Growing your customer base is an important part of expanding your business. You need to pick up new customers and perhaps tap into new demographics if you want to be successful. But knowing where to start to gain more customers isn’t always the easiest thing. You might feel like you’re already spending as much as you can on marketing.
You’re not sure how to start bringing in more sales without spending a lot more money to widen your reach. You don’t have to increase your spending by huge amounts to grow your customer base. Try some of these methods to expand your customer base in a variety of ways.
Understand your audience better
Getting a better understanding of your audience is a great way to grow your customer base. In fact, it helps you to understand your products or services better too. You might think you know who they are for and why they want them. But when you research who already buys your products or services, you could be surprised by how people use them.
For example, imagine that your company makes accessories for dogs. You sell a harness that’s stylish, comfortable, and comes in several sizes. On researching your customers, you find people are buying the harness for their cats. You can then aim some of your marketing and sales efforts at cat owners. Perhaps you can even create a product just for them.
Encourage current customers to recommend you
Word of mouth is often the best method you have for advertising your products or services. People trust a recommendation from a friend, family member, or colleague. So you want your current customers to spread the word, whether orally or with other methods.
Of course, one way to get people to do this is simply to deliver an excellent product or service. If they love you, they will tell people about you. But you can always offer extra incentives to get people to recommend you. It could be an affiliate program. People can collect rewards for linking others to your site. You could also send out vouchers or promo codes that they can give to friends.
Track your website traffic
It’s essential to know who comes to your website. You should learn who is interested in your products or services, and which ones stay or leave your site. Knowing more about your traffic helps you to learn about your current customers and your potential future ones. By using website visitor tracking, you can find out everything about the people who visit your site.
You can discover their name and company name, location, social media background, and more. With this valuable information, you can better target the people on your site. You can even get information on them while they’re still using your website. So you don’t waste time generating a lead.
Network as much as possible
Networking is always important in business. It’s one of the things that will help you expand your customer base. There are two types of network you need to consider. They are your business networks and social media networks. Business networks will help you get to know your industry and other companies within it.
You might know someone who has a business with an audience similar to yours. One of the things you can do is ask them where their customers come from. They can help you out, and you can let them know where your customers come from.
Networking can also bring you customers, connecting you to the right people. Then there are social media networks. They will connect you both to other business people and to the public. You can use it to promote your company and to bring in new customers.
Expand and diversify your products or services
Not all options for expanding your customer base are inexpensive. However, when you spend some extra money, you could have more success. One of the things you can do is to add more products or services to those you offer. You can include things that are closely related to your current offerings.
Or they could be more loosely connected. You can think about other things that your current customer base might want. So if they’re looking for web design, do they also want content writing services? If they’re buying scarves, they might also want bags. This can help to grow your customer base by providing more options for different people.
Partner up with other businesses
Working with another business can be a great way to expand your customer base. You can share your current customers with each other, plus bring in new ones. There are lots of things you could do together. You could run a promotion, offering discounts with one business when you buy from the other.
If you’re selling things, you could hand out flyers for your partner when you make a sale. You could recommend a service that complements yours. For example, if you run a gym, you could recommend a nutrition company to your clients.
Try new things
It’s always important to keep up with the fast-moving pace of the business world. Being willing to try out new things will help you to continue bringing in new customers. As your business grows, you need to adapt to what’s available and suitable for your company.
When you’re a small business, you will likely start off getting a lot of customers by word of mouth. But as you grow, you should look into using a range of different advertising methods to see what works for you.
Upload fresh and relevant content
Digital marketing is big business today, and you need to focus on it. If you want to ensure you bring in customers from search engines and social media, you need content. Your content should be fresh and relevant to your audience. Many people can discover your products or services by reading one of your blog posts or infographics.
You can increase your customer base in a variety of ways. Once you’re brought in new customers, make sure you can keep them there too.