new customers who behave like your best clients
- The Real Problem: It's not about doing more marketing - it's about refining and filling gaps you can't see from inside your business
- Growth Breakthrough: Small strategic tweaks can unlock massive growth opportunities sitting right under your nose
Introduction
You've done everything right. Your SEO is dialed in, ranking for all the keywords that matter. Your social media strategy is working - people are engaging, sharing, and commenting. Your Google ads are converting at healthy rates. But somehow, you've hit a wall trying to scale to the next level.
Sound familiar?
I get it. After 20 years in digital marketing and helping my agency clients generate over $300 million in revenue, I have consistently observed this exact pattern.
Successful businesses often get so close to breakthrough growth but miss what's right in front of them because they're too deeply entrenched in the weeds of daily operations.
Recently, I had one of those growth strategy diagnostic calls that reminded me exactly why I love what I do. The business owner I spoke with exemplifies this challenge perfectly. He started his company in 2022, and by 2025, he's built something truly impressive.
His team is executing well, his customers are happy, and his revenue is solid.
However, he wanted to double his business and felt stuck despite doing all the "right" things.
What made this conversation so exciting was that, within our first hour together, I identified five significant growth opportunities that he was completely missing. Not because he wasn't intelligent or capable - quite the opposite.
He was so focused on optimizing what was already working that he couldn't see the massive opportunities sitting right in his existing business infrastructure.
I'm sharing three of these strategies with you today because if you're in a similar position—feeling stuck despite your success—these insights could be the breakthrough you've been looking for.
Why I See This Pattern With So Many Fast-Growing Companies
When you've grown extremely fast and want to push the accelerator pedal even harder, your first instinct is usually to do more of what's working. More content, more ads, more SEO, more social media. But that's rarely the answer.
Over the years, I've developed what I call our "six pillar framework" that I apply to every business that comes to me feeling stuck. Instead of looking for what to add, I look for minor tweaks and strategic adjustments that can create exponential results.
The challenge is that when you're in the game every day, all day, you literally can't see these opportunities because you're inside the frame. You're looking at your business from the inside out, focusing on operations, fulfillment, and keeping the machine running smoothly.
But the most significant growth opportunities often require looking at your business from the outside in.
That's precisely what happened with this particular business owner. He had everything he needed to double his revenue - he couldn't see it from where he was sitting.
Strategy #1: Unlock the Hidden Goldmine in Your Customer Database
Why Your Past Customers Are Your Greatest Untapped Asset
If you have a database of 1,000 to 2,000 or more customers, you're sitting on what I consider the most valuable asset in your business—and most companies ignore entirely its potential.
Here's what I know from working with hundreds of businesses: every person in your customer database knows a couple hundred people. Psychologists have repeatedly proven this. Your customers have friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors who may need your product or service.
However, I see a recurring problem - when your sales team calls past customers asking for referrals, they often receive the same response: "I don't know anybody right now who needs that."
Your team walks away thinking you didn't get enough referrals, when the real issue is timing and top-of-mind awareness.
The solution isn't to call them more often or ask harder for referrals. The solution is to stay consistently visible and valuable so that when someone in their network mentions needing what you provide, your name immediately comes to mind.
The Critical Email Marketing Mistake That's Killing Your Referral Potential
I learned this lesson the hard way 25 years ago when I was in the mortgage industry. Like most businesses, staying in touch with past customers meant sending them information about my services.
So I created a newsletter - back then, it was direct mail, not email - filled with mortgage tips, rate updates, and industry insights.
I was being helpful and staying on top of my mind. One day, I received a phone call that changed everything.
One of my past customers called and said, "Darrell, take me off your list. I already bought a house. I don't want to hear about this mortgage stuff anymore."
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course the past customer didn't want to hear about mortgages - he'd already solved that problem!
But if he hadn't called me out on it, I never would have thought about it from his perspective.
That conversation taught me one of the most valuable lessons in my marketing career: never discuss with past customers the product they have already purchased from you.
The Top-of-Mind Awareness Campaign That Works
Instead of sending content about your products or services, I developed what I call the "top-of-mind awareness campaign." The goal isn't to sell them anything - it's to stay connected as a person and build genuine relationships.
Here's how I structure these campaigns:
Holiday Touchpoints: I map out every major holiday throughout the calendar year. Not just Christmas and Thanksgiving but Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and even quirky holidays like National Coffee Day. These become natural, non-sales reasons to reach out and connect.
Personal Milestones: Whenever possible, I collect birthdays - not just for the primary contact, but for spouses and children. Nothing makes someone feel more valued than being remembered by their family.
Value-Added Content: I share insights, tips, and information that's helpful to them as people, not as potential customers. Industry trends that might affect their business, local events they might enjoy, and even seasonal tips for their homes or health.
Relationship Building: The key is that every touchpoint focuses on the relationship, not the transaction. I'm not trying to sell people anything - I'm trying to be a valuable, memorable person in their life.
The result?
When someone in their network mentions needing what I provide, I'm not just a name in their phone - I'm someone they genuinely like and trust, someone who has consistently been valuable without asking for anything in return.
The Meta Retargeting Strategy That Keeps You Visible Without Being Annoying
The second component of maximizing your customer database is retargeting through Facebook and Instagram. But here's the critical point - you're NOT sending ads about your tips, tools, strategies, rates, or anything related to what they already bought.
I've developed what I call a "10-part omnipresence visibility strategy" that keeps you top of mind without being a pest. Here's how it works:
Ten Different Ads in Rotation: I create ten different pieces of content. Some are educational, some are entertaining, and some are personal. This mix keeps things interesting and helps avoid ad fatigue.
Strategic Frequency Capping: Meta enables you to limit the frequency at which people see your ads. With frequency caps, no one will see more than one ad every seven days. This means your previous customers will see one ad this week, a different ad next week, and so on. They won’t feel overwhelmed, and they won’t see the same ad twice.
Relationship-Focused Messaging: Every ad focuses on providing value, sharing insights, or fostering a personal connection. I might share a business tip that has nothing to do with my services, talk about a lesson I learned from a client, or even share something personal about my family or hobbies.
Content That Builds Authority: Although I'm not selling, I consistently demonstrate expertise and thought leadership. Demonstrating leadership and expertise reinforces why they initially chose to work with me and builds confidence for future referrals.
The beauty of this approach is that your past customers start to see you as more than just a service provider; you become a trusted advisor and a genuine connection in their digital world.
Strategy #2: The SEO Secret That's Been My Competitive Advantage for 15 Years
Why Most Businesses Only Capture Half the Available Search Traffic
This strategy is one of my most closely guarded secrets, something my agency has been perfecting for over a decade and a half. While most businesses optimize for keywords where people are actively looking for providers or products, we've built our entire SEO approach around something completely different: the problems that precede those searches.
Let me explain what I mean. Before someone searches for your type of provider, they go through a journey. They experience problems, have questions, and feel concerns, seeking information. They're going to search for solutions to these issues long before they ever search for you as a service provider.
Here's a real example: Let's say you're a financial advisor. Most financial advisors optimize for keywords like "financial advisor near me" or "retirement planning services."
But months before someone searches for those terms, they're searching for things like:
- "How much money do I need to retire comfortably?"
- "What happens to my 401k if I change jobs?"
- "Should I pay off my mortgage or invest the money?"
- "How to protect my retirement from market crashes"
These are the problems that precede the purchase. Someone experiencing these concerns will eventually need a financial advisor, but they're not yet ready to search for one. They're in the education and awareness phase.
Why This Strategy Creates Unstoppable Competitive Advantages
When you optimize for these pre-purchase problems, several powerful things happen:
You Meet People Where They Are: Instead of competing for attention when they're already shopping for solutions, you're building relationships during their research phase. You become their trusted educational resource long before they're ready to make a purchase.
You Build Authority and Trust: By consistently providing valuable answers to their real problems, you establish yourself as the expert. When they're finally ready to hire someone, who do you think they'll call?
You Face Less Competition: While your competitors are all fighting for the exact "provider" keywords, you're practically alone in the "problem" keyword space. It's like having an entire market to yourself.
You Capture More of the Buying Journey: The traditional approach only captures people at the bottom of the funnel.
This strategy captures them at the top and middle, giving you multiple opportunities to build relationships.
How AI and Google Changes Make This Strategy Even More Critical
With Google's AI Overviews and systems like ChatGPT changing how people search and find information, this strategy becomes critical for long-term success.
Here's why: even if AI overviews and ChatGPT completely replace traditional Google search, these systems can only provide answers based on the content they've learned from.
If you want to show up in AI-generated responses, you need to have created the content that AI systems learn from.
You can build that content now, so it's your expertise that people find, which means they'll discover your brand.
When AI systems compile answers about problems in your industry, you want your insights and solutions to be part of that compilation.
My Framework for Identifying Pre-Purchase Problems
While I can't reveal every detail of our methodology here (we cover the complete framework in our agency work and inner circle training), I can share the key questions I ask to identify these opportunities:
Problem Identification Questions:
- What problems do your customers experience before they realize they need your solution?
- What keeps your ideal customers awake at night?
- What frustrations do they express about previous attempts to solve their problems?
Content Opportunity Mapping:
- What are they googling at 2 AM when they can't sleep because of these problems?
- What would they ask a trusted friend about these issues?
- What misconceptions do they have that you consistently have to correct?
- What industry changes or trends are creating new problems they don't even know they have yet?
Long-Tail Keyword Research:
- Use tools like Answer the Public to find actual questions people are asking
- Look at forums and Facebook groups where your ideal customers hang out
- Analyze the "People Also Ask" sections in Google search results
- Review customer service tickets and support conversations for common themes
The goal is to create comprehensive, helpful content around these pre-purchase problems that positions you as the obvious choice when they're ready to move forward.
Strategy #3: The Dollar-a-Day Lookalike Campaign That Changed Everything
Why Your Buyer Database Is Marketing Gold
When you have a list of 1,000+ actual buyers - people who have exchanged real money for your service or product - you possess incredibly valuable behavioral data.
These aren't just leads or email subscribers; these are people who have demonstrated the exact behavior you want more of: purchasing from you.
This distinction is crucial because it represents a specific type of decision-making behavior that was previously directly targetable through meta-ads. While direct behavioral targeting has become more limited due to privacy changes, lookalike audiences built from buyer data remain one of the most effective ways to expand your reach.
I've been refining what I call the "dollar-a-day strategy" for years, and it's become the foundation of how we scale our clients' customer acquisition efforts.
Why I Don't Use Lookalike Audiences for Leads (But Love Them for Buyers)
Here's where most marketers get this wrong: they create lookalike audiences from their entire email list or lead database. I don't recommend this approach because we're not trying to get more people who haven't converted yet.
We want more buyers, not more leads.
The difference in results is dramatic. When you tell Meta's algorithm to find people who look like your email subscribers, you get more email subscribers. When you ask it to find people who resemble your buyers, you attract more buyers.
However, the key is that you need a substantial buyer database for this to work effectively. I don't want to run lookalike campaigns until a business has at least 1,000 actual purchasers in their database.
That's when the behavioral patterns become strong enough for Meta's algorithm to find meaningful similarities.
How the Dollar-a-Day Strategy Actually Works
The business owner I spoke with wasn't running any social media ads at all. With 1,000 to 2,000+ buyers in his database, this was such an obvious missed opportunity that I almost couldn't believe it.
Here's how I would structure his campaign:
Lookalike Audience Creation: Upload his buyer database to Meta and create 1%, 2%, and 3% lookalike audiences. The 1% will be most similar to his existing customers, while the 3% will be broader but still exhibit similar behavioral patterns.
Content Strategy: Instead of typical sales ads, I focus on education, value, and brand building. These people don't know who you are yet, so you need to build trust and authority first.
Budget Allocation: Start with literally $1 per day per audience. Test which audiences respond best, then gradually increase the budget on the winners.
Campaign Objectives: Initially, use reach and awareness objectives, then add conversion campaigns once you've established some brand recognition.
Creative Testing: Rotate through different types of content - educational posts, behind-the-scenes content, customer success stories, industry insights, and personal brand building.
The Long-Term Compound Effect
What makes this strategy so powerful is the compound effect. These campaigns don't just generate immediate leads - they build long-term brand awareness with people who are behaviorally similar to your best customers.
Many of these people won't need your services today, but you're positioning yourself in their minds for when they do. Meanwhile, you're also reaching some people who are actively in the market right now.
The result is a steady stream of new prospects who already have some familiarity with your brand, which dramatically improves conversion rates when they engage with your sales process.
The Real Business Case That Sparked These Insights
Let me give you more context about the business owner who inspired this episode. He had built something awe-inspiring in just three years.
His organic efforts were working well, his SEO was ranking for competitive keywords, and his reputation in the industry was solid.
But he felt stuck because he was essentially maxed out on his current strategies. His SEO couldn't realistically grow much more without significant additional investment.
His organic social media was performing well but had natural limits. He was doing everything right within his current framework.
The problem wasn't that his strategies were failing - it was that he was only using about 40% of his available marketing opportunities.
What He Was Missing:
- Zero retargeting or remarketing to his substantial customer database
- No email relationship-building campaigns to past customers
- Missing an entire category of SEO opportunities around pre-purchase problems
- Not leveraging his buyer data for audience expansion
- No social media advertising despite having perfect audience data
The Impact: By implementing just these three strategies, we projected he could double his business within 12-18 months without changing anything about his core operations or service delivery.
This perfectly illustrates what I see constantly: businesses executing well in certain areas while completely missing other growth channels that could dramatically accelerate their results.
Beyond These Three Strategies: The Complete Growth Framework
These three strategies were just part of the five significant opportunities we identified in our diagnostic call. The complete framework I use with clients includes additional elements that work synergistically with these core strategies:
Advanced Retargeting Sequences: Multi-touch campaigns that guide prospects through longer sales cycles, including abandoned cart sequences, educational nurture series, and reactivation campaigns for dormant leads.
Content Amplification Strategies: Use systems to repurpose and share content across different channels. This approach helps you reach more people and establish authority without requiring additional work.
Conversion Optimization Techniques: Systematic testing and improvement of landing pages, sales processes, and customer onboarding to improve conversion rates at every step.
Cross-Platform Integration: Coordinating efforts across email, social media, search, and advertising to create consistent messaging and compound results.
Performance Measurement and Scaling: Advanced analytics and attribution modeling to understand what's working and systematically scale successful initiatives.
The key is that these strategies work together. The email campaigns support the retargeting efforts. The SEO content feeds the social media strategy. The lookalike audiences improve the performance of all other acquisition channels.
Getting the Support You Need to Implement These Strategies
If you're feeling stuck despite doing everything right, please know that you're not alone.
The growth opportunities are there - they're just not always visible when you're managing the day-to-day operations of your business.
I've seen this pattern hundreds of times over my 20-year career. Smart, capable business owners who are executing well but missing massive opportunities because they can't step outside their business to see the bigger picture.
For Business Owners Who Want to Do It Themselves
If you're the type of person who prefers to maintain control over your marketing and implement strategies yourself, our Mindshift Inner Circle is designed precisely for you.
Every week, I gather with business owners who are managing their own marketing to teach the strategies, systems, and processes that we use in our agency.
We cover frameworks such as our "problem that precedes the pain model," our comprehensive lean growth method, our retargeting systems, and our dollar-a-day strategy. But more importantly, we work through real implementation challenges and help you adapt these strategies to your specific business and industry.
The Inner Circle isn't just training - it's ongoing strategic support as you implement and scale these approaches. You gain access to our comprehensive playbooks, along with weekly coaching and feedback as you implement them in practice.
For Business Owners Who Want Done-For-You Solutions
If you want to focus on running your business while experts handle your marketing, our agency can help you achieve this. We offer comprehensive growth strategies that cater to all your marketing needs.
We begin with what I call our "digital diagnostic process" - a comprehensive analysis that identifies precisely the opportunities available in your specific business. We review your current customer database, analyze your competitive landscape, audit your existing marketing efforts, and develop a comprehensive growth plan.
This isn't a sales call disguised as a consultation. We provide real value and actionable insights whether you work with us or not. Many business owners implement our recommendations themselves and see significant results.
If you would like our assistance with implementation, we take care of everything from strategy development to campaign execution, content creation, and ongoing optimization.
This way, you can achieve results without having to become an expert in every area of digital marketing.
What This Could Mean for Your Business
Let me paint a picture of what's possible when you implement these strategies correctly.
Imagine having a steady stream of referrals from past customers who think of you first when someone mentions needing your services. Picture your ideal prospects discovering your content when they first begin researching solutions, establishing trust with you long before they're ready to make a purchase.
Envision a systematic way to reach new prospects who behave exactly like your best customers.
This isn't theoretical - I've seen it work across dozens of industries and hundreds of businesses. The business owner from our diagnostic call is now implementing these exact strategies, and I'm confident he'll achieve his goal of doubling his business.
The question isn't whether these strategies work. The question is whether you'll take action on them.
Your Next Step: Stop Missing What's Right in Front of You
If you've made it this far, you're serious about taking your business to the next level.
The strategies I've shared aren't just theoretical concepts - they're proven approaches I've refined over 20 years and used to help generate over $300 million in client revenue.
But here's what I know from experience: information without implementation is worthless. The business owner from my diagnostic call had access to all the same information available online.
What he didn't have was the perspective to see how these strategies applied to his specific situation and the guidance to implement them correctly.
Take these three strategies and honestly evaluate your current situation:
- Customer Database Assessment: Are You Maximizing the Potential of Your Existing Customer Relationships? Are you staying top of mind without being sales-focused? Could you generate more referrals through better relationship-building?
- SEO Opportunity Analysis: Are you only targeting keywords where people are looking for providers, or are you also capturing the problems that precede those searches? Could you be building authority and trust earlier in the buying journey?
- Audience Expansion Evaluation: Are You Leveraging Your Buyer Data to Identify Similar Prospects? Could you be systematically reaching people who behave like your best customers?
If you identified gaps in any of these areas, you're sitting on significant growth opportunities. The question is what you'll do about it.
The business owner from my diagnostic call chose to take action. He's now implementing these strategies and positioning his business for the kind of growth that seemed impossible just a few months ago.
Your growth breakthrough might be closer than you think. Sometimes it's not about doing more - it's about seeing what's already there and taking strategic action on the opportunities right in front of you.
The choice is yours. You can continue doing what you're doing and hope for different results, or you can implement proven strategies that unlock the growth potential already sitting in your business.
What will you choose?
FAQ: Your Most Important Questions Answered
Q: How long does it realistically take to see results from these strategies?
A: The timeline varies depending on the strategy. The customer database approaches (email campaigns and retargeting) can show results within 30-60 days because you're working with people who already know and trust you. The expanded SEO approach typically takes 3-6 months to gain momentum, but the results compound over time.
Lookalike campaigns often show initial traction within 2-4 weeks, but optimal performance usually develops over 2-3 months as the algorithm learns.
Q: What if I don't have 1,000+ customers yet?
A: These strategies work with smaller databases, too, but the effectiveness increases significantly with larger customer pools. If you have 500 or more customers, you can still implement modified versions.
Focus first on building your customer base through your existing successful strategies, then layer in these amplification approaches as your database grows.
Q: How much should I budget for the Meta advertising components?
A: This is one of the beauties of the dollar-a-day strategy - you can start with $1 per day per campaign. I recommend starting with a total of $30-50 per month ($1/day for email retargeting and $1/day for each lookalike audience) and scaling based on performance.
Most businesses can profitably scale to $300-$ 500 per month within 3-6 months.
Q: Can these strategies be effective in B2B industries, or are they only suitable for B2C?
A: I've successfully implemented variations of these approaches across both B2B and B2C industries. The specific tactics may vary; B2B often requires more extended nurture sequences and more educational content, but the underlying principles apply universally.
The key is adapting the messaging and timeline to your industry's typical buying cycle.
Q: What if my industry is highly regulated? Can I still use these strategies?
A: Absolutely. Regulated industries often benefit even more from these approaches because they help build trust and credibility over time. You'll need to ensure all content complies with your industry regulations, but the strategy framework remains the same.
I've successfully worked with financial services, healthcare, legal, and other regulated industries.
Q: How do I know if these strategies are working?
A: Each strategy has specific metrics to track. For customer database campaigns, monitor email open rates, referral generation, and customer lifetime value.
For SEO expansion, track keyword rankings, organic traffic growth, and the quality of leads. For lookalike campaigns, focus on cost per acquisition, conversion rates, and return on ad spend.
The key is setting up proper tracking from the beginning.
