Getting more customers?
That’s the main concern for most businesses. Without customers, businesses wouldn’t thrive. This is why your business should always be focused on the customer.
There are three stages of connection with an ideal customer:
- Identification
- Attraction
- Retention
As a business owner, you should be aware of all three stages and the best practices in connection with each one.
5 Ways to Identify, Attract and Keep Your Ideal Customer
1. Create a Demographic Profile
The identification of the ideal customer is all about identifying needs or pain points that you can help meet. You also must know the characteristics and qualities of your ideal customer.
Your demographic profile can include:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Occupation
- Marital status
- Interests
You can include other data points that might help you. If you are looking for business clients, the data points can include:
- Location
- Industry
- Number of employees
- Revenue
You can create a list of the customers who meet those data points. Now determining the exact demographic for your business will take some experimentation if you don’t have a clear idea for that already.
You can start by getting in touch with prospective customers and asking if they have problems which you can resolve. Try to be as specific as you can get when you ask questions. The aim is for you to narrow down how you identify your ideal customers.
One thing that you can do is to ask the existing customers that you have and your employees what your company does. If they answer in a clear and precise manner that means you have identified what your customers need.
2. Try the Different Platforms
Identifying ideal customers is relatively easy compared with attracting them. That would take more time and work on your part. First, you have to find them.
There are plenty of places on the internet where you can get in touch with customers. Here are a few ideas:
- You can use keywords to find the right customers on search engines. You can search using a relevant keyword to your business and then comment on the discussions you find.
- Look for the popular blogs and forums that are related to your business.
- Facebook and Twitter are popular social media platforms that you can turn to.
- Look for LinkedIn Groups that are closely related to your industry and the field that you are in. If you are running a plumbing service, you can join a Group connected with contractors.
3. Advertise Online
Once you have identified the platform where you can find your customers, you can start getting in touch with them. There are numerous methods that you can use for getting in touch with your customers.
The best method is through advertising. You can place ads on Facebook for example and those will be targeted. That means you will be focusing on the people who are likely to become interested in what you are offering.
There are other platforms for placing ads that are available online and you should explore all of that.
4. Email Marketing and Becoming an Authority
Email marketing is another method that you can use to attract the customers. There are plenty of tools that are available now which can be used for automating emails.
Search engine marketing is another method that you can use for attracting more customers to your business.
Try establishing yourself as an expert in your field. You can do that by writing articles that are incisive and are worth reading. Keep on doing that and your readers will see you as an authority in your field and that will boost the credibility of your business.
5. Take Care of Your Existing Customers
We’re jumping ahead a bit here. The discussion on how you can attract customers can take up a whole book, but for now we will jump ahead and assume that you attracted customers already and you are making deals with them. So, how do you nurture them and make sure they don’t go away?
Here are some ideas:
- Focus on customer service and have good people answering concerns and complaints.
- Don’t offer better prices to new customers. Doing that will upset your existing customers.
- Keep in touch even after you have made the sale. Make them feel that they are part of a community.
Those ideas might seem simple and common knowledge, but you would be surprised at the number of business owners who do not practice them.
The customers are the bloodline of your business. Without them no money would be coming in to keep you going. Your business should be focused in attracting and taking care of your customer.
Author Bio: Betty Dennis works as a content writer at Raqtan.com. Raqtan is an end to end solution provider to the food and beverage industry in the GCC. It is not only a food service equipment supply company but also a service and solution provider to the food service market which works with its partners and helps them achieve their goals by providing them with professional solutions.
