How To Calculate Growth (with our free online calculator)

We are often asked by clients what it will take to help them achieve their growth targets.

We get it!  We run a business too and understand that when you're in the thick of it all, everything can seem "a bit fuzzy" never mind finding the time to lift your head to work out how many leads your business actually needs in order to achieve your goals. And where would you even start to try and work out how much traffic (visitors) you will need to drive to your website in order to generate these leads?

To be completely honest with you if you're armed with the right tools, it's not actually that difficult...

For this very reason we decided to build an "Interactive Growth Calculator" to help firms plan for their future growth and work out where they need to focus their attentions in order to reach their goals.  

Why not have a look now and work through Five Simple Steps and before you know it you will have a much better handle on where you need to focus and what it's going to take to hit your ambitious growth targets!

Let the Growth Calculator work everything out and run a number of 'What If' scenarios to see what the net effect of different actions will have on your results.

If you want you can dive in and have a go by clicking on the link above or check out our video below first for a very quick walk through to explain how to use the Growth Calculator at each step on the way.  

The remainder of this article will walk you through the same scenarios as in the video and explain each step and what you need to enter in each box.

So, let’s get started...

Step 1

The first step you need to take is to establish the amount of revenue you would like your firm to generate in the next year.

Let’s use the example of ACME Ltd...

Last year ACME Ltd generated £695,000 in revenue and has an aggressive growth target of 15% year on year growth for the year ahead.  This equates to a revenue target of £800,000.

So let's enter £800,000 in Box 1 and move onto Step 2...

Step 2

For the next step we believe it is important to establish the split between the revenue generated from traditional marketing activities (such as PR, events, etc) and online marketing activities (such as social media, online advertising, email, etc).  Whilst the Growth Calculator is designed to estimate revenue from your online marketing activities let's not lose sight of the bigger picture!

In the case of ACME Ltd they have a 60/40 split with 60% of revenue being generated from traditional marketing activities and 40% from online. 

To show this on the Growth Calculator simply pull the slider left or right in order to select 60% for traditional marketing and 40% for online.  

If you don’t know just make a guesstimate for now as this figure needs to be inputted before progressing.

Look at the screen now and you will see the growth target for Online Marketing appear in the orange box.

Using our example for ACME Ltd you will see a figure of £320,000.  This is simply 40% of £800,000.

Now its time to establish the actual revenue your website currently delivers.

Step 3 

In this section key in the Average Value of A New Client for your business at the top of the funnel image. Using the example of ACME Ltd, a typical new client is worth £5,000. So enter the figure of £5,000 in Box 1.

Next you will need to estimate the Average Monthly Visitors to your Website. For ACME Ltd we have checked their Google Analytics and estimating an average of 1,700 visitors to their website every month.  We will now key this into the first box on the funnel diagram.   Once again, if you don’t know this number it's OK to make a guesstimate.

Now we need to know the Average Number of Enquiries your business receives from the website each month. For ACME Ltd we have estimated that they are receiving 20 enquiries per month and have entered this into the 3rd box on the funnel (If you look closely (desktop view only) the Growth Calculator is now telling you that this is a Conversion Rate of 1.18%).

The last box the funnel diagram is asking you to estimate is the Average Number of Clients won through your website per month. In our example we are estimating that ACME Ltd is closing 4 of these enquiries into clients and the Calculator is quoting a Close Rate of 20% (desktop version only).  It is also telling us that this is generating £240,000 per annum which is an average of £20,000 per month. 

And the good news is... these are all the numbers you have to input!  Now it’s time to start playing with the figures and let the Growth Calculator to do all the hard work for you!

Step 4

For Step 4, the Growth Calculator will tell you how much new business and how many new clients you will need to deliver in order to hit your revenue growth target.

ACME Ltd will need to generate an additional £80,000 of revenue per annum to hit their growth target of £320,000 new revenue which at the existing Average Client Value of £5,000 equates to 16 new clients over the course of the next year in addition to the 48 clients already being generated through the website.

Now the important part!

Let’s move on to the final step - Step 5 to see what you need to do to achieve your new Online Target. 

Step 5

The great part about this stage is that you can now run various 'What If' scenarios to see what the resultant impact will be on your revenue.

For example, ACME Ltd's average client value is £5,000 but what would happen if this increased to £5,500 or maybe even £6,000?  Well the good news is that if you move the slider for Client Value all of the figures at each stage of the funnel will update and if you suddenly hit the target set at the beginning (or surpass it!) the revenue box will turn green to let you know you've got there.  We've designed the calculator to always keep the Revenue Box red until you start to hit the level you need to bring in the right amount of revenue to achieve your target.

In our example if we slide the Client Value slider to the right this happens around the £6,700 level. Now you need to ask yourself, is this feasible? Is there anything you think you could do to up the average value of work you receive from your clients or is this too high a figure and something else needs to change as well?

Once you have done this hit the RESET button to bring everything back to where you started and then try to increase the Website Traffic value to see how much traffic you would need to achieve in order to reach your target.  For ACME Ltd we can see this is around the 2,300 level.  Once again do you think that if you invested in some Paid Social, maybe some SEO or even Email could you increase the average number of visitors coming to your website?  

Hit Reset again and let's see how much we need to improve your Conversion Rates.  For ACME Ltd they need to go from 1.18% to 1.75%.  Does this sound achievable and could the optimisation of their website for more conversions help?  Maybe they need to work on more Bottom of the Funnel offers, maybe they just need more Calls to Action or perhaps a Chat Bot or Pop Ups could increase the number of leads being generated from the website?

Lastly, is there anything ACME Ltd can do to increase their Close Rates to hit their Growth Target.  In this scenario it looks like Close Rates need to improve from 20% up to 26.75% but would their Sales Team be up for this challenge and is it realistic?

As you can see, this simple exercise is a great way to find out what your firm needs to do to achieve its target and where the biggest opportunities and challenges lie.  This is a great starting point and in reality the answer probably lies somewhere in between each of these values.

Have a go and see what your firm needs to focus on and then enter your details to receive the Report as a PDF in your email.  We will also include a few additional resources to help out.

And let us know the outcome as we're always keen to hear how our resources have helped companies on their road to growth.

In Summary

At Enlighten IC, we understand the importance of achieving a return on your marketing investment. This is why we’ve devised this easy to use Growth Calculator, so that you can see how your website can help play its part in delivering revenue for your firm's growth!

If you would like to discuss how to kickstart your firm’s marketing and need help in hitting your growth targets, please get in touch by clicking below to arrange a free, no obligation consultation.