Building a business is challenging given that you’re in tight competition with various company owners. To have an edge in the industry, you must aim to provide good quality products and a smooth customer experience.
But before you exceed in those areas, you need to gain more customers first.
With that said, here are 11 ways on how you can attract more customers to your business:
1. Call Potential Leads
If you’re just starting a new business and people are not familiar with your brand yet, you need to be more aggressive with your marketing efforts. So, you need to work hard to get in touch with your potential customers. One way is to directly communicate with a potential lead by calling them on their home or mobile phone.
Cold calling is a common business practice that allows a company to introduce themselves and discuss what the business can offer and how they can help make things easier. Of course, it’ll be efficient if you only call quality leads to heighten the chances of closing a deal. However, not everyone actually likes being cold-called. Some individuals won’t even answer the phone if the call is from an unknown number.
Given that it might take a while for someone to pick up their phone and entertain your call, you may want to try using auto-dialing software so you can call multiple numbers simultaneously and prioritize who gets to answer the call first. This way, you can save time from calling busy and out of service lines. There are plenty of auto-dial apps online that can help with this, like the one developed by Call Cowboy. Such apps enable you to connect with potential customers seamlessly.
2. Leave Messages to People
If you’re not a fan of cold calling potential clients, you may opt to leave a voice mail or text message instead. This is also preferred by many individuals because they can simply choose to retrieve the message at their convenience.
While you can manually send a message to a customer, using applications online can automate the whole process. This includes platforms like Drop Cowboy that can automate text marketing strategies for your business and Omnisend’s free text message length and pricing checker to help you evaluate the cost of your marketing campaign
This helps you save more time and will even ensure that you’re sending consistent messages to each and every customer or lead in your list.
When it comes to leaving your customers a message, you should try to avoid lengthy ones as it’ll only discourage people from reading them. Remember, most people don’t have all day to sift through the messages in their voicemail or inbox. So, try to keep the message direct and informative and let them know how they can connect with you in case they need to know more.
3. Build a Website
Consumers nowadays rely on search engines to look for a company’s website to see if it is indeed a legitimate business. With a website, you can store all vital information about your company. You can include details about the products or services you offer, feature customer reviews, tell the company’s story, and list down contact information.
A website is a great tool for attracting more customers. Leads can gather all the information they need as long as you make sure that your website is functional and informative. So, as much as possible, write your product descriptions in an understandable manner. Include all the information about the materials used, dimensions, and product variations. If you’re selling services, list down everything you can offer and the limitations for each. This should enlighten your customers with what your business can provide for them.
The design of your website is also very important. Make sure it looks modern and updated. It must also be functional and easy to navigate so customers will know where to look for information and how they can make transactions if they need to. If possible, you can add a live chat feature so your team can assist visitors at any time.
4. Offer Discounts and Promotions
Who doesn’t like to save a few bucks? Even if the discount is small, people would always prefer the cheaper alternative because every dime counts. With that said, you might want to offer discounts and promotions to attract more customers to your business.
When offering discounts and promotions, you can create a deal indicating that customers need to reach a certain amount to avail of a huge markdown. This way, you can encourage customers to purchase more products from you. You can also offer free shipping promotions or referral codes that can give further discounts.
You can also offer a sale during a short period to encourage more customers to purchase within a limited time. You can run a Black Friday, Cyber-Monday, or anniversary sale. These occasions are also a great way to clear off your old inventory. Just make sure that your supplies are not yet stale. Otherwise, your customers will come running in with tons of complaints, and your reputation as a business could be ruined.
5. Run Online Ads
Running advertisements is one of the oldest ways to attract more customers. Businesses have done this for a long time. Before the internet became a thing, companies advertised through newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and even posters and billboards. However, these were very costly, and small businesses didn’t really have a chance to promote their products through these channels.
Thanks to the internet, however, all businesses—whether big or small—can pay for online advertisements that can reach hundreds or thousands of people within just a few days.
With online advertising, you’re letting more people know about your business as they scroll through different pages, social media, and websites.
When it comes to running advertisements online, you should know how to target your ads in a way that they can reach your intended demographic. You need to be sure that the people who’ll see your ads are most likely interested in your products and are the kind of people who are going to buy from you.
If you’re selling beauty products, for example, you must target those people who have shown interest in makeup and skincare. You can also adjust the age range if your product is targeted at the younger generation. This way, your advertisements wouldn’t go to waste.
6. Be Active on Social Media
As more and more people are heading online, you should go with the flow and build your social media presence by creating an account and keeping it active. People appreciate when a business has a social media account as it’s another gateway of communication. With social media, they can simply send you a private message and wait for a response. Leads and customers can also check it out instead of going to your website directly.
To let customers know that your business is still up and running, you should be active on social media. Being active means that you’ll be posting relevant content daily and engaging or responding to the comments on your posts. You could also include stories as people sometimes prefer to view stories rather than scrolling through their feed.
7. Ask Help From an Influencer
Another great way to attract more customers for your business is to utilize influencer marketing. An influencer has thousands of followers on their social media account. Getting them to promote your stuff means that you can tap into their large following and gain new leads and customers instantly.
For example, a sports influencer would have followers that are more likely sports enthusiasts or athletic people. These people are more likely conscious about health and fitness. And if your product is a health supplement, for example, then getting a sports influencer to promote it would be a great idea. Doing this will help you reach your target market more efficiently.
Using influencers is a great way to help get your product out since their followers listen to them and trust their recommendations and suggestions.
If you’d like to increase your chances of being known in the field, you should ask for help from an influencer that’s similar to your niche.
Partnering with an influencer also comes at a cost. While some require monetary payment, some would accept free product samples. However, it would be worth it since your product would be exposed to a large number of people that are within your target demographic.
8. Improve Content Creation
Improving your content through SEO strategies is another way to attract more customers. SEO works by making your business more visible whenever people enter your name into a search engine. Being a high-ranking website will encourage more users to click on your site. When they visit your page, they could turn into a paying customer, which in turn increases your sales.
Apart from utilizing SEO, you should also improve the content that you publish on your website. If the whole article doesn’t make any sense, especially when it’s just full of keywords and promotional content, don’t expect people to stay on your website for long. Aside from that, your site may even get penalized for over-optimization.
9. Provide Adequate Parking Spaces
If you’re running a physical store, you should provide adequate parking spaces for customers so it’ll be convenient for them to visit and shop in your location. Not everyone would love to go the extra mile by parking in long distances and walking several blocks to your shop so they could buy something. Unless you’re already a popular brand, new customers won’t make an effort.
To improve customer convenience, you should provide a dedicated parking space in front of your store. It’ll also be great to give bikes and motorcycles a parking area since a lot of people also use these as a means of transportation.
10. Hold In-Store Events
If you have enough space in your store, you may choose to hold in-store events that will encourage more people to visit your shop.
These visitors don’t have to buy anything to attend these events. The goal is to just increase foot traffic for your store. Sooner or later, some of these attendees will look around your store and purchase something.
You can choose to hold in-store events like:
- Autograph Signing
- Fashion Show
- Live Music
- Art Exhibit
- Book Fairs
Just make sure that the event you’re holding is related to your niche or industry. For example, if you’re selling arts and crafts supplies, then it would make more sense to hold an art exhibit rather than a live music festival in your shop.
11. Provide a Product Demonstration
If you’re selling a brand-new product, you may want to create a demonstration video that can show everyone how it can be used. This could include an unboxing video where your audience can see everything from the moment you’ve pulled the product out of its packaging.
With a detailed product demonstration, your target customers would know how your product looks like, how convenient it would be, and how easy it is to use in everyday life.
They’ll be able to see the benefits of owning one and will be encouraged to buy the product if they see a product’s premium packaging that gives it recognition in the market.
When creating a product demonstration video, try to keep it short and sweet. Show customers what the product can instantly offer. Aside from that, you can use this video to boost your online marketing efforts. That’s because your unboxing and demo videos can be uploaded on social media pages like Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram.
Conclusion
Attracting customers is probably one of the most challenging aspects of running a business. While you can provide fantastic products or services, you might not achieve greater success if you don’t have many customers, to begin with.
To turn that around, you should try different ways to promote your business. You can use voice calls, automated messaging, online marketing, and improve in-store convenience to attract more foot traffic for your shop. Most of all, always try your best to meet customer’s needs and provide amazing services to keep them coming back for more.