How to get more customers? What are some fastest ways that can help increase customer base? These are the common questions every business person asks. Why is this so? Of course, because customers are the lifeblood of any business. So how can you get more customers within a small time span? In this post, I’ve discussed few strategies you can use to increase your customer base.
You can call getting more customers also as “buying” more customers. The reason is if you’re spending to bring in more customers in terms of money or time, you start making better decisions about where and how to put such valuable resources. This is especially crucial for new business owners who don’t only have limited means but don’t even register a profit from new customers until the few purchases have been made. So they have to be careful about the stability of customers in order to tap for repeat sales and about where to put their limited resources that could serve well.
Here are 7 simple but tested tricks to help you get more customers:
1. Knowing the Target Audience
Prospecting for customers is similar to fishing with only a string and pole. They’ll only draw attention if you throw something out there. So for that, you’ve to use the bait that the fish you’re trying to catch like. Now let’s answer the right fishing hole first. Who is your ideal prospect or customer? You should be able to answer this by creating a detailed profile of your targeted customer who can convert into your customer. The more segments you can determine, the more potential customers you can have.
So, make a list of at least 5 characteristics of your prospects who you need to reach. These key characteristics of your customer or prospect include age, gender, location, marital status, hobbies, interest, etc. Then you can conduct a market research to learn about your customer buying habits through direct contacts such as group discussions, surveys and interviews. This way you can assemble the customer profile and know about their specific buying preferences. Now, reassess your offering with the help of comprehensive customer profile you’ve created. Analyze which benefits and features are more likely to convert prospects into sales. Based on the analysis, do some valuable modifications in your offer to get more customers for your business.
You need to reassess your target audience periodically so as to refine your customer profile accordingly. This way you will not only get more customers but will increase your ROI and conversions as well.
2. Get Referrals
Referrals are the most evident way to get more customers faster and pick up new business. Referral customers always tend to buy more over time and as a result become a source of additional referrals. But, from where and how do you find referrals? The best source of finding referrals is from happy customers. You won’t receive a stronger lead than one that has been sent your way with customers having highest retention rates. Most customers will spread your name, but sometimes customers are busy and won’t go out of their way. So, instead of waiting for the customers, ask them to do so. But, for that, you must have a complete information of who your ideal customer is. This way you can communicate to others in your network and focus on your products or services suit the needs of a specific profile.
3. Incentivize Users
Once you get referrals, then you can ask for referrals from your satisfied customers and make sure you also find ways to incentivize or thank you your customers for their ongoing support in your business. Yes, incentivize is a great way to convert your customers to salespeople. Try to empower them with ready-made banner ads that can be easily shared on the web. You can also create referral links to drive more traffic to your website. Create a contest to incentivize your users to generate more sign ups within a given time frame such as a 30 day period. At the end of the 30 day period, reward them with good commissions for the month.
4. Run Advertising Campaigns
Google AdWords and Facebook ads are the best platforms to generate promising leads and get more customers in exchange for the money you spend. These online platforms allow you to set a small budget for those that who cannot spend bucks.
Being an experienced digital marketing expert in Chandigarh, I can say that Facebook ads are a lot easier to use than Google AdWords. Also, if you’re new to online advertising and want to learn about running effective campaigns, there are great resources available out there. Just to share with you, I’ve run a paid advertising campaign for my customer Coast Logistics and now 95% of their sales come from ads. To put more simply, this business experienced massive growth in their ROI after the adoption of paid advertising.
According to a research, it has been found that PPC visitors are 50% more likely to buy something than organic visitors. But, before you start, you need to establish a web presence if you don’t have one already. Then, depending on your targeted audience, pick the appropriate web channel. For instance, Facebook is a mainstay among consumers, while LinkedIn is wildly popular among businesses.
Also Read: Learn how to increase Google AdWords conversion rate
5. Engage with Key Influencers on Social Media
Are you enaging with your key influencers on social media? Make sure you don’t ever ignore the influencers that can turn out to be your biggest fans. And it’s all about knowing who your key influencers are in the similar niche. So that you can start engaging with them, retweeting them to reach to your prospective customers. To get more customers in a less time, you need to create conversions and create relationships while actively engaging with them to build relationships that build more awareness and spread your name via word of mouth.
Moreover, you should answer the questions with high visibility on Quora. Find the questions that are relevant to your niche or your business.
6. Rebranding your Business
With the constantly changing trends in the market, it can be difficult to keep your business at the top of your industry. Rebranding may involve a website revamp, business logo redesign, or it could even be renaming your business. A well-defined rebrand allows you to gain competitive advantage and grow more customers through a fresh image. For an effective and successful rebrand, you should follow these series of steps:
- Shape your brand with a number of promises. And for that, you should have an answer to some questions like what kind of qualities and features can honestly set your brand apart?
- Identify the part of a brand that is failing to connect with your targeted customer base.
- Create and develop a story that is memorable and it should be the one that your customers can get behind and believe in and admire.
- All your business communications like the website, social media, sales tools should communicate your new brand effectively.
Always be current, consistent and persistent throughout your rebranding efforts. Become that new brand and eventually, you will get more customers.
Also Read: Top 7 digital marketing ideas for brand promotion
7. Follow up
When you have applied all the efforts to get more customers, don’t forget to close the loop by scheduling the follow up at the right time. So many leads are wasted just because you forget to follow up. But, with software like Konneto, follow up and lead management has become easy. It has all the features such as scheduling meetings with timely alerts so that you never end up missing a valuable lead, prospect or customer.
What do you do to get more customers? Do you know any other way than above that can give the best results? Please share below. I would love to hear from you.