How to Get Customers for Your Business in 6 Easy Steps

Very few customers are calling you, emailing you or visiting your store. You’re finding it very hard to get any footfall or traffic. You’re completely frustrated because your products are top quality, you offer top-of-the-range service and you know you beat your competitors on price. If you’ve recently opened a new business, whether that business offers a product or a service, you will quite likely have encountered this problem. So, how to get customers for your business?

You may have tried a bunch of direct mailing in your neighborhood. But the results weren’t very good. You may have also tried to launch some campaigns on Facebook. You did get some “fans” but none of them became customers.

You may even have tried to purchase an e-mailing list from a slightly shady company you found online. These lists seemed great, thousands of contacts in your area willing to spend their money on purchasing your products. However it didn’t work out, not to mention illegal.

Most of these potential customers that you have tried to target either don’t exist or else have no interest in your products. The real problem here is that you have tried to find customers without knowing who they are. You also have asked your friends about potential people interested in your products or services, but you didn’t get much return.

The solution to this problem is to define exactly who these potential customers are, and where they live, before you try to sell them your products or services.

This solution is part of the essentials to marketing any business whether that business is business to business or business to consumer. Whether your business offers a product or a service or whether you are online, offline or a mixture of the two. It works if you own a restaurant, a small convenience store or are a manager of fifteen stores in five different countries.

You don’t need to be an expert in marketing you just need to know how to define your sweet spot customer.

1 – Set aside some time to go through the process properly.

Take out a piece of paper and pen and find yourself a quiet room away from any distractions for 30 minutes.

2 – Ask yourself who is more likely to buy your product or service.

Be as specific as you can.

• What kinds of people typically spend the most money on your product or service?
• What kinds of people purchase your product or service on the most regular basis?

If it’s a brand new business that you are launching then try to learn from your competition.

• Which types of people most frequently visit their stores and spend the most money – who are there people, where do they live, what do they do for fun and what do they look like?

3 – Profile them.

Start by giving them a name – no joking, actually give them a name. Once you’ve figured out five specific kinds of customers for your business, you will need to give them a name.

Let’s say you own a pizza parlour in a medium sized city. You have figured out that a lot of customers who keep coming back are students. They are mostly single and they enjoy watching football.

Next let’s associate this group with what is called a persona.

His name is Jason. He is twenty two and he’s single. He is a fan of Manchester United, he goes out on Thursday nights and he lives with two of his mates in an apartment in the city centre.

They may seem very specific but the more specific the better.

You should complete a profile for at least three different types of customer before moving onto the next step.

4 – Create offers tailored for each of your customer personas.

Now that you now have a clearer idea of the exact customers you want to target this should be pretty easy.

You should know where they hang out and you should know if they have any children. You should know their budget and the problems they are facing every day.

Let’s use my earlier example.

Jason is a student and he doesn’t have much money. He is pretty lazy, he likes football and he likes to party.

Any ideas how to target him with a specific offer? How about checking the football schedule and coming up with a specific offer, tailored to him, for when he will be inevitably watching the next game?

How about this:

Champions League Special

– two large pizzas and a six pack of beer for €29. You could even throw in the chance to win a pair of tickets to the next big football match in town.

5 – Talk to them.

You know what your customers want, and most importantly *why* they want it. Now it’s time to reach them.

• Where do they work?
• What do they do for fun?
• What do they do during the weekend?
• Which websites do they visit?

Now it’s time to take action.

Your typical target customer is a member of a rugby club? Are you an Italian restaurant well-known for your juicy meat balls? Bring a sample after one of the rugby game. Give leaflets with special offers for a limited time only.

6 – Try, try and try again.

The only secret recipe to find new customers is the patience. What you will do will not necessarily work the fi>st time.

Does it matter?

Not really, as long as you learn from your mistakes.

You’ve taken the time to build your customer profiles. The results are there: the footfall in your shop is increasing day after day.

Now you need to keep them.

You can for example build a loyalty program where you reward your customers with some exclusive offers. Collect their email addresses. Collect their phone numbers. Send them regular emails or text messages. Keep them interested and they won’t have any reasons to go anywhere else.

Image reference.

Louis Grenier

Categorised in: Grow Your Business