Running a business can often feel like you’re running on a hamster wheel. Especially when you’re caught up in the cycle of needing more customers to make more money, yet needing more money to attract more customers.
While there are many customer attraction strategies and channels that require a hefty budget, there are still plenty of low-cost solutions to attract not only more customers to your business, but higher quality ones, too.
1. Get to know your customers
Knowing your ideal customer places you in a prime position to attract better customers. The best thing you can do to attract more of them is to get to know them. Survey them. Why did they choose you? What problem did you solve for them? Create profiles of their characteristics, locations, income, lifestyles, and pain points. These are your client avatars and are central to how you attract more of them. Once you know them intimately you can start to uncover where they spend their time online.
Next, it’s time to find out which private Facebook groups they are in, which blogs they read and which influencers they follow. Pay attention to where your ideal clients are hanging out.
2. Social proof is currency
The next best thing to a customer handing over money to you is having them hand over a testimonial or review. It’s a springboard for amplifying your credibility and attracting new customers through someone else singing your praises. But the thing is, you’ve got to ask! This could be on the spot or as a follow-up.
Social proof enables you to promote yourself without you actually doing the promoting! Once you’ve got your testimonials and reviews, promote them across your website, social media, and marketing materials.
3. Create an offer
Create an offer that will gain the attention of your ideal customer. You might consider a trial, audit, first month free, or adding tons of value with a purchase. The key is to make it compelling and a genuine offer. Study your competitors and do something completely different.
For businesses with limited budgets, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram are great places to start. If you have a small budget, even $500, run a highly targeted LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram ad campaign to your ideal customer and tell them how you can solve their problem with your irresistible offer.
4. Build strategic partnerships
Customer attraction doesn’t have to cost you money. Identifying non-competitive businesses that share your ideal audience (from step one) is a clever way to access a new network of clients.
Make a list of complimentary businesses and reach out to them with your proposal. Structure the formal partnership by creating a referral program. Either you set up a referral fee, paid on client acquisition or you can commit to a one-for-one referral program where both parties share clients with each other. It needs to be about reciprocity.
5. Create helpful content
Creating helpful content helps you build a relationship with your ideal audience so that they can start to know you and eventually trust you. When you create valuable content without asking for anything in return, your target audience is more likely to view you as the expert in your field. And where there is an expert, you’ll find a flood of customers interested in engaging an expert to solve their problems.
Customer attraction doesn’t have to cost you money. Especially with the power of the internet; you can reach your ideal customers without spending a fortune in a meaningful and effective way. When you start to see growth in your business from these tactics, then you may want to consider some paid channels to broaden your reach even further and amplify your business to the next level again.
