How to Attract New Customers to Your Business

If you want to grow your company, you have two options. You can try to get more business from your existing customers, or you can work to attract new ones. Both are essential components of a healthy growth plan. Current customers already know you, trust you, and can be enticed to spend more, and new customers increase your reach and bring new opportunities.

In a future article we’ll talk about how to increase your existing business. Today we’re going to focus on the other side of the equation — attracting new customers to your business. There are several tried and true strategies for increasing your client list. Working a few into your existing growth efforts is vital because attrition guarantees that if you aren’t adding new customers, you won’t be able to make up for those you’ll inevitably lose. Let’s take a look at how you can start attracting new clients today.

LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN ABOUT YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS

Your existing customer base is a treasure trove of growth information. They chose you over your competition, and they can tell you why. Ask them what it is that attracted them to you. Learn about their preferences, their behaviors, and the places they frequent online and through social media.

Your existing clients represent a cross-sample of your ideal customers. If you can figure out how to craft your messaging to appeal to more people like them, your sales efforts should benefit.

Creating buyer personas is an excellent method for defining your audience. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your target audience. They include demographics, behaviors, buyer preferences, and a host of other details. Personas represent a specific segment of your market and provide a “person” to speak to when crafting marketing messages. If your personas accurately reflect the sorts of people most likely to want your offerings, talking to them will speak directly to your target market.

A group of three business people talking on a city street.

ASK EXISTING CUSTOMERS FOR REFERRALS

Your existing customer base is one of your most fertile areas for new customers. If you offer quality goods and services and provide stellar customer support, your current clients will be happy to pass along new prospects. These contacts have the benefit of being pre-vetted by a trusted source that’s already on your side. These prospects are also more likely to become customers than random contacts because they have a trusted friend or business partner recommending you. One study found that referrals were three times more likely to become a new customer than cold prospects.

But you have to ask. You may have a few superfan customers that shout your name from the rooftops every chance they get, but in most cases, your customers won’t volunteer names unless you ask for them.

OFFER DISCOUNTS AND SPECIAL OFFERS TO NEW CUSTOMERS

There’s likely a sizeable group of people interested in your products or services but haven’t found the motivation they need to take a chance on you. For these people, making a decision is a risk. If they choose you over your competition, what guarantee do they have that they’re making the right choice?

Discounts and special offers reduce this perceived risk by lessening the financial investment involved in giving your offerings a try. If you provide quality products and excellent service, you’re likely to convert a healthy percentage of these tentative customers. The short-term hit you’ll take to your bottom line is more than compensated for by increased sales in the future.

Discounts are also helpful for enticing referrals. Try creating a special offer that applies to new customers and the customer that referred them. This provides a carrot to your existing clients to send you referrals while simultaneously reducing barriers to entry for the person or business being referred.

An envelope that says "Handwritten message and direct shipping to recipient."

Utilize HANDWRITTEN DIRECT MAIL

Direct mail offers excellent open rates compared to email marketing, but handwritten direct mail eclipses them both. Handwritten mailers, which include hand-penned envelopes, enjoy a 99% open rate. There’s no other way to ensure that 99 out of every 100 people you approach looks at your message.

Handwritten mailers are unique in a field dominated by cookie-cutter printed mailers and digital marketing strategies. They feel as if they were crafted specifically with the recipient in mind. This motivates people to open them and read them. And with Simply Noted, you can automate the entire process.

Using our simple web interface and our fleet of ballpoint pen-equipped handwriting machines, you can generate hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of authentic-feeling handwritten mailers with the ease and simplicity of email or standard print mailers. Plus, we offer customizations not available with traditional print mail. With handwritten direct mail, you can reach your prospects with focused, personalized messages affordably, ensuring an excellent return on your investment.

FOCUS ON CUSTOMER SERVICE

Providing stellar customer service is great for winning new business as well as retaining existing customers. When you treat your customers right, they’re more likely to refer new business to you without you having to ask. You’ll find them talking about you on social media more as well.

Consider your friend group. You likely tend to seek out those individuals that keep in touch with you — those friends that seem genuinely interested in what you’re doing and are ready and willing to help you out at a moment’s notice. These people make it clear they care for you, and as a result, you draw closer to them.

The same is true for businesses. Consumers form emotional bonds with brands that they feel are looking out for their interests and share common values. When you take care of them, they’ll take care of you.

Business owners shaking hands in a conference room.

FORM PARTNERSHIPS WITH COMPLEMENTARY COMPANIES

Look for companies with offerings that appeal to your audience but aren’t direct competitors and develop cross-promotion opportunities. If you sell home office peripherals, you might partner with a local furniture company, giving them access to your customer list in exchange for theirs. Because you offer complementary products, some of their customers will likely be interested in your products and vice versa. With no additional investment, both you and your partner will have access to a broad new list of prospects.

Partnering is a great move for acquiring referrals as well. Let’s say you’re an accountant and you partner with a business lawyer. Whenever they have a client asking about accounting services, your partner will refer them to you, and whenever you have a client looking for legal advice, you can return the favor.

There’s no need to stop at one. Network and create a pool of related businesses, all supporting one another. You’ll enjoy tons of referral work while increasing your ability to help your existing customers. Whenever they ask about a service, you can say, “I know someone. Let me make a call.”

You know what you need to do. Now go out and win some new customers!