Tried and tested ways of attracting new business

Whether you are a start up trying to grow or an established, successful company, you must always be attracting new business.

To become complacent because you already have a loyal customer base could be detrimental to your business.

That being said, finding new customers won’t necessarily be easy – but it is imperative. So, to help you with this challenge of growing your business, here are a few tried and tested ways to help you attract new customers:

Make sure you are targeting the right people

Before you do anything else you need to ensure that you are targeting the right people. If you aren’t then they won’t convert into customers. You can use tools – such as YouGov profiles and Facebook Audience Insights – to understand your customers and build personas that you can then keep in mind. If your brand is relatively new, use a competitor to do this research. Target the right people and you’ll have a much higher chance of attracting new business.

Offer incentives to both new and existing customers

Everyone loves a deal, so offer your customers incentives. This should be available for existing customers as well as new ones – treat them right and they will help you attract new business. You also don’t want to lose your loyal customer base because all your efforts are going into finding new ones.

This might be in the form of discounts and deals. You could also run a competition online, with a prize that can be won from following and sharing.

Work with influencers

Those with a significant social media following have become incredibly influential when it comes to promoting a product or service. Don’t be fooled by numbers though, those with a smaller following are actually more likely to have an engaged audience.

Make sure you do your research and ensure the influencers you work with fit your product – if they don’t then their audience are unlikely to be interested and you won’t see any return on your investment.

Take your content seriously and develop a tone of voice

The right content will help you rank on Google so that potential customers can find you to start with. But, it will also enable you to develop a tone of voice – this will help you to build a loyal following who you can then market to directly. Keep this consistent from your blog and emails to social media and even offline marketing. Get your content right and it will be shared consistently, enabling you to reach a much wider audience than you could on your own.

Increase your social media presence

Social media is effectively ‘word of mouth’. Your existing customers can help you find new customers on these platforms. You can monitor this and intercept if necessary, even starting the conversation to speak directly to your customers. This punny conversation between Sainsbury’s and one of their customers was very simple but got them some incredibly positive PR.

This is the ideal place to share content that isn’t overly salesly and perhaps even a little tongue in cheek – take a look at Innocent Drinks who do this really, really well.

Don’t underestimate the power of offline marketing

In a digital world it is easy to disregard offline marketing but this is actually a really useful way to reach even more people. You can always tie it in with your online marketing efforts, using them to support each other.

When you are creating a plan to attract new customers, make sure you set targets so you can determine what is and isn’t working and adapt your plan to find new business, accordingly.