If your business relies on only a few customers to keep afloat, then this can leave you in a precarious position. Losing just one will leave your business vulnerable and could results in a cashflow crisis. Your marketing strategy should include ways of retaining customers, but also consistently focus on new business. There lies safety in numbers! This will protect your business from failure and help it steadily grow.
Here’s our top tips to acquire new business in 2016:
Devise your marketing plan. What do you want to achieve? How are you going to get there? Set realistic targets so that you can then work out the tactics that you need to use, and the budget required, to get there.
Know your target market. Who are you selling to and what makes them “tick”? How can you set yourself apart from the competition? You can profile your own target market to find out what appeals to them tailor your products or services to meet their needs.
Refresh your brand. We recommend that businesses refresh their brand roughly every 3-4 years. This does not necessarily mean a whole new logo re-design but instead freshen up your image. Does your website look dated, is you van signage fading? Have you written a marketing strategy recently? Or perhaps you do need to create a whole new brand or name change?
Build customer loyalty. You can offer incentives to existing customers to build loyalty to your brand. Enagage with them, ask their opinions, reward them for their loyalty with offers or discounts. Act upon their feedback!
Get yourself in the newspaper or trade press. You will need a story that is newsworthy. Check out our top tips to find out what kind of stories journalists love.
If budget is limited then you can revisit the basics on a shoestring budget. Consider email campaigns using Mailchimp, distribute some flyers. Think about a direct mail campaign. Our marketing advice pack will help you with some ideas.
Network. Get out there and speak to as many people as possible face to face. Are you a member of any networking groups such as the Chamber of Commerce? Get involved in local trade shows and events. Get involved in the community to raise your profile. Online networking, such as LinkedIn, can also generate sales.
Consider advertising. Could your advertising strategy be improved? Where should you advertise? Always try to negotiate cheaper rates, never accept the quote that you are first given (our top tip). Consider Pay Per Click advertising in the form of Google Adwords. If managed correctly, these can be highly targeted and cost effective.
Get a social media strategy. Google loves fresh content to your website to help your SEO rankings.
Make sure your website is responsive. With recent changes from Google, non-responsive websites will not show as highly in the rankings as one that is formatted for mobile and tablet viewing. Approximately more than 40% of purchases are made using mobile and tablet devices. Is your business potentially missing out?
Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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