How To Get New Customers In A Competitive Market

The challenge for all businesses today is how to continue to attract new customers. There is fierce competition for ‘eyeballs’ with all online initiatives, from PPC, SMM and the more subtle strategies like content marketing. Plus the latest digital marketing trends are opening up more ways to deliver campaigns that convert to sales.

You’d think this would be too overwhelming for marketers. However, with AI and automation in marketing, there’s more to focus on analytics and what works to improve user engagement and campaigns that convert new clients.

Traditional advertising e.g. TV, print, billboards are still in the advertising mix for most businesses, but it’s no longer the ‘go-to’ for customer acquisition.

There was a time, not that long ago, when businesses would be guaranteed, the phone would be a buzz with enquires following a TV advertising campaign. Still, we live in another time, and TV has lost its allure, so what can you do to fill the sales pipeline with prospects and ideally do it without direct contact?

Outsource

You can outsource your advertising and marketing to a third party, i.e., a marketing agency. Taking the initiative to engage a marketing expert or, ideally, an agency with many collective years of knowledge and success may seem a considerable investment. Still, you can lock the commitment down to a fixed-term campaign.

Clearly, your business is struggling to innovate the marketing message, and even with more money to spend, the new customer numbers are not encouraging.

Throwing yourself into the mix with direct contact with consumers is equally not a great use of your time, and taking this approach, may impact the business in another area where you’re more productive and required.

Therefore you’ve reached the fork in the road and need to choose a path. Do you…

• Continue with the same marketing strategy and accept the end result, which will be what you’re getting currently?

Or do you …

• Take a leap of faith and pass the responsibility of your business marketing campaigns to marketing experts who love what they do and know how to engage via newer strategies like influencer marketing?

Remember, the challenge for your business with new customer acquisition is not so much the amount of money you have for it but instead how you spend that money. Reaching out to marketing experts will educate you and provide workable knowledge in the craft of innovative strategies, including influencer marketing.

Online Reviews

You can also get amongst some strategies, including tapping into personal recommendations, i.e., customer reviews. We all do it and seek out referrals when we need to make a purchase, so this is where you and your in-house team can make a difference.

On influencer marketing guru Jeff Bullas points out, that 84% of online consumers trust online reviews as much as friends’ and family members’ recommendations.

Blogs & Social Media

So, where might you go for online reviews?

You’ll do what most consumers do: an online keyword search in a search engine like Google. The organic results of your search will show blog posts or social media feeds of an “influencer”. This is interesting insofar as content marketing via blogs and influencer marketing are the newer strategies, agencies will suggest when your business engages them to construct a marketing campaign on your behalf.

Striking up a relationship with an influencer already connected to your target audience could help you get your brand in front of that audience.

We know there are so many strategies marketers can use for customer acquisition. Sometimes it’s not the strategy but what precedes it. See here for the 6 steps to customer acquisition.

Summing Up

All businesses need to work smarter, not harder, with their marketing budget and strategies.

Use technology to make the job easier. Be objective when critiquing your assets like your website and call to action pages.

Engage external or third-party support to get your systems and processes in place. Plus, do that little bit extra, i.e., learn how to blog, engage on social media, and ideally with influencers, so your business has the basics of a brilliant marketing strategy..