To be successful, you must first attract new potential customers.
To make the sale, you must turn or convert those potential new customers into real customers or clients who purchased your product or service.
Finally, to keep delivering real value (and building your profits), you must get to know your customers. If you don’t truly know them, how will you maintain your relationship with them? What are their pain points? What can you provide to solve those issues for them? How can your continued services and knowledge enhance their lives?
This article will cover each of those phases of your customer experience; attract, turn, and know.
Attract New Customers
Businesses are always thinking of a way that they could increase their customer base, for good reason. Customers are the lifeline of every business; without them, no business can flourish. So, if you want your business to be successful, take a closer look at ways that you could encourage growth in your customer base. In this section, you’ll learn about some of the most tried and tested ways to do exactly that.
The first one is to give new customers discounts and promotions. I bet you don’t know a single person who wouldn’t be attracted to a product or service that offers bargains to “new bloods”. That’s because it is human nature to want to have something (regardless whether they need it or not) that is on sale or promo. So, throw some buy 2-get-1 there, and you’ll attract prospects in no time.
The next one is to network or promoting brand awareness. People need to know who you are first before they check out what you have to offer and think if they find value in your product or service.
Networking is a great way to meet new people and introduce yourself. You can trade associations, network organizations, etc. Always think that there can be one person in the room who can benefit from what you have to offer.
Updating your website regularly is also a great way to charm new customers. Remember that one of the main ways that consumers and even businesses find businesses is through online search. So, make sure that they see your website on the search engine, and they get to see up-to-date information about you and your company.
Finally, you can also ask your customers to “bring a friend”, which is a sort of referral in a way that requires customer participation. This is a great way to get help from your customers, even without their conscious knowledge that they’re doing it for you. You can give them an offer like “buy one, get two”.
These are some of the ways that you could encourage more new customers to come to you and grow your customer base.
Always remember, though, that as you pay attention to attracting new customers, you should make sure that you also continue giving your current customers the same attention and positive experience.
Now that we’ve covered the foundation of how to attract new customers, it’s time to learn the basics of turning them into loyal customers.
Turning New Customers Into Loyal Repeat Customers
It’s good to attract prospects and make new customers. If you’re just starting out your business, it should really be your top priority to get as many customers as you can. But what’s amazing is if you’re able to turn first-time customers into repeat customers.
Repeat customers are loyal customers who make business with you after the first one.
It’s important that you also pay attention to those customers who have already purchased from you. With that said, here are some tips to turn your new customers into repeat customers.
1. Customer Win-Back Emails
Customer win-back emails are emails that you send a month or two months after your customer’s last purchase.
The purpose of this email is to convince your customer to make their second purchase.
You can give discounts or coupons through this email to add interest from your customers.
2. Your Supportive Customer Service
If you want loyalty from your customers, it’s crucial that you provide outstanding customer service.
This is your direct way to make your customers feel heard and taken care of. Most people wouldn’t mind the inconvenience of having to reach out to customer service as long as they actually get their problems solved afterwards.
3. Better Sales With More Value
There are a very few people who wouldn’t want to check out sales, and this isn’t just effective for new customers. You can also provide better sales for your existing customers.
For example, if you give 20% discount for specific products to first-time buyers, maybe you can give 20% discount for all products to existing buyers.
4. Listen To Feedback And Get Engaged
Always listen to what your customers have to say about your product or service. Pay attention to the feedback that you’re getting and fix or improve what needs to be fixed or improved.
This will make your customers see that you care how your product or service can improve for them. To really target the feeling of being heard, you can even mention some of their names so that other customers also recognize that your ears are open for providing a better experience to them as a whole.
The bottom line of all this is that you should always make sure that you’re taking good care of your existing customer. The last thing you want them to feel is that you got what you wanted from them, and now they’re not important to you. Express your care and appreciation, and you will grow loyal customers in no time.
Know Your Customers Better
No business can thrive without happy customers, and the first step to ensuring that your customers are well-cared for and satisfied is by getting to know them and their needs and desires.
It’s crucial that you understand deeply their pain points so that you can provide them with the right solutions.
It’s not enough that you know their age range and their socioeconomic status. With that said, here are some tips to help you get to know your customers better.
Firstly, when you get to know your customers, try not to make assumptions about their beliefs, views and preferences because you can never truly assure that your ideas are correct.
Remember that people change as the world changes, which means that customers will not always respond or interact with a brand the same way that they did a year ago. So, stick to gathering raw data and interpret that for your advantage.
The next tip is to utilize social media.
Almost everyone is on some social media platform nowadays, which means that it has become a powerful tool that allows businesses to reach out to their customers across the globe with minimal to no trouble. So, as much as you can, make sure that you build on your social media presence and leverage it by interacting actively with your customers. Also, make use of the data that you can gather from customer’s liking and purchases on social media.
You can also conduct your own survey in order to garner honest feedback about your product or service. As a business person, you already know and understand the importance of getting feedback when it comes to improving your product and achieving overall success. Listen carefully to the thoughts and feelings of your customers so that you can make improvements in your marketing strategies accordingly.
Finally, you should also arrange a brand event in order to really build rapport with your customers and get to know their authentic thoughts and feelings beyond the technology-mediated channels.
These are some of the most effective ways that you can get to know your customers better and improve your overall marketing strategies. Apply what you’ve learned from this article, and you will be well on your way towards better relationship with your customers and better business experience.
