Whether your business is currently thriving or you’re in a slump and you really need to drum up some new customers, there are several things you can do to attract more clientele. While retaining your current customers is also very important, in part because it is generally less costly than finding new ones, you also need to make sure that you bring in new ones as well.
Even if you aren’t looking to grow a great deal larger, every business suffers a certain amount of customer attrition. If you do want to grow, bringing in more people will be critical. The tips below can help you achieve customer growth.
1. Website Surveys
Giving those who visit your website an opportunity to complete a survey is one way you can find out more about what they want. What can be valuable about this approach is that you may be able to capture the opinions of people who visited your site, considered working with you, but then moved on.
Not everyone who visits your site will bother to fill out the survey, but those who have had a particularly negative or positive experience may do so, and this can provide you with valuable information that can better help you understand what they need and what they respond to negatively.
2. Improve Your Sustainability
Sustainability is a hot issue for a certain segment of customers. If you can show that your business uses green practices, some may choose you over your competitors. Nearly every type of business can take steps to go greener, even those in areas where you might assume it’s more difficult to embrace sustainability.
This might be the case in fleet management, where greener solutions can cut expenses and satisfy customers. You can find out more about green transportation and how it can both lower your operating costs and help fight climate change.
Going paperless, recycling, reducing waste, and using green or recycled products are among the other ways you can become a more sustainable business and attract customers. Be sure to highlight your efforts on social media and elsewhere.
3. Use Social Media Wisely
Just being on social media isn’t enough. You must be smart about how you use it, and that doesn’t just mean managing to avoid any major public faux pas. Social media can be a great way to raise your profile, and posting interesting content and engaging with others can help increase your visibility.
However, ultimately, social media visibility is like having many visitors to your website, or foot traffic to your business. It’s the first step, but it’s ultimately meaningless if those people aren’t buying from you.
Therefore, it’s important to try to think of ways to get those interested in purchasing your goods or services on social media. Offering discounts there might make people more inclined to check out your product or service.
4. Stay Adaptable
More than ever, you need to be able to adapt quickly. The world has never changed as fast as it is doing today, and it’s critical that you create tiers of customers and keep up. Even in a more conservative industry, such as finance or insurance, it’s important that you stay on top of technological changes and other challenges.
If all your competitors are offering apps, you may need to do so as well. Not only will falling behind mean that you may lose existing customers, but it can make it much tougher to attract new ones as well.
5. Understand Your Brand
While adaptability and keeping up with what others in your industry are doing is important, you also need to have a strong identity of your own. In some sectors, it can be tough to find a balance between keeping up with the next big thing and hanging onto what sets you apart and makes you different from others.
When you feel as though you’re up against a conflict of this nature, it can help if you have a deep understanding of your brand. What values do you represent, and how do customers respond to those values? You don’t want to lose the very thing that makes you successful in the pursuit of something untested, new, and potentially not right for your business.
