No customers equals no money, which will inevitably mean no business. So, while focusing on the web and all the internet can do to bring in more business, when your business isn’t web based, but a local business, how do you get more paying customers?
The key is to think outside the box – traditional flyers and business cards still work and serve a purpose, but if that’s all you do, don’t be surprised if you feel like your business isn’t going anywhere.
Below are three simple ways to get more clients in order to maximise your business’s potential.
Encourage referrals
Encourage your friends, family members and current clients to give referrals. In return you could give a bonus or discount for every paying customer that they send your way. This sounds like common sense to many people, but you’d be surprised the number of people who have a business up and running and fail to tell everyone they know. Don’t be shy about your business, shout about it!
You could host a contest to reward the top referring person with a gift. Word-of-mouth referring is one of the best marketing strategies out there, because it is one of the least expensive, yet most effective lead generators.
Add your marketing material to all your correspondence
When you send out an email, make sure your signature lines include all relevant contact and business information, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media profile links.
Include a link to your blog or website with a short description of a current or upcoming promotion of new products and services.
You should also attach your marketing materials to invoices, payment reminders and other outgoing correspondence – someone may have bought a product from you in the past, liked your business but just haven’t had the chance to come back, and a flyer with an invoice or payment reminder will let them know about what’s new, and encourage them to buy.
Take advantage of free Advertising
Sites such as Google Places and eBay are are great for getting offline clients. It costs nothing to post an ad in eBay’s free classifieds section.
To maximise your success of attracting potential customers, make your ad more visually appealing with images. You don’t have to know Photoshop or need to pay out big money to a freelance graphic designer – with Microsoft PowerPoint or Publisher, you can design your own ad and generate an HTML code for your image by simply uploading it to sites such as Photobucket.
Obtaining clients offline does requires effort, consistency and often creativity. When one strategy doesn’t work, just go back to the drawing board and try another method until you find one that works. Make sure you have a marketing plan that includes some current marketing trends and modify it accordingly.
