Ways to grow your business

Your interactions with your customers are extremely important in scaling your business, and if you want to grow your customer base then follow these guidelines:

1. Know your customers

One way of getting to know your customers, is to monitor the customer’s purchasing history. Also, by corresponding with the customer you may be able to get a better understanding of their needs and expectations of your products and services. This may offer some idea of their business or personal needs, goals and preferences. Getting feedback from customers is important, so conduct surveys to assess their level of satisfaction with your product or service. Use a customer management system to gain valuable insights regarding your clients.

2.Take care of existing customers and attract new customers

Create strategies to nurture existing customers, such as maintaining contact through email correspondence, e-newsletter or informing them of promotional events.  

You should continually be looking for opportunities to acquire more work and grow your customer base. List your company on directories  and advertise in industry relevant magazines and local newspapers.
Remember that referrals are important and many businesses grow by word of mouth. If you provide an excellent service experience, customers are bound to spread the word. More importantly, if  a customer has a bad experience of your business, this information will  also spread rapidly.

A business that offers exceptional customer support will most certainly expand.  Whatever the form of customer support you elect for, whether personal, telephonic, email, website or via social media, make sure that you have an avenue for the customer to reach out to you. This will promote repeat business. Create a customer loyalty program and build an email list.

3.  Focus on Customer Service

Perform surveys to check that you are meeting the needs and expectations of your customers. You may be able to improve your customer experience by attending to the four main customer needs, namely, price, quality, choice and convenience. Make sure that you offer exceptional customer service and try to exceed customer expectations, this will pay off by customers referring you to others.

Add value by giving your customers more than what they’ve signed up for.  An example would be to provide valuable and useful information in the form of content marketing, blog posts, tutorials or webinars.

4. Utilise social media

You can leverage social media and global platforms to build your business profile and attract customers by:

Investing in paid ads. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn all offer the option to place your ads on their platforms to help build awareness and generate new leads.

Initiating a retargeting campaign to  re-engage cold leads.

Running contests to increase brand awareness and create engagement with their followers. 

Spreading the word about your business, perhaps as a promotional tool to offer coupons and discounts to followers once you launch.

5.Attend and host events

To build bonds and business relationships, host an event. Choose your target audience, invite all your current clients and their associates and host an event that they will remember. Your clients, prospective clients and staff should enjoy this experience. Remember to creatively display print material such as brochures and posters.

Since community events are an excellent way to promote your business, consider sponsoring or taking part in a community event. This also gives you a chance to give back to your community.

Attend networking events so that you can meet like-minded people and find opportunities. It is worth the while to make the time to build your networks and form strategic partnerships.

6. Create a sales funnel

A sales funnel is a marketing term referring to the process that brings your potential customer closer to your offer and a buying decision through a series of marketing actions.