As small business owners, it’s always a good idea to look for more opportunities. Sometimes even the most loyal customers leave, or they encounter financial struggles, leading to less discretionary spending. So, despite creating a solid customer base for your business, new customers are integral for growth in the long run.
And that is why you need to ensure that your enterprise is always inviting and relevant to new clients and customers. The stream of new clients will help keep your customer service robust and your products innovative. Attracting new customers can also help in keeping you focused and generate more revenue for the organization.
If revenue is getting stagnant or slowing down, you’ll have to look for new and innovative ways to promote your business and attract new customers. But before getting too tactical on how you can do that, it’s important that you implement these steps first:
- Identify the type of clients you wish to attract
- Learn about your ideal client’s buying process
- Set both annual and quarterly objectives based on how many new clients you need
- Evaluate how much resourcing can be allocated for attracting new clients
- Actively communicate with your target customers on their preferred communication/social channels (email, social media, text message, search, etc.)
- There are certain lead generation mistakes entrepreneurs need to avoid as well.
While the above practices are essential for the success of a customer acquisition strategy, they can’t help you capture new customer attention. But, the following tactics will.
1. Refine Your Inbound Marketing Tactic
Aside from digital marketing, there is another incredibly effective way to attract new business opportunities, and it’s called inbound marketing.
If your business isn’t generating the desired quantity and quality of leads to help meet your business objectives, inbound marketing can help. It’s different from other marketing techniques because instead of reaching out to people, it makes your prospects come to you for more information about the services and products you offer. This marketing tactic is of utmost importance today than ever before, considering the improved innovations in ad blockers.
This brings us to search engine optimization. SEO is integral to the success of any inbound marketing plan. With the aid of SEO, you can create a solid, fast, and user-friendly site that ranks higher in google searches. This, in turn, will attract more qualified leads to your website and eventually boost conversion rates.
In the past, SEO focuses primarily on phrases and keywords, and while those elements still hold a key role, it’s time to improvise your strategy. Nowadays, you’ll have to include social influence, authority, and content quality.
2. Use Promotional Items and Offer Discounts
For any small business to excel in the long run, it’s very important to create brand interest. If your company doesn’t get enough exposure, your bigger competitors will likely beat you in the game. In fact, over 50 percent of small enterprises fail within four years.
Fortunately, there are many ways for small businesses to promote their brand and reach more prospects. One such method includes using promotional products. Incredibly effective and also easy to implement, promotional merchandise advertising is an excellent option for small establishments. Sure, promotional merchandising and giveaways don’t seem like the flashiest of strategies. However, studies have shown that it’s incredibly effective in terms of boosting brand awareness, and ultimately, improving sales.
You can also offer discounts or a free giveaway. Not many businesses provide limited-time offers or discounts – they’re an immensely powerful way to garner new opportunities.
And though offering freebies may not seem viable for a small business, it can actually pay dividends in the future. Offering free services for a client’s testimonial is another effective approach to gain more prospects. Just remember not to spend too much time or money than what you can actually afford parting with.
3. Attend and Host Networking Events
While the internet plays an important role in how you promote your brand, the way you interact with prospects and customers in person does too. Therefore, attending events where you can network with people will do wonders for your business.
Event Marketing can make more people aware of the services and products you offer. However, the managers and owners shouldn’t be the only ones doing all the talk and promoting the business. The other staff should also be doing it.
You need to make your employees network as well. Send them to showcases or conferences to promote and look for new opportunities. Supply them with freebies and coupons to offer to the people while talking about the brand.
4. Address Complaints and Issues
Even if you put much effort into your business, you’ll likely be met with a few critics. Rather than just ignoring that feedback, you need to address it.
Customers today are interested to know how companies handle concerns and complaints, and they do that by checking review sites or social media platforms. While they aren’t expecting businesses to be flawless, they do expect the companies to be willing to address the issues when they arise and resolve them.
5. Team Up With Other Enterprises
By partnering with another business and sharing resources, you can accomplish things you never thought possible on your own.
Find other businesses within your local area that serve a similar client base. Create a list of lifestyle brands, retail establishments, and business or charitable organizations your target customer might support and approach that company about building a partnership. Your main goal here is to come up with a complementary arrangement where both businesses can benefit from. For instance, if you manage a coffee shop, you can partner with a plumbing company and offer free coffee coupons to its customers. Or if you manage a marketing company, you can team up with an accounting business to promote each other’s services.
While running a small business is no easy feat, there are numerous business opportunities that can help expand your organization. Even if the current state of your business is satisfactory to you, you should look for ways to improve. If you’re focused on improving your business and employ the things discussed today, you’d be surprised to find that you have ample business opportunities.
Author Bio
Emily Johnson is a marketing consultant with ten years of experience in the execution of marketing strategies. Currently, she heads the marketing department at Blue Mail Media, a renowned B2B data solution company based out of Austin, Texas, offering a host of services like email appending, data hygiene, and CPA emails. Connect with her on Twitter.