11 Ways to Double Your Customer Base in 4 Weeks
Double your volume of business within a single month by following these simple but highly effective steps. They will be sure to generate new leads and successfully convert them into paying customers.
Building a truly successful business requires a keen understanding of the needs and desires of your market. In all cases, this ultimately traces to your customers’ wants and needs By connecting to the people who want your products and services and directly appealing to them, businesses gain new customers and clients. A common problem faced by many entrepreneurs is that they either fail to define their potential customers or they lack the skills, resources, and strategies necessary to forge valuable relationships with them. Self-promotion is essential, and a focused and effective marketing plan to advertise your business can easily double your customer base within four weeks. By following a few simple tips and engaging in some time-tested initiatives, the process can be both easy and lucrative.
Here are eleven tried and true methods for adding new customers in record time.
#1 Build a Loyalty Ladder to Create “Raving Fans”
ActionCOACHBusinessCoaching Loyal customers are ideal customers. These are the people who sometimes refer others to your business, which makes them especially valuable because they serve as a free form of advertisement. Your most prized clients and customers are those who become so energized about the level of service they receive that they cannot stop telling others about it. These “raving fans” are a golden asset, and are a tremendous source of new customers. If a business makes a concerted effort to identify loyal customers and earn their highest praises, they will almost certainly become cheerleaders for your business. This is an investment that pays off many times over, and it costs much less than traditional forms of marketing.
For a company to rise to this level of appeal, they must make an intentional, targeted effort to personalize each transaction and aspect of the customer relationship. For instance, rather than offering a preferred customer a standard discount coupon, a business owner might instead offer them tickets to a golf tournament or symphony. Instead of giving out a free item on their birthday, deliver flowers or a gift basket to them, or pamper them in other special and memorable ways. Your investment in these special services should be calculated based upon the value of the business that raving fans bring to the company. Put another way, customer service is transformed so that it becomes an incentive and rewards program tailored to individual clients. When other potential raving fans witness this kind of VIP treatment, they will similarly become inspired to tell others about the business in order to enjoy the exclusive benefits of this preferred customer relationship.
#2 Identify a Target Market for Direct Mail
Direct mail campaigns work best for reaching consumer demographics that are defined and identified as a focus group. Unlike broad methods of advertising that hit everyone within a given geographic area, direct mail is intended to arrive at the doorstep of consumers who are already known to be great candidates for your offered products and services. There are a number of ways to narrow down your target demographics: age, gender, income level, buying habits, and place of residence are commonly examined.
Mailing lists of people who meet specific criteria can usually be purchased for a premium from direct mail companies, clubs and organizations, and survey companies. You’ll want to go through brokers who make money by collecting and sharing demographic data. But the least expensive (and often most effective) way to generate an appropriate mailing list is to hold a giveaway contest. People who submit their mailing address on an entry form are obviously interested in winning that product or service, so this helps to pre-screen them as potential customers.
Birds of a feather flock together and the needs of the best customers will always be the same as the needs of the best potential customers the organization is trying to attract.
#3 Create a Referral Program
Design a referral program that rewards customers for bringing others into the customer base. Referral rewards can be in the form of discounts, gifts, invitations to special events, or exclusive “closed door” sales events. A closed door sales event can have a particularly strong appeal with customers who desire a feeling of exclusivity.
A referral program can borrow ideas and schemes from the raving fan concept, but it will be executed in a simpler and more general fashion. Many customers have friends, coworkers, and family members who require the same products and services, so referrals are a natural method of growing your customer base. By using existing customers as a resource for community outreach, you can easily turn one customer into five.
#4 Weed Out Bad Clients and Cater to the Best
Contrary to popular belief, it is sometimes advantageous to lose customers, especially if the business owner deliberately orchestrates the loss. By prioritizing the kinds of customers a business prefers to have, it makes it possible to eliminate those who create unnecessary headaches and detract from your overall bottom line. This allows you to better serve other, more valuable customers. Furthermore, it also allows a company to focus on attracting the kinds of desirable customers that contribute to most of their profits. Shedding those who are a liability – the five or ten percent of people who can never be satisfied – is actually a net positive in the long run.
Identify who the best customers are by applying the “80-20” rule. This principle states that 80 percent of a company’s business comes from 20 percent of its customers. Treat those 20% of customers particularly well, and invest extra energy in satisfying their needs while extending service above and beyond the call of duty. They form the core of the business’ customer base, and by appealing to them it is possible to create more customers who are similarly lucrative. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. The needs of the best customers will always be the same as the needs of the best potential customers the organization is trying to attract. Learn to cater to those needs and those kinds of clients, and you’ll watch your bottom line swell in size.
