Do you need more customers?
Are you sick of people visiting your website or business and not buying?
Well keep reading as we will show you How To Attract Customers To Your Business Who Are Ready To Buy.
Much worse than having no visitors to your website or business premises is actually getting visitors, but no sales. That is so frustrating.
If that has happened to you, don’t despair. We have worked with a number of existing and start-up businesses and know a few tricks to help you attract not only new customers to your website but ones who are ready to buy from you.
Identify your target audience – don’t try to reach out to everybody
The first and most important step for any business is to identify your target customers. Do it right, and you will have a much easier time converting visitors into buyers. Do it wrong, and you risk creating a product/service that nobody (or not enough people) wants.
It is well known customers want to interact with brands they can connect with.
To do this, you need to know what kind of company and image you want to portray and then adapt your marketing to directly appeal to the ideal brand of customer you want to attract to your business. This is done by creating ideal buyer persona (an image or profile of your ideal customer) based on their buying habits and lifestyle.
So instead of searching for customers, help them to find you. Go to the sites and places they go to – put yourself in the places they want to be and invite them to come and see you. If you have a clear image of who you want to serve, you are going to be in a better position to give them what they want.
A lot of companies make the mistake of thinking that everybody is a potential customer. They are not! You need to focus on the dreams and desires of your top customers, then pay them special attention by treating them well.
Don’t try to rent your audience, build your own instead
Some businesses we have worked with have tried to take a short cut by renting eyeballs or clicks. They buy and rent email mailing lists in order to get extra customers. Sometimes the gamble can pay off but if you want customers who are looking for a business and services like yours, it is far more profitable to grow your own list instead.
This is not hard to do. For example, on your Facebook page you could provide shareable, inspirational and humorous content – images and quotes to encourage visitors to engage with you.
The people who enjoy the content on your site are generally the ones who will respond to your specific offers and products and you can quickly attract a lot of eager new fans and customers.
Word of mouth marketing
The best way to attract new customers to your site is by word of mouth, and social media marketing, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, makes this easier to do than ever before. It is fast, free and easy.
Ditch the large scale marketing campaigns
What? Is this really a recommendation from a marketing company? Yes!
In the old days, marketing used to be large scale isolated advertising and media events but things have changed. Your customers don’t live on a campaign schedule. They are always on the move and are constantly being bombarded with new information and offers wherever they go. As a result they have become more discerning and advert aware.
So instead of investing a large amount of money on a big campaign it is better to drip feed your offers through continuous engagement with them.
Social media makes it easy to follow a customer from their first visit to your site, to the point that they become a lead and eventually through the sales process.
The relationship doesn’t end there as your constant engagement and relationship building with them continues long after the initial sale. You can easily get repeat business and referrals from them if you handle it right.
Copy your competition
Do a bit of research.
Find out how your competition is attracting customers:
Do they advertize on the Internet or is it mainly offline?
Do they buy advertizements in local media like newspapers and radio or do they have a large social media following online?
If they are doing something that clearly works for them and are getting customers (your potential customers), you need to try and adopt similar measures so that you don’t continue losing customers to them.
Attract new customers who are actively searching for your product or service
Purchasing pay-per-click (PPC) advertising using Google Adwords is a very effective way to instantly connect with new customers who are not only eager to buy but have got their credit card at the ready to buy there and then.
Unlike traditional forms of advertising, like the Yellow Pages or ads in a local newspaper, with PPC you are not handing over money and paying for an empty promise of perhaps getting new visitors to see your site. You are paying for an actual result, a click.
With PPC, you don’t pay if nobody sees your ad; you don’t even pay if someone does see it but doesn’t click. You only pay when someone literally clicks on your ad.
This is generally called buying clicks because that’s just what you are doing. You’re paying a PPC company each time someone clicks on the link that is pointing back to your Website.
These ads are highly targeted.
So, for example, when a person does a search for a Wedding Planner in your town or area, Google will bring up a list of targeted adverts that wedding planners and related companies have paid to advertize when a customer types those key words into the search engine. In most cases these are customers who are very eager to buy, and you can see how this works over the page.
This is basically how it works:
• You join a search engine’s PPC program (for example Adwords by Google) and add some funds to the account. You set a limit on the maximum amount you want to pay so you don’t go over budget.
• You create a small text ad (in some cases, PPC can include images).
• You specify exactly what words or phrases a customer should type into the search engine before they would even see your advertizement, which will ensure the ads are targeted.
• You specify how much you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad.
• You are now ready. You wait for the next person to arrive at the search engine, enter one of the keywords or keyword phrases you specified, and click the Search button.
• The search engine finds the matching ads (including yours) and places them on the results page.
• If the searcher clicks the ad, he is taken to your Website, and you will be charged for that click.
• Once the budget limit you set for your advertising campaign has been reached, your ad will no longer be shown until you add more funds to your account. By this time you should have received some targeted customers who have bought from you.
Attend industry specific conferences and exhibitions
We are big fans of attending conferences, exhibitions and networking events. It is a great way to make new connections and spread the word about your business to new targeted clients.
People buy from people they have met, so if you are seen and active at events, people will be more inclined to buy from you.
This type of event is also perfect for showing potential clients how caring you are and that you strive to make your customers happy. Exceptional customer service plus excellent products or services will always ensure that you have a thriving business.
Use these events to get people to visit your website and join your mailing list so you can stay in constant contact with them using the engagement tips mentioned above.
By using some or all of these methods you will be able to attract brand new, eager to buy customers easily.
The internet has made it a level playing field for small to medium sized businesses. You can reach thousands of new customers every week from all around the world or locally, by having a well thought out online presence.
It is an exciting time for small businesses and you don’t want to miss out on the revolution that is happening at the moment. Old marketing methods no longer work. The way that consumers buy is changing and you need to change with them, knowing who they are, where they are and why they buy.