How To Attract More Customers to Your Business

Whether customers interact with your brand online or in-person — or a combination of both — tracking traffic helps you understand consumer activity. When you track your consumers, you’ll develop a better understanding of the products and services they seek. Using this information, paired with a few fresh tactics like updates and optimization, can work to help attract more customers.  

Why Is My Business Not Getting New Customers?

If your business isn’t generating the calls, clicks, or clients you expect, you’re not alone. At times, many businesses struggle to find and satisfy customers. Whether it’s poor advertising, unfavorable market conditions, or insufficient customer support, there are multiple reasons why your business might not be getting the new customers you’re looking for, including:

• Ineffective advertising campaigns;
• Underproductive sales representatives;
• Outdated products or services;
• Lack of a trademark;
• Inconsistent brand leadership.

Sometimes, you can help your company avoid a customer drought simply by tweaking a marketing campaign, or targeting a new demographic. In other cases, you may need to file a trademark — while avoiding common legal mistakes — to prevent conflicts with competitors and scale a young business toward maturity.

What You Can Do To Attract New Customers

Large or small, every company wants to attract new customers. Fortunately, there are several strategies you can pursue that will help your business generate new interest, improve sales, and fulfill your company’s mission.

Consider Your Audience

Successful companies generally have a strong understanding of their target audience. Take the time to familiarize yourself with your customers — their likes, dislikes, and passions — to better create services that serve their interests.

Defining your target market takes effort, but it can help you better identify and attract customers over time. Use website analytics, sales information, and other sources to assess your customers’ spending habits. Which products are purchased most frequently? How long do customers go between purchases? The answers to these questions, and others, will inform your knowledge of customer behavior.

Customer age, demographic, location, and other factors will likely influence their buying habits as well. For example, only 28% of seniors are known to make online purchases, although 96% of Americans have purchased at least one item online. Make an effort to determine where your customers shop, and how they receive information, before deciding where and when to advertise.

Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for their opinions. Through social media, blog posts, follow-up surveys, email, or other avenues, ask your customers for their honest feedback. Take their responses to heart, and use popular feedback trends to improve your services.

Update Your Social Media

Social media can be a powerful tool, particularly in business. Through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, your business can engage with interested consumers in a variety of different ways. Social media allows you to familiarize customers with new products, recruit employees, field customer concerns, and reach new consumer demographics.

First, create a business profile on your preferred social media channels. Include your business name, phone number, email address, website link, and store address if applicable. You can also add images, product descriptions, team member information, and any other details you feel are appropriate to share with the world.

When you use social media in the right way, your business will benefit. You’ll need to create a marketing strategy — a deliberate plan that includes messaging and goals. Whether you’re looking to drive brand awareness or generate more sales through social media, developing a direction is the first step toward elevating your business strategy through social media.

Make sure the information you share across social media is recent and relevant. If your company has an important update to share, social media is one of the best ways to do it. In seconds you can create a post, add an image or link, and share your information with new customers.

Update Your Website

In many ways, your website is considered “home base” for your company. After all, your website is where customers go to learn more about your company, purchase products, and submit feedback. To attract more customers to your business, make the quality of your website a lasting priority.

At the very least, include important details on your website. Add relevant product images, corporate branding, industry information, and contact information for any customers looking to learn more.

E-commerce websites need added security, since customers will be inputting their payment information. If you plan to sell products or services directly from your website, consider adding an SSL certificate, and other added security measures, to protect customer privacy during and after any transaction takes place online.

If you’re not confident you can create and maintain a website for your company, consider asking a website developer for help. They can help you build a website that loads quickly, ranks well in search engines, and tells your brand’s story to any visiting customers.

Reassess Your Trademark

Particularly if you operate in a competitive industry, you’ll likely need a trademark that helps protect your interests. Without a sufficient trademark, other companies in your industry may be able to sell similar products, or even copy the parts of your business that set you apart in customers’ eyes.

In some cases, you may simply need to complete a trademark application. Find a trademark law firm that protects your interests, particularly if you’ve had trouble getting your trademark accepted in the past.

You may also need to renew an existing trademark. If you’re nearing the end of your trademark’s life, your business should obtain a certificate of renewal before your claim lapses.

Customers prefer your company for a reason, whether it’s your attention to detail, quick shipping, long-lasting products, or high level of customer service. If you have trademarked any part of your product or service delivery process, reassess the status of your trademark regularly to retain ownership over the best parts of your business.

Consider SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO), is another way that many companies attract more customers. SEO entails optimizing specific aspects of your website, so that your web pages rank highly when customers search for your products or services online.

You can help your business improve the quantity and quality of regular web traffic through a variety of simple SEO strategies. To improve your visibility online, particularly through Google’s search engine, you’ll need to implement specific keywords common in online user searches. You can use free online keyword tools to identify this information, or partner with a marketing agency to help you with the heavy lifting.

SEO is all about improving the position of your website online. If your company has seen a dropoff in website traffic as competitors with better websites enter the market, SEO may be able to help you optimize your web presence and regain lost customers.

Adapt to a Mobile Audience

Reevaluate the layout of your website, especially your homepage and core service pages, with a specific eye on mobile design. Look at button and font sizes, image resolution, color contrast, and other features that might appear differently on mobile than desktop.

After you identify ways that you can make your website more mobile-friendly, make necessary changes to promote ease of use among mobile customers.

Think About Partnerships

Brand partnerships can go a long way toward attracting new customers. Younger demographics in particular often opt for businesses that maintain a strong set of core values, or support charitable causes. One of the quickest ways to catch a customer’s attention is by aligning your company with a cause you support.

To develop successful brand partnerships, find potential partners that serve a similar demographic. Once you ensure that a brand partner has an aligned target audience with your own, reach out to discuss collaboration.

Keep your communication genuine and personal with potential partners. Emphasize the mutual benefits that could result from a successful partnership. Do what you can to learn about a brand before you reach out, so that you can customize your messaging.

After you have established a brand partnership, be sure to keep track of your progress. Gauge any improvements in total sales, total customers gained, and any other metrics that might indicate success. If you have established a digital partnership, you can use customized website links to better track the traffic you generate.