by LinearTech | Dec 20, 2019 | Blog Posts, Business, Knowlege and Tips
As a new or experienced business owner, you completely understand the importance of having a constant stream of customers coming through your door. After all, no customers means no revenue, which, of course, leads to no business. Having a dwindling amount of new customers coming to your company can mean that there are other underlying issues going on with your business. Rather than simply blaming it on a slow economy or off-season, business owners should take proactive measures to stop the bleeding. The following list includes a variety of methods that can all be combined together to connect more customers to your business.
Define Your Target Audience
It is much easier to look and find customers if you know the type of audience you are looking for. Without a clear outline of your target audience, there is little to no chance that your marketing strategy will work. The best way to approach this is to brainstorm with your team to develop a clear picture of the perfect client. Resist going into the typical man, woman, millennial demographic. Instead, the best strategy is to focus on the type of customer that has brought you success in the past and how their needs might have changed. Through this method, you can begin to develop a target audience that is most likely to purchase from you.
Use Google Maps Marketing
Over the past decade, people have changed dramatically how they research a company. At one point, people would ask a friend or simply walk into the business and hope for the best. Today, most potential customers are researching their options on Google. Understandably, that’s where you have to be then. One of the most efficient ways to reach out to potential customers is by adding Google Maps marketing to your business strategy. By claiming your business listing with Google Maps, your SEO ranking will rise and connect you to more potential customers, according to Podium. This means that even if they don’t know you exist, Google will recommend you depending on their search. The more people begin to interact with your company through Google, the higher you will rank.
Update Your Blog Regularly
One of the best ways to attract customers to your shop or eCommerce site is first to provide them something of value such as photos, videos, and podcasts that they can listen to on their drive home or at the gym. In fact, most marketing experts like The Proof Fairy will say that the best way to bring in customers is to first blog as much as you can. In addition to providing customers with value, you are also being given the opportunity to implement as much SEO as possible into your blogs. This SEO or Search Engine optimization keywords will help you rank on Google and allow people who are looking for your type of service or product to find you that much easier.
Build Partnerships
A great way to attract new customers is to work with local businesses that complement the products or services you provide. This is often how shampoo companies start their businesses. They visit local barbershops and provide them with inventory that they can sell for a small commission. As you can see, this can be a win-win situation for both parties involved as each offers their existing customer base with new products, all without looking too salesy.
Referrals
Asking for a referral from your current clients can often seem like going to the well one too many times. Some business owners might also find it rude to ask. However, there is no better way to connect to more customers than by being recommended by an existing client. Understandably, you may be nervous about approaching existing customers. The Sales Readiness Group states that the best way to obtain referrals is to provide them with a method that makes it easy to collect this information. A popular method includes sending out a mass email message allowing customers to include referral information without making it too much of a hassle. This means not sending them to your website or making them log in. If you like, you can also include a reward for those who provide information in the form of a discount.
Participate in Community Events
There is no doubt about it; people like to support local businesses. In addition, they also like to support businesses that give back to the community. Adrian Swinscoe shares that one of the best methods to connect with new customers is to participate in the community. This can be through volunteering to clean parks during a festival, provide certain food or drinks, or simply run a toy drive out of your business. Doing this can really put your name out there for everyone to see.
Customers are the lifeblood of a company; without them, you might as well close up shop. This is why so much time and money goes into finding new customers. Thus, it is highly recommended that business owners take a few of the tips listed above and begin implementing them into their own company before it’s too late. Your business strategy should involve targeted online marketing, personalized relationships, and a strong identity to create success for your company.
by LinearTech | Apr 2, 2019 | Business, Knowlege and Tips, Social Media
It is a good feeling when you notice significant progress in your business. However, you must evaluate to determine whether you are doing all you can to reach your fullest growth potential. There may be an area of concern that you are not aware of. So, while it is amazing to see your business grow, if you do not check every area of your business, get feedback, and stay abreast of the competition, then you may find your business losing steam and start regressing.
Why You Should Scale Across the Board
Scaling is the same as sizing. Businesses can negotiate favorable terms, volume discounts, and exclusive dealings with other organizations by leveraging up with sizing. With the business scale, you will optimize the efforts that go into the operation of your business (Source: Josh Lowry). It will focus more on the optimization and not the duplication of your efforts. There may be some duplication of areas that are tremendously helping your brand, but after a while, you must adjust or eliminate those areas to stay abreast of the competition.
Businesses using scale possess operating leverage. Revenue growth is greatly possible with little to no increase in operational costs. Operational costs include sales, administrative fees, advertising, and more.
Set Goals for Your Social Media
One major way these days to scale your business is by using social media platforms. One thing you should do to set goals for your social media growth is to use platforms that your target audience frequently visit. “When deciding which social media platforms to focus on, it’s important to do some research on where your customers already are. If the individuals you are targeting congregate on LinkedIn it might not make sense to put a lot of effort into a Facebook presence and vice versa” (Source: Podium)
Once you discover which social media sites to use, you should set the following goals for your social media marketing:
- Post content once daily. Doing this will keep you engaged with your target audience.
- Utilize a clear CTA (call to action), meaning always use your contact information for folks to reach out to you to find out more about your products or services.
- Make the best of social media branding by using cohesive messaging on a consistent basis. Doing this will distinguish your brand from competitors, and it will become a part of a household name among customers.
- Create your blog, site, email blasts, and more in a consistent manner in tone and voice, visual identity, schedule, and messaging. The result of this consistency is the same as point number three.
- Grow your community by seeking more page likes and more followers. Having more likes and followers will make your business more credible to most users. They will see that your product or service must be of high quality.
- Engage with your community by using and allowing shares, comments, likes, replies, and mentions. You can gain collective data of your community’s perception of your brand.
The end goal of social media marketing is to have conversions. You can build on your community as well as do some soft selling. Do this by maintaining the social aspect while also making customers aware of new products and services.
Other Ways to Scale for Business Growth
Another important aspect about scale includes the fact of rapidly adding revenue while also incrementally adding resources (Source: Edison Partners). To accomplish this, you must do the following:
- Employ good product-minded individuals. When you do this, you will gain customer-centricity, product development alignment with market needs, and more.
- Package services that add value for repeated selling and delivery. For example, you can provide timeline subscriptions or package deals.
- Combine services delivery with product management ownership. Doing this will lead to additional scalable services provisions and an additional scalable end product.
Following Up
Once you do all the steps above, it is vital to check to see how your business is doing. You can use different metrics, such as Google Analytics, to accomplish this. You can also use Excel to keep track of your sales and whether they are increasing.
Preparing for Growth Analogy
As you go through your business journey, realize that everything will not always be an even and steady ride. Even Fortune 500 companies had some rough times. When you look at their graphs, you will notice how they either stayed at a certain level or declined during some periods. However, they still grew to astronomical levels as time went on.
Know When to Scale Your Business
In addition to implementing these steps, you must know when to scale your business. There are signs that signal when it is time to scale your business for new revenue streams, new customers, and more brand recognition. Additionally, you should scale your business when there is an opportunity to expand in an atmosphere with minimal risk. First step in scaling a business is making sure your website is capable and ready for increased traffic, customers, or sales (Source: LinearTech)
To maintain your growth and keep growing to maturity, utilize all of the above tips. You will be amazed at how far your brand will expand. The bottom line is that you will maintain expandable growth by utilizing scaling efforts.
