How do you get New Customers

There is a saying in business that goes like this.

“If you are not growing you are dying.”

Growth is something that is vital to all businesses. Customer retention and a high lifetime value is critical.

Customer retention should always be the main focus for all businesses. Of course, you should always try to sell more to your current customers. However, it is difficult for any business to survive without new customers.

There are hundreds of ways of getting new customers. Some will be profitable. Others will send you broke.

No doubt, you have heard stories of businesses growing too quickly. Fast growth is fine but growth at the expense of profit is not good.

Here are seven ways to get new customers. There are hundreds of ways but the best place to start is with these simple methods.

1. Do what you do very well. This sounds obvious but very few businesses practice this. Run your business in a way that customers rave about your business. Basically, you want your customers to be so impressed with what you do that they cannot wait to tell others about their experience. This will bring referrals your way without you paying anything or doing anything special to get it.

2. Have a referral plan. You should also have a way of getting referrals to your business by careful planning. The best referral is one that actually places an order with your business straight away. In other words, your customer does the selling for you. The next best referral is the name of a referred client. You will need to convince this person to buy from you but this is easier than usual as your client has already recommended your company.

3. Repeat what you are currently doing. Study where your newest clients have come from. It is important that you track where your new business is coming from so you can develop a strategy to repeat or even refine what you are currently doing. If you advertise in a magazine and this is working for you, then try and improve this ad, make it larger, make it appear more regularly or use the same ad in very similar magazines.

4. Copy what your competitors are doing. The trick is to copy what your competitors do well, not what they do badly. Mostly, but not always, your competitors will only market in areas where there are long term sales. If they repeat something, then you can expect that form of marketing to be profitable for them.

5. Study what businesses in other industries are doing. To consistently bring in new customers to your business, you must be a student of marketing. Learn what others are doing. Be prepared to adapt ideas from other industries to your own.

6. Who are your best customers? When it comes to new customers, the quality is just as important as the quantity. It should be possible for you to know who your best customers are. You need to know everything there is about these customers. Your marketing can then be targeted to attracting these types of prospects to your business.

7. Have a compelling USP. You must give new customers, especially, a reason to buy from you instead of your competitor or any other option available to them. Ideally, it is one sentence, two at the most, which explains succinctly why someone should buy from you. You will need to offer something that is different from your competitors and cannot easily be copied.