When it comes to launching a business or running an established business, many business owners find it challenging to attain new customers. Gaining customers is how a business grows, and customers are needed to make profits. Below are ten tried and proven methods for gaining new clients, leading to a growth in sales.
1. Join Facebook Groups and Be Active
The first tip to growing a business and gaining customers is to join Facebook groups related to the business or product and get active. For example, if the business sells food containers, the business owner may want to join Facebook groups for those who meal prep, pack lunches daily, count calories, etc. Tips and more available at upswell.com.
Why would a business owner selling food containers want to join these Facebook groups? All of the people in those groups would likely be the type of people who would purchase reusable food containers. Just joining the group is not enough. One should get social and conversate with other group members and bring up their containers naturally and organically. Never randomly spam a group or private message group members as this can get an account banned.
2. Create a Blog
Another proven method to growing a customer base is to start a blog. The blog needs to be related to the business topic and should share information relevant to customers. In the blog post, link back to the business website, the business’s social media pages, or the products that the business sells.
If the reader is enjoying the blog posts and wants to learn more, they can click the links and be taken to the product. Once the blog is established, the company can offer to do a blog post swap with other businesses with related services or products. This allows businesses to showcase services and products that other businesses have to offer, and the companies have the opportunity to gain new customers.
3. Have Conversations on Twitter
People take to Twitter to ask questions, get product recommendations, and find out what is going on in the news. Make a list of hashtags related to the business, and then search those hashtags on Twitter. Get social, answer questions, and respond in conversations.
This is a great way to bring in new customers. Twitter users who are enjoying the conversation may hit follow on the business’s Twitter account or go to their profile to learn more. This is why all conversations on Twitter should be professional, informative, polite, and relevant to the business.
4. Work With Social Media Influencers
Working with social media influences is great for business. A social media influencer is a person who has lots of followers online. Social media influencers can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more.
A business will ask a social media influencer to promote its product or business. The business gets their goods in front of the influencer’s followers, and the influencer gets free products or services. Some influencers charge for this service, while others, especially micro-influencers, promote a good business or useful product for free.
5. Be Present and Active on Social Media Platforms
If customers cannot find the product, they will not know that the product exists. Make sure that the business is active on social media platforms. Create a page on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and any other platform where customers may be registered.
6. Follow Up with Leads
If a potential customer emailed the company or visited the website but never made a purchase, it is smart to follow up with them. Send a polite email asking if the business can answer any questions. This will remind the customer about the product or service, and they may end up making a purchase.
7. Follow Up with Past Clients
Those needing to boost sales should follow up with past clients. Send an email asking how they are enjoying the product. This is a good time for offering a coupon in hopes of gaining a repeat buyer.
8. Promote Through Targeted Facebook Ads
Targeted Facebook ads give a big bang for those advertising dollars. Facebook collects demographics on their users such as age, location, gender, career, and hobbies. For a fee, they will allow businesses to advertise through their platform to targeted demographics.
Potential customers can “Like” the advertisement, save it, comment, or interact with an ad by clicking a link. Many business owners claim that Facebook ads were a gamechanger for their business. This is why promoting through targeted ads on Facebook makes this list of tried and true ways to gain new customers.
9. Build an Email List
Tip nine is to build an email list that a business can use to connect with its customers. While a business should never spam their customer’s emails daily, a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email is a perfect way to promote need products, share tips and information, and pass out coupon codes to customers. Have a box or button on the company website that allows users to join the email list and sit back and watch the list grow. Every new person on the list is a new potential customer.
10. Host Webinars
People enjoy attending and participating in webinars. What is a webinar? A webinar is a virtual class or information session. People can participate from home, the office, their local coffee shop, the library, or even the mall.
Why host a webinar? Webinars are great tools that have high conversion rates. Webinars allow a business to connect with potential customers. Those potential customers can use the webinar to ask questions and get answers. Webinars can be used by businesses to showcase products or educate customers on specific topics.
While gaining new customers may feel like a struggle, there are some ways to make it easier. The ten ideas above are great for getting the business in front of potential customers and converting some of those potential customers into paying clients. In the blink of an eye, the business may find itself with a massive email list and a stack of new product orders.
