There are few things in life more satisfying than being an entrepreneur. It takes a lot of courage to embark on this journey, every step can either contribute to your success or your downfall.
One of the biggest challenges of owning a business has to do with your customer base. How do you attract them? How do you keep them? How do you convert your relationship into revenue? Thus, examining customer profitability and making the most out of the lifetime value of your clients is essential to the success of your business.
To increase your customer base (and sales) you must remain in constant contact with both your potential and existing customers. At the end of the day, the more value that your business is able to offer them, the higher the chance that they will remain loyal.
With just a 5% increase in customer retention, you can expect to see a 75% increase in customer value. Now your challenge becomes finding a way to improve your retention by 5%. To help you in this endeavor, we’ve compiled a list of 5 simple, but effective, tips to attract customers and increase sales:
* Give out a free newsletter
Know matter how low the budget, everyone can afford free. With this nifty piece of marketing material and some really good content, you are showing your customers that you have no problem providing them with free information. You can even put exclusive coupons (like the bet365 bonus code) amidst all the intriguing content, to ensure their patronage.
* Ask your existing customer base for their opinions
Before your online visitors leave your site, ask them to complete a short survey about your business. Many times, your customers will have no problems telling you all about their offline and online experiences with your company. Use this tendency and your survey to measure customer satisfaction.
* Provide top quality customer support and service
The key to providing quality customer service is to treat each customer with respect, listen to their grievances and/or questions, and take appropriate action. Word of the mouth is the most successful marketing tool on the planet so making that one customer happy will help your business as well. When they’ve had a good experience with you, a satisfied customer is sure to spread the news to their friends. This can only help your business.
* Make sure that the content on your website is interesting and fresh
Informative and fresh content is one of the key elements of SEO because this is what you need to lure new visitors. To ensure your content is fresh, publish a blog that the details the latest business news, key information from whitepapers, and other interesting topics in your industry.
* Use social media to promote your business
Most Facebook users have at least 150 friends on their pages. When you create new content, run a new campaign, or launch a new product, make sure you let them all know about it. Do the same with your Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other social media channels where you have an active presence. One of the easiest ways to increase sales is by providing your customers with some type of value and then having them promote your brand for you.
The Bottom Line
Simply put, marketing is the practice of both attracting and keeping customers. If you are interested in building a strong customer base for your service or product for this upcoming year, following the above five steps will help you do in splendid fashion.
What do you think of the tips listed above? Do you have any of your own to share? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
