You make great products. All of your past customers rave about how much they love them. There is a core group of people that you can rely on to purchase again and again. But if you’re starting a business the big question, is where do you go from there? You need more than a few reliable customers. You need to get your message out to a broader audience (who may already be looking for you!) Is it possible to find customers with marketing?
Most prospective customers prospects fit into one of the following classifications.
Already looking for you
For certain types of business, they service you offer is in high-enough demand, and familiar enough to potential customers that they will be looking for you already. Things like restaurants, wedding photographers, barber shops, web designers, etc. are “known” categories. If most prospects would find you by looking up your business category on the internet, then you have prospects already looking for you.
While it may seem like the “easier” type of prospect to find, if the majority of your prospects are like this, you’re likely facing more competition to get them to become your customer.
Aren’t actively looking for you
Some business types need to be more proactive to find customers with marketing. If a prospect isn’t naturally googling your business category but needs to be convinced of their need, they fall into this category. People who sell fine art or invented of a unique kitchen gadget are seeking prospects who aren’t actively looking.
It may seem like a difficult task to turn prospects into customers who fit this category, but there is often very little competition to sell in this space, and there may be no competition at all.
Using this to find customers with marketing
The best approach to marketing it going to depend on which category most of your prospects fit into. While all businesses will have a blend of both type (e.g. while someone selling oil paintings will mostly have customers who weren’t actively looking for them, a small handful may come from google “oil paintings for sale”) its important to know which is more likely for your business category.
Already looking for you
If most of your prospective customers are already looking for you, the goal of your marketing is to beat your competitors. You need to be easy to find, and convince them your product is better (or more convenient, cheaper, etc.). There are some businesses that rely very heavily on prospects that are already looking for you (realtors, lawyers, etc.) and it tends to be very competitive.
Marketing initiatives you should consider:
- Google My Business listing: Get it online, get it optimized, and get all current/past customers to give you a review. BrightLocal offers a quick-start guide on using Google My Business.
- Remarketing pay per click ads: The idea behind remarketing is to “follow” a visitor to your site with ads for a period after they visit. One of the best ways to find customers with marketing. This increases your odds of a sale once they’ve already found your site.
- SEO: You’re probably in a high-search field, so spending effort to optimize your site will be well-worth the time and effort (but be aware- if you’re in a crowded space, you could face heavy competition here).
- Email/SMS: You probably won’t have luck “cold emailing” people (and for many reasons we never suggest buying lists of email addresses), but given that you’re in a crowded space, keeping communication open with people that already know you is essential. Make sure your website has compelling offers that require prospective customers to opt-in to email and/or SMS communication from you. Check out our quick read on making sure you get into inboxes!
Aren’t actively looking for you
If prospective customers aren’t looking for you, marketing efforts should focus on: 1) getting yourself in front of them. 2) Convince them of their need (they may already perceive it). 3) Show them that your product or service will meet their need. Do this, and they will become customers!
Marketing initiatives you should consider:
- Live events: If you’re selling to a primarily local audience, a live event can be a great way to be seen. If you want to find customers with marketing the effort spent to find local events to be at will be worth it. Keep in mind when you do this, you need to have a compelling presence. Don’t just be “another booth”. Find
- Influence marketing: Work with an influencer that speaks to an audience of your prospective customers. You can get in front of people that wouldn’t have otherwise seen you. Additionally, their “vouching” for your product can go a long way to helping close the sale.
- Referral marketing: Depending on what you sell, properly incentivizing past customers to spread your word can be powerful. Doing referral marketing right can be tricky. You need to balance paying too much for incentives and not having something compelling enough trigger a referral. The most effective forms of these promotions allow the past customer doing the referring to benefit, and the person being referred as well. The customer will then feel like they’re giving a gift to the person referred, so they’ll more likely do it. A local brewery might offer “Free pint for you and a friend”. Give a business-card coupon to a past customer they can give away. The coupon gives the person turning it in a free pint, and the next time the referrer comes back, they get a free pint as well.
What other ways to find customers with marketing have you found that work? Let us know what you sell, who you sell to, and what’s worked great for you in the past!
