5 Ways To Encourage New Business

One reason businesses may struggle is through poor or non-existent sales and marketing methods even if they have a winning product or service.

Identifying and finding the ideal customer, and marketing to them clearly and effectively, is a key business skill that needs constant refining and updating.

Plenty of help

The advent of tech such as improved data capture, the Internet’s role, and advanced POS (Point of Sale) systems with business enhancing facilities including buying incentives is making marketing for modern business ever more versatile and targeted.

Some ways to bring in more customers:

1. Customer profiling: who is your customer?

Before you can market effectively, you need to know exactly who you’re marketing to.

It’s not precise enough to say something like ‘all baby boomers’ or ‘all women’. Very few products appeal to generalized groups, and your message will be extremely vague when trying to communicate to such a big crowd.

The more you can define your customer, the more effective your marketing efforts will be as you’ll know:

• Where they are – are they online? If so, where? Certain forums or social media pages? If they’re mostly offline it could be advertising and direct mail that reaches them
• Their concerns – what is your customer’s primary concern? How can your product help them?
• Their choices – is there a product serving them already, or is yours a new solution to their problem?

The more you know about your market and its demographic, the more you can tailor your product offering to meet its needs.Relating to others is a key interpersonal skill and one that will stand you in good stead in the world of business too.

2. Direct response marketing

A method to encourage people to take a specific action through usually targeted online or offline advertising.

The action desired may not necessarily be for someone to buy your product to start with, but might be perhaps visiting your website or a landing page to enter your sales funnel (see below) as the first step in the sales process.

3. Free and discounted offers

People like bargains so offers may work depending on your business type.

Free samples or discounts can encourage people to try your products with the possible result of bringing new customers in or encouraging them to buy more than they might have envisaged (through a volume-related discount offer, for example). It’s also a good way of publicizing your brand.

For example, you may get an innovative offer featured in your local press or it may gain exposure on social media. So “the first 20 people who buy a widget each day until the end of the month get it for half price” or similar might be of use.

If trying this method, don’t have too many exclusions to an offer or you’ll put some people off. Also, ensure deadlines are strictly enforced or you’ll run the risk of being like that shop that always seems to have a sale on.

4. Competitions

People like competitions and an attractive prize, whether one of your products or something else like a free holiday, can stimulate interest and maybe attract some publicity.

Ask entrants to leave their name, email and postal address so providing useful marketing data.

5. Digital marketing

Make the most of digital marketing by including at least some of the following:

• Social media – what platforms would be best for your business? Be selective as it’s unlikely all will suit your business type
• Website – make sure yours is mobile friendly as at least 50% of online searches are on mobile devices
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – a method by which people searching online will find you
• Online advertising – Facebook or Google AdWords can be a cost-effective means of reaching your customers – perhaps as a first step to them entering your sales funnel (below)
• Sales funnel marketing – where you build a relationship with a potential customer over time and eventually make sales
• Relationship marketing – enables businesses to interact with people in their target market to build and maintain relationships

You may not use all of the above, but chances are some will apply in your business – finding out what works will pay dividends.

Being consistent

Once you have an effective marketing plan, it’s important to be consistent and market constantly not just when business is slower.

The classic error is for businesses to ease off or lose their marketing focus when business is strong – once marketing ceases you can become invisible and people ready to buy what you’re offering won’t know you exist.