How to attract and keep customers
Customers are the most important aspect of your business, without them it’s pointless. In this article I’m going to tell you how to attract them and make them stay with your business.
Target audience…
An important part of attracting the customers is to actually know what customers you want in your business – whether it’s a female customer, a male customer, children, adults, the elderly etc. You have to make sure that you plan your marketing campaign around your ideal customer. So think about what customer would want to buy your product and plan your campaign around that image.
You not only have to know who your customers are but you also need to know what you and your business is all about, you need to find out what makes you stand out from other companies that sell the same product.
Become a SWOT…
Another way to really understand your company thoroughly is to make a SWOT analysis; this stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Creating a brand is key to your business; this will signify what your business is all about with a creative phrase or image being used. The more creative you can be when creating a brand, the more the customers will be likely to see it and be interested in your business or the products that you sell. Make sure to link the brand with the product and also your target audience.
From theory to practice…
Now you need to start using some marketing methods so you can attract some new customers. There are plenty of methods that you can use such as:
- Placing advertisements in a newspaper or magazine that would be frequently read by your target audience.
- Using direct mail to send post to a large number of potential customers.
- Listing your advertisements in a phone book / directory.
- Placing your advertisements on a sign or billboard.
- Using Social Media.
- Having a new website design.
These traditional methods aren’t the only way you can advertise your products, it’s also good to be creative with your marketing by perhaps using vehicles or seeing what other companies are doing and find out if it’s successful, if so then branch out to that type of advertisement.
Online marketing is very important nowadays because so many people use the Internet, this is why having a website is extremely important for a business because it can be used for marketing as an online brochure and for selling your product as an online shop.
Social is also very important when you are marketing because there are so many active users throughout all social media sites. When using social media you have to make sure to focus on creating posts that will interest your customer and not only ones advertise your product. Be creative and use different types of media so that your customers become intrigued. You can always use an incentive such as a free giveaway if they share or like your post, this will generate more followers to your social media sites. When you have social media make sure you’re an active user otherwise people will start to get bored.
Not only does the marketing have to be interesting it also has to be effective for it to truly work. To do this you can ask your customers where they heard about your business and use this to advertise further. You can also look at the sales every time a new advertising technique is used because this could cause a giant leap in sales.
Another interesting technique is to get referrals from customers, this means that customers that enjoy your business will tell their friends, family and others about your business and this is a good way to attract more customers, an incentive is always a good thing to use with this technique.
Once you have gathered some different customers to your business you need to know how to keep them, first of all you should definitely get to know your customers and be friendly with them to find out different information from them, such as what they enjoy the most about your business and then you can work on improving that.
Make sure to not forget about your customers and send them information about your company such as newsletters and updated information from your business, you could also remember some birthdays for some customers and send them a gift or a card. Even an email on their birthday creates a sense of gratitude for the customer.
Allow your customers to give feedback about your website by making sure your phone number and email address are easily accessible on your site. Customers could also give good advice by writing on your social media or just messaging you.
After this information is gathered you can look back on the feedback and improve any suggestions.
