Increase Customers To Your Business
Businesses that are starting out can face many challenges in growing their customer base. Nevertheless, these challenges can be reduced if they apply some unique strategies.
Before starting out your business venture, make sure you know who your customers are, what do they need, and how your offerings can fulfill their needs.
New entrepreneurs must also learn the power of social media and how different social platforms can help them in lead generation and conversion.
In this article, I have prepared a complete guide for you to understand the most useful tricks that can help you to grow your customer base.
5 Proven Strategies to grow customers
1. Provide Free Newsletters
One of the major strategies towards growth would be offering free services to target customers. This is a proven strategy for small businesses and it works every time.
Since budget constraints are there for SMEs, they can start providing free newsletters to their target users. These newsletters can be regarding the products and services the business plans to launch.
The newsletters you’re offering for free should be visually attractive and well-written.
These newsletters will be responsible for building primary interests among the customers. If they find your newsletters informative and relevant, they are bound to show interest in your products and services.
By receiving newsletters regularly, customers can feel the need to know more about your products.
Nevertheless, make sure that you’re not spamming your target buyers. Also, don’t forget to include the “Unsubscribe” button in your newsletters. Provide prospects the freedom to subscribe/unsubscribe. This will make them feel valued eventually.
2. Try Direct Marketing
Direct marketing can also be a great option for reaching out to larger numbers of customers. When you’re starting out and planning to build your brand, this can be a great tactic.
You can start by building your email list and reach out to customers for more information. This way, you can make your products and services more personalized and appealing to your buyers.
You can also go for social media ads as they’re highly effective in attracting clients.
Build these ads in such a way that they directly hit your target customers’ so that customers feel the need for it also add value through your products/ services.
Create enticing messages that convince your target buyers to opt for your products. The direct response marketing strategy can take your brand a long way if you deploy it strategically.
3. Find out who is Your Target Customers
If you don’t know your targeted buyer persona, you cannot grow your customer base effectively. You need to find the answers to the following questions first:
- What is the age group of my target customers?
- Where do they live?
- What is their profession?
- How their lifestyle is like?
Once you find the answers to these questions, you can move on to analyze how your product will fit into the lives of your target customers.
I also suggest you not target a broad customer group. It could be difficult to bring products, services that satisfy such a large group of customers.
Instead, target smaller groups and be more specific.
By targeting a specific group of customers, you can understand their needs in more depth. Accordingly, you can modify your products/services.
4. Promote your Business on Social Platforms
The power of social media is immense. No business, irrespective of its size, can neglect this fact.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest have billions of followers. You cannot miss out on the possible attention you’ll receive from these platforms.
In fact, building a brand and growing a customer base becomes very simple with proper social media integration.
You can share images, videos, short-form content on social media that can attract more customers to your products and services.
These platforms are great for building the interests of customers towards your brand. Lead generation and conversion are very easy with these platforms.
5. Build Strong Partnerships
Building strong partnerships and networks is also a way to enhance your customer base. If you’re starting your business, you can always partner with other small businesses to become part of an extensive network.
For instance, if you’re an e-commerce website, you can collaborate with a digital marketing agency to explore your opportunities.
Engaging with your network and partners help you to create and nurture a customer base. This way, your business is bound to get higher success. This is also a way to build loyal customers who are easy to retain and who will refer your brand to others.
Let’s see few Case Studies for growing Customers
Case Study # 1. UBER
Founded only five years back, Uber has been doing exceptionally well in the global market. Right now, it’s among the quickest growing firms in the world.
Despite facing a number of challenges, it came out as one of the shining stars. Right now, it’s a 470 billion company with branches everywhere on the planet. In 2009, Uber came with the concept of connecting the riders and drivers through a mobile app.
The great issue associated with Uber was that it failed to have any quandary over its call. This brand had planned its growth from the initial day and this can be one thing most startups lack.
The Key to the Growth
Uber knew what the targeted users were looking for. Being extremely prophetical about the market, they came up with the idea of a free ride and referrals.
For customers, it had been how to induce another free ride, but for Uber, it had been a growing network of the target customers for merely a couple of greenbacks. The thought was such a boom that within no time Uber had a good base of consumers.
Ultimate Experience
Traveling changed into a sleek, simple, opulent, and reasonable affair with Uber. Even for an extended ride, the purchasers didn’t need to arrange ahead. Uber had also introduced the word of mouth strategy and shortly, it had been a boom.
In-Depth Approach to the Business Expansion
For Uber, every small area worked differently. The strategy for the American market was different from that of the Asian market strategies, packages, and the team was tailored differently for every city.
Predictable Experience
No matter wherever you’re, a similar app with a similar booking procedure can work for you. So, it had been a win-win for drivers moreover as riders.
Case Study #2.Airbnb
Another nice example of the expansion hacking success is Airbnb. The excellent plan of the corporate was facilitating the pages with a simple line of work rentals and currently, it’s a multi-billion company.
The corporate has its roots back in 2008 and is actively operating with 500,000+ listings in more than 34,000 cities and 150 countries.
In its initial growth stage, the corporate used powerful email campaigns and it was the primary kick to the expansion of the corporate. Yet, the credit for the final word growth of the corporate is given to the Craiglist Spam. With the assistance of Craigslist, AirBnB got access to the information of the properties on rent. Manually, each owner was outreached and was lured to list their rental property on the company’s website.
This was it and Airbnb became one of the nice examples of growth hacking success. Utilizing the information, Airbnb took a significant place within the rental business. Soon, it became the primary choice for booking a rental house.
Case Study #3.Pinterest
When social media giants like Facebook and Twitter were rolling out their roaring hours, it was necessary to come back up with a concept like Pinterest. Finally, it was launched in 2010, by a couple of microbloggers who had an eye for visual interest.
Within just two years, it gained quality to fall among the prime ten social media platforms. The expansion rate was counted by a thumping eighty-fifth. That was considerable to realize quality within the cut-throat competition of that point. Soon, it became an inspiring example of growth hacking success. So, what was the expansion hack that pushed this brand that far?
When Pinterest started, it was simply a letter of invitation. This created suspense for the users and plenty of them joined in to reveal what was behind the doors.
Later came the automated follow-up that permitted the users to choose their favorites. An additional wise step Pinterest took was – following Facebook friends. The users could follow their Facebook friends with only 1 click.
The Collecting Nature
We can’t ignore the method during which it changes organizing the boards. On one platform, you can have your friends, promote the sales deals, and even have fun with the interesting graphics and images.
Case Study #4.Instagram
When we refer to the nice samples of growth hacking success, Instagram has its place intact. Started back in 2010, it’s been simply 10 years and currently, it handles numerous user info.
The seamless integration with different platforms is considerable. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Foursquare, you’ll connect with all of it in one go.
Case Study #5.WhatsApp
No ads! No games! No Gimmicks!. Launched in 2009, WhatsApp replaced the standard electronic communication in exactly one year. So, it easily secured the highest position even in the era of extreme competition. It is a growth hacking success example. The logic behind its launch was ending the not-so-efficient message services offered by telecommunication suppliers.
Replacement of Mobile SMS
Earlier, users had to induce a separate recharge for texting over the phone. However, WhatsApp simply required the internet, and that’s it. The users can share messages, and media files without any hustles.
Group Chat Feature
With WhatsApp’s entry, the entire world was on the phone. It enabled the cluster chat feature that allowed the users to speak with their tribe. Soon, it became the board of faculties and offices.
Lucrative Product
Ultimately, it had been the merchandise that was money-making enough to realize worldwide customers. Being actually straightforward, easy, and joyous, WhatsApp became the center of the communication world.
Word of Mouth
WhatsApp is known because of the best example of the word of mouth growth hacking technique. They started with simply the right service and the users referred it to their wide base of friends and relatives.
Build Trust with Customers
Ever wondered why a majority of startups and online shops grapple with shining despite all possibilities?
No matter how competent your services, products, and price is likely to be, convincing clients to shift their shopping choice can be a real challenge. If you want your leads to putting their confidence in you, it might take ten basic steps to make a difference.
I have seen many businesses that failed in building trust in customers understanding their needs and winning them.
Trust me!
You need to understand your customer in a better way to grow your business success rate, and building a brand
let’s get into some deep drive into it.
In this article I m sharing my best 10 tips to build Trust with Customers
1. Create Customer Helpful Content
There might not be any formula for a comprehensive solution. However, with engaging and assertive materials in your online business’s contextual domain, you can gather more traffic.
Customer helpful content would pay impressive dividends to all your leads.
Also, customers stay for a long run.
A perfectly targeted content, can generate more leads then a regular, unfocused content. this content can also bring a tons of free audience to your blog site by boosting your SEO.
This will organically drive new customers. Also, it would encourage your present visitors and customers to share content that they find interesting.
2. Writing testimonials
A premier community management provider has recently conducted a survey.
It revealed that,
Testimonials from authentic customers could be as much as 12 times more impactful than a piece of standard marketing.
This means If your company or product receives some kind of review,
let them talking.
If it receives a negative review, then there is always a scope for improvement.
If it is a positive testimonial would help assess where your enterprise stands in the competition.
3. Detailed Product Description
Perhaps, this is one of the most overlooked aspects of products or service promotion.
A casual shopper would love knowing what products contain, the efficacy of the ingredients, and everything that justifies the price that you are asking for it.
A well-detailed product description, which is not a drag to read, can fortify your bond with potential and existing clients.
4. Resolve Customer Issues
Remember that your clients would be least likely to have a short span of attention. They might have even lesser patience to get their problems sorted via communication.
So ensure that your online store has a self-service troubleshooting option, as well as a FAQ section. This will enable a majority of the customer to solve their issues on their own.
Also, for more complicated problems, they might prefer to live chat support instead of email correspondence. It is important to know the feedbacks and act accordingly.
5. Having Case Studies
Your potential customers would love to learn about your previous projects. Sometimes, it only takes something as basic as a catchy title, the client’s story, the challenge, the tactics of the solution, the outcome, and the clients’ feedback.
With all these elements, you can create a compelling case study. Going through it, your clients would acknowledge that they are putting their money and faith in the right company.
6. Exhibit Your Online Presence
Your online business needs to have the right tools to roll on smoothly. When going online,
Ensure that you have optimized the existing company website for mobile phones.
Hire professionals to analyze the results. Having a social media presence means you have to be more vocal about your company’s mission and vision. Have an account on social media platforms and share your product updates, new releases, testimonials, case studies this will create your customers more engaging, building brand and value.
While sharing your products and services, you can also share interesting news about your industry updates.
7. Develop Relationship with Your Clients
Perhaps, one of the biggest challenges in online business is retaining trust among customers who hardly know you.
Social media might have become the bridge between the service provider and the consumer, but just like any relationship, keeping the bond alive with your clients’ needs some work.
You can stay connected through perks like special coupons, loyalty programs, and after-sale services. Also, creating a persona, which is relevant to your target audience, can engage and attract more visitors. This is where a professional company can help you.
8. Keep Updating
While looking for new leads, it is also essential to keep connected with your existing clients.
So even when you have the smallest of news to share, make sure that you announce it. It might be anything from your plans to launch a new service, or a shift on the address, or just about anything.
Also, ensure to keep the details of your company details updated in any platform, ranging from Bing, Google, Yelp, Chamber of Commerce, among others.
9. Hosting a Webinar
A gripping webinar can keep the targeted audiences hooked to you for hours. It gives an open place for visitors to ask their questions.
Also, you can get feedback in real-time. You can tailor the contents of the webinar as per the audience. Even a webinar essentially comes for free; it does not mean that the audiences would take it for granted.
After all, it requires registering their names, staying present as per the schedules, and investing some time. So even when your leads are not making any financial investment right at the moment, a webinar that goes as planned can be a potent marketing opportunity.
Let me share my personal experience here,
Being a solution architect, I had been invited for Amazon webinar on Amazon Cloud Services; there it showcased new upcoming features, invited their existing customers to showcase their experience how their businesses getting benefitted from its cloud services and their migration strategy. At the end FAQ’s about their services. This is a perfect example for customer testimonial, feedback, and their success stories.
10. Send personalized emails
It might sound weird, but a very recent marketing survey has revealed that in the USA itself, about 72% of adult customers prefer personalized emails to social media, SMS, and promotion-on-call.
This might be because emails are simple, flexible, yet direct.
As a company owner, you can have emails for different reasons. For example, there can be emails for welcoming new subscribers or to remind clients of their abandoned carts, or for follow-ups and the like. You can also send emails with educational content.
