Top Tips to Win New Customers for your Business

Retaining a loyal customer base is a priority for any brand, but if you’re a new and growing business it is vital to keep winning new customers to grow your brand reach and improve sales. Here we look at not only acquisition methods but also retention methods.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understand who you are targeting

The most important step to acquiring new customers is to understand who you want to be your target customer group. If you already have a growing customer base, you can review the demographics of your customers to understand who you should be targeting. Demographics mean information such as gender, age, location etc…If you’re just building up your customer database, research the type of people who would be interested in your product or services. All of your marketing activities should be based upon this information. You may find that you have more than one customer target group based on your products/services.  

Discover where your audience are

Once you’ve understood who you want to target, you need to find out where they are. It is a common misconception that you should be on every social media channel. What channels you use, depend entirely on product/services. It isn’t one size fits all. Focusing your efforts on platforms where you know your target customers are likely to be, rather than trying to be consistent with too many platforms will serve your business well. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, your target audience may likely be on a visual platform like Instagram. If you are a more corporate business, your target audience may well be on LinkedIn. You can begin developing your presence in the key touchpoints where they engage, communicate, consume information, and spend their time online.    

Develop a marketing strategy for new and returning customers

Consider the different messages you might use for engaging those existing customers who you’re already developing lasting relationships with, and the potential new customers who will need to understand the value you offer. Think about how you would reward your current customers for their loyalty, along with how to acquire new customers. Your marketing strategy should help you to shape these different messages. 

Develop a great user experience

Your online user experience should provide the most seamless, easy, and enjoyable process and platform for any customer, at any point in the buyer’s journey. The user experience you provide will play a big part in shaping the potential customer’s perception of your business so think carefully about whether your website or platform is user-friendly. It’s important to remember that people live busy lives, and they want to get to where they want to go quickly. For emails, think of concise content and a clear call to action, and make sure that call to action takes the user straight to where you want them to go. Users shouldn’t have to go searching. In terms of user experience with a website, make sure to include backlinks to different pages of your site to make sure people can browse with ease.  

Step up your customer service

Don’t just communicate the value you offer with your digital marketing – show it. At any point where a potential customer interacts with your business, they should be met with great customer service. Whether that’s on the phone, email, online chat or any of your online touchpoints, the user should feel that they are valued and important to you – even before they’ve made the purchase. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recommendations

Word of mouth is a great tool so make the most of it. Email marketing with the option to share with a friend or publish to twitter is an easy way for your loyal customers to recommend your business or the content you’re sharing to their network. A special online discount code for recommending to a friend or colleague can be a great way to generate brand awareness and reward your existing customers. If you are a business with a physical location don’t forget to create a Google business page, so people can find you on local searches. You can also get current customers to leave reviews on your Google business page, which helps recommendations. It’s a win-win! 

Partnerships

Could you work with other businesses in your industry or with overlaps in customer base? Far from being a conflict of interest, a good partnership with the right business can help you to get your name out to a market that you might not have found otherwise and provide you with a reliable recommendation source. You might have opportunities to collaborate on projects or marketing activities and double your outputs and reach! 

Engage in conversations on social media

Social media is a fantastic way to start or get involved in conversations with potential customers and can help you learn a lot about their interests and needs. This can inform the type of content you’re creating, the topics you’re discussing and the platforms you engage on. There are lots of tools out there to listen out for brand mentions, so that you are always quick to the mark. Don’t forget to also celebrate business and customer success whilst engaging on social media.  

Measure what does and doesn’t work for you

It’s important that you’re evaluating what activities are getting traction and increasing conversion. If an activity is working particularly well, such as social media or your partnerships, you can focus more time and energy into these. Alternatively, if you’re finding that a particular marketing tactic isn’t getting much attention, you can make changes to your strategy. 

The luxury of digital is that you have both the freedom, and control, to try out new techniques to locate and attract a growing customer base, but also to make real time changes to those activities that aren’t benefitting you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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