Here in the corona-verse, being a small business owner has never been more difficult. This week, we’re going to talk about the best tips and ideas to attract customers to your business and increase sales.
Before you even get one foot into your door, you should spend time honing your business acumen.
People like to support local businesses, so go meet the people! Sponsor an event or local sports team. Start a reciprocal relationship with a complementary business. Go to community meetings and join a relevant trade association. You cold also consider using a service like Meetup to find relevant events where you can network.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but more businesses fail due to lack of vision than you might realize, especially if your company deals in something more abstract than, say, general vocational labor like plumbing or cabinet making. Do some research to make sure your product is something the people you’re trying to reach need.
If your business is of the brick and mortar variety, looking clean and professional could make all of the difference, and can be a great way to gain trust with your clients. Looking professional can go a long way toward giving your business credibility, especially if you are newer to the scene.
Even if a business is your competitor, it couldn’t hurt to start a dialogue. Know what they’re doing and how you can shift your focus to fill a different niche.
You should also take the time (and money) to hire a designer or marketing agent to help develop your brand persona. If you’re on a tight budget, you can get solid results for as little as $10 these days! If you have the funding to start a business or are somewhat established, you likely have the budget to pay more, but hey, it’s better than nothing!
If you choose to use a service from something like Fiverr, we recommend shelling out at least $100-$200. If you have the space in your budget, however, you could never go wrong going with a traditional marketing firm, as you will likely get higher quality results.
In addition, hiring the right staff is paramount. Again, this comes down to what type of company you’re running, but for any business, having the right team can make the difference between failure and success.
Make an effort to identify the clientele you are looking to attract, and do your best to show them how you are the answer to their issues. Also, take the time to establish your business’s unique voice. A rural roofing company will more than likely make different rhetorical decisions than a downtown coffee shop.
In classic rhetoric (going all the way back to Aristotle!), there are three main modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. With some finesse, you should be able to integrate all of them into your company’s image.
This is an appeal to authority. Do you have a master’s degree in graphic design? Then your graphic design company already has some innate credibility. Did you work for a plumbing company for ten years prior to starting your own business? Your clients will see that as a huge boost in credibility – use it!
Pathos is an appeal to emotion. Do you have an interesting story to tell? Did you overcome immense adversity to get to where you are? You can use your story to get people interested in you or your product.
Logos is, logically, the appeal to logic! Surprised? Probably not, but you can use this mode of persuasion if you have strong, trustworthy stats, data, or facts to show your audience as a means to establish credibility. Do nine out of ten doctors prefer your product? Tell us that!
No matter how good your product is, it won’t matter unless people know it exists. Good advertising can have a snowball effect – a little effort can go a very long way.
Take some time to plan an advertising strategy. Do some minor research on types of advertisements and see what you think will work best for you.
Get your business on all major web channels. Starting a Facebook account for your business, getting on Yelp, and building a website are great places to start. Not only do they help your brand’s credibility, they will be a boon to your effort to get customers in the door.
There are a million and one different advertising methods. If you’re unsure as to which one you should go with, it might be a good idea to go with an advertising agency. If that’s out of your budget, think about investing some money into trying several different methods to help pinpoint the one you think will work best for you.
Giveaways and contests. Having regular giveaways and contests can be an easy way to get customers to remember you.
Advertise online. Facebook, YouTube, and Google are services that just about everyone uses, and they all have extremely robust advertising systems that can target users with a scary amount of depth. You don’t need to ball out at first, either – putting even $100 into advertising on each has the potential to reach thousands of potential customers in your area.
Flyers and cold calling. There’s no shame in taking it old school! If appropriate for your business, you might consider taking your ads directly from you to your customers. Break out the ol’ phone book or print out flyers. Again, modern technology makes it almost too easy – you can get 1000 fairly nice flyers on a service like Vistaprint for only around $100!
Have some discounts/referrals. This is the oldest trick in the book, but it’s certainly worth mentioning. Have a method of applying discounts to your services, whether they’re weekly discounts, new customers discounts, or discounts for referrals. It may take some trial and error, but it’s important to find the right balance.
At the end of the day, your goal is to get your business in front of as many people’s eyes as possible. Then, if your service is good, the best advertising method of all, word of mouth, will take care of the rest.
If you’re not tech-savvy, consider hiring a digital communications specialist. Having a good website and a strong social media presence can be a very valuable asset to your small business. If a communications specialist isn’t in your budget, you should still do your best to get yourself online.
Create an account on all of the major social networks – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are great places to start. Use your brand persona to inform the designs on your accounts; for instance, using your company logo as your profile photo. Try to have the same handle for all social media accounts.
You should also strongly consider building a website. If this sounds intimidating, you could hire a web developer, or use a service like Fiverr if you’re on a budget. That said, WordPress.com and Wix make it absurdly easy to create a good looking functional website for free.
Be sure to pick a solid domain name. Make it short, catchy, and relevant to your company. If you ever run into any questions, such as needing to link your domain name to your Wix website, just search your question on Google and you’ll find your answer.
Make sure your website is built with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. Good SEO can be the difference between your company showing up at the top of the first page on any given Google search or at the bottom of the eighth.
You could also consider writing blog posts for your website. Depending on what your business focuses on, you might need to provide potential clients with important context or answers to specific questions. If you’re really savvy, you could even consider producing videos and podcasts for your company, which can help expand your presence on the web.
Get listed on Yelp, Qbitt, and other popular business directories. Getting good user reviews on these services can also be a big boost. Many companies offer incentives to people who provide reviews on Yelp and Facebook.
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