Startup businesses have one goal in mind – to expand their customer base. While there are a lot of ways to do this, most business owners find it hard to truly execute the steps. With that in mind, it is important to note that the value of your customer base is actually a key driver of your business’ value.
Did you know that an increase in retention of about 5% can lead to an increase in customer value of about 75%? The challenge here is how you can improve your retention by 5% or more.
Here are the ten ways on how you can expand your customer base:
1. Get to Know Your Prospects and Audience
To be able to understand who your prospects and audience are entails that you have a better insight as to what they want and how you will be able to provide what they want. In addition, knowing who you are targeting puts you one step ahead of your competitors. Create products or services that are tailored to the needs of your prospects.
2. Do Not Forget About Your Existing Customers
This is one of the common mistakes incurred by startup businesses. Keep in mind that there are two ways to increase your profit – find new business or convince your existing customers to spend more. Nonetheless, the service you provide to your existing customers should have the same effort you provide to your new customers. If you gain new customers but cannot keep them for long, this will have a negative impact on you and your business.
3. Research All About Your Industry
With market research, you will be able to identify some of the areas in your business that needs to be improved. Moreover, you can also understand what your customers need, what your competitors are doing wrong and what they are doing right, and how you can effectively reach your target market.
4. Be Part of an Industry Association
What better way to find new customers than to join associations within your industry. Not only will you be able to promote your products and services, but you will also learn a lot about what it takes to become successful in your industry.
5. Utilize Social Media
We live in a very technological era where innovations are created on a daily basis. These innovations are here to help us. It is our job to utilize it properly in order to fulfill our needs. As for a startup business owner, you have to get online and learn new ways on how to expand your business’ footprint. What is the best time to publish on social media? What platform works best for your business? These are the questions you should be asking yourself.
6. Offer Incentives and Discounts
This is a great marketing strategy because you are giving your prospects and other potential customers a glimpse of what your business can do for them. It is without a doubt that people love free stuff! You have to take this opportunity to lure people into showing them that they need your business.
7. Offer Excellent Customer Service
One of the most neglected areas in a business is the quality of their customer service. Research shows that 78% of the time, a customer would walk away from an offer because of poor customer service. It’s about time you start assessing whether or not your customer service is truly paying attention to what the customers want.
8. Network
Apart from joining industry associations, you should also go out of the box and try to socialize at events that are not related to your industry. Do not be shy about pitching your business to new people. There is a high chance that you will meet relevant people in these events, business functions, and trade shows. Furthermore, you will never know where these meetings will take you.
9. Establish Partnership with Other Businesses
If you are a startup business owner, you can expand your customer base by entering a partnership with another business owner. With this, you will be able to use their customer base as a means to expand yours. A great tip would be to establish a partnership with businesses that offer complementary services to what you are offering.
10. Think Big
While it is true that there is a lot of competition out there, you can still get ahead of the game if you think big. Always keep your eyes open for opportunities. You may find strategies that may or may not work. Nonetheless, play to your strengths. You can also mix it up and experiment on different ways to market your products and services.
In the end, the real secret to expanding your customer base is to always keep your eyes open for opportunities. Nonetheless, grabbing those opportunities may just land you a much bigger opportunity to expand your customer base!
This content is brought to you by the FingerLakes1.com Team. Support our mission by visiting www.patreon.com/fl1 or learn how you send us your local content here.