5 Ways to Get More Customers in 2023
Every business needs customers, but in order to grow by acquiring more customers, you need to have a strategy. Under that strategy you want goals and the tactics to achieve them.
Although your product or service is excellent, there may be nothing in place to share the feedback with prospective customers. Sadly, a good product or service is not enough to attract customers on its own, the build it and they will come approach may have worked 10 years ago but the fact is competition has intensified and now there are businesses in virtually every niche. With over 70 million blog posts being published each month, you may ask yourself how you’re supposed to stand out in such a crowded marketplace – especially if you’re a new business.
Marketing Strategies for Finding More Customers
To get more customers, either you need to find them through outbound marketing (typically in the form of cold emails or cold calls) or you need to enable them to find you (e.g. social media or SEO).
Let’s explore these strategies for getting more customers, whether you find them or they find you.
1. SEO
You’re probably already familiar with search engine optimisation. Effective SEO can push your pages up the search engines to be matched with relevant search terms or queries. Here is a step by step guide for DIY SEO.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of identifying and analysing words and phrases that are relevant to your business or website. The idea is simple, match what your can offer with what people are searching for online. The goal of keyword research is to understand what users are searching for and to create content that addresses their needs and interests. By understanding the most popular keywords in your field, you can create targeted, relevant content that ranks well in search engines and attracts targeted traffic to your website. Keyword research can help you identify new opportunities for content creation and marketing as well as helping you optimise your existing content to rank better in search results.
On-page SEO
There are hundreds of on-page SEO tools out there, many of which are WordPress plugins or Chrome extensions. However, the practice is rather standard and they all recommend exactly the same stuff – what Google tells to do. This can include ensuring that your headings match with the content itself, the amount of keywords, the amount of words on your page and much more. For a more detailed guide on how to start with on-page SEO, check out ahrefs’ guide.
Data Analytics
Like any form of marketing, to get the best results you need to track their effectiveness. There are a few tools we highly recommend using such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These free tools will allow you to see both the amount of users on your site as well as which queries are driving most of your traffic. It’s natural to see large spikes and sharp drop offs but in some instances you will see some larger than usual spikes which indicates that content was more sought after which is exactly why you should double down on it.
2. Increase Your Social Media Presence
You knew it was coming! Social media appears to go from strength to strength every year. We expect 2023 to be no different.
Recycle & Repurpose Content
Social media can be an incredibly cheap way of acquiring new customers as it’s free to post content. However to get the best results, you need to offer some sort of value. When most people hear this, they think it all has to be long form content which is really time-consuming. One way to combat this is through repurposing and recycling older content by pulling a new thread or putting a new spin on it. You can also extract quotes, facts or figures and use these as social media posts.
Use a Content Scheduler
It doesn’t really matter how many social platforms you use, it makes a lot of sense to be scheduling posts in advance without having to log in to Facebook, IG, Tik Tok or LinkedIn. Most businesses active on social media will be doing exactly this to benefit from the rewards without having to spend all day on their platform.
Engagement
You may be wondering what we mean by ‘engagement’, of course you want to engage with your social media audience. But what we really mean is comments. The way these social media platforms work is that they want to keep your conversation within the bounds of their network – meaning they don’t want you going elsewhere. By actively commenting on other people’s posts, you’re actually instructing the algorythm to send others to your posts. It’s reciprocal.
3. Run PPC ads
Pay per click ads can provide you with a solid pipeline of leads with a generous ROAS (return on ad spend). Although you need to have a budget to implement them, with a highly optimised campaign, the leads you source can pay for themselves – meaning you receive more sales per lead than the cost of the click.
Relevance
Your advert should be relevant to the keywords being searched and match with those found on the landing page it inevitably leads to. This will help increase the chances of attracting qualified traffic to your website. There is a common misconception that keywords only relate to SEO but this just isn’t the case.
Clear and concise
The ad should be easy to understand and should clearly communicate the benefits of your product or service. Avoid using industry jargon or overly complex language – everything should be so simple that a young child could understand.
Attention-grabbing
Try to make the advert as attention-grabbing as possible and stand out from the crowd and avoid blending in with the competition. Use strong, action-oriented language and consider including an offer or promotion to entice users to click on your ad. Make your ad more ‘clickable’.
4. Reputation Management
Use social proof as a way to signpost prospects toward your business. When you look for a restaurant or cafe, chances are one of the first things you see are reviews. Your business can leverage your success with existing customers and attract new ones.
Register your business on multiple directories.
There are tons of review sites out there but to begin with just go with the key players. These include Google reviews, Yell listings and Trustpilot. Without registering your business, there’s no way for your customer to say how great you are and why others should give it a go.
Get Reviews from Existing Customers
It may seem like a logical step after the last and that’s because it is. You know how great your products or services are but what about all the new potential customers out there? What better way for them to find out than to hear from those with first-hand experience?
Use Testimonials
Ideally these testimonials should be present on every part of your digital real estate – especially your website. You may say to yourself, but I already have these? The answer is to get more. Even better, embed a video testimonial on your website and watch the conversion rate skyrocket.
5. Recontact Old Customers
If you have a database or a CRM, you should be regularly reaching out to dormant and lapsed accounts. These old customers are a veritable treasure trove of potential sales being wasted if you’re not utilising them.
Email Marketing
We speak to a lot of business owners that say that they’ve tried email marketing but it didn’t yield great results so they stopped. That’s where we tell them they’re making a big mistake. Did you know that studies show the ROI of email marketing to be on average $44 for every $1 spent?
Direct Mail
Although you don’t get quite all the rich data you receive with a digital campaign, there is still value in posting things to customers. After all, they’ve already showed intent to buy your product or service so the qualification has been done. You may want to consider grouping things together like a letter, leaflet, branded merchandise and a business card.
Phone Calls
Sometimes customers appreciate the personal touch and because they’ve already purchased from you before, it’s not like a cold call where they likely don’t know you and are less inclined to hear you out. You’re more likely to get a positive response as they’re already aware of your brand and will be more open to whatever promotional offer or discount you’re calling them about.
Conclusion
There are so many more ways to attract new customers and grow your business that there’s no way we could cover it all in a single article. Since we’ve just entered 2023, don’t get stuck doing the same things and getting the same results. If you truly want to unlock your business’ potential in 2023, it’s time to take advantage of all the tools which are all at your fingertips.
If you’d like to know more or have a question about digital marketing and how a digital marketing agency can help, don’t be shy – talk with Foxdog.