This business coaching blog is dedicated to helping you attract new customers with practical and low-cost marketing strategies. The more fishing lines your company puts in the water, the better chance of catching customers. These are easy-to-implement strategies (beyond and supplemental to your internet marketing efforts) to help drive customers and revenues into your business. While not all of them will make sense for your business, some definitely will. Here are 10 powerful marketing strategies worth considering and discussing with your team:
• Formalize and optimize your referral systems. Identify (crunch numbers, don’t rely on hunches) your best-performing referral sources over the past 12 months and be sure that you thank and reward them for their efforts. Communicate with these proven providers often to maintain a top-of-mind awareness. Once you identify these top providers, shamelessly clone these folks. For example, if you are a house painting company and determine that your best referral sources have been real estate agents, replicate this formula. Don’t complicate the magic. Educate these and others as to the specific types of customers and circumstances you serve best. Referral source cultivation is one of the most underutilized yet low-cost, high-yield marketing weapons that exist.
• Leverage those relationships that your business helps to financially support (your banker, CPA, attorney, suppliers, vendors, financial adviser, insurance agent, etc.). To determine which ones would make for good informal sales agents for your business, ask the following types of questions: “Who will benefit from our success as we continue to grow and expand?” “Who do we write checks to on a regular basis and would have a vested interest in supporting our business development efforts?” Identify these relationships and ask these folks to reciprocate and support your growth efforts through leads, referrals, testimonials, etc. Don't be shy, ask them to step up and support your marketing efforts. If they don't, seriously think about getting new advisers, suppliers and vendors.
• Gain leverage from current clients/customers. Your best referral sources should be your current customers. Ask them for introductions/referrals to other potential buyers or ask them to provide endorsements, testimonials, or serve as references. Have them write down their testimonials or even make audio or video testimonials for your website. Also, always ask current clients about other unmet needs they may have. There is always more you can do and charge for.
• Identify and cultivate complementary businesses as strategic alliances. While referral sources are individuals, alliance partners are entire organizations that support your business. For example, a business coaching company would want to form alliances with those that can help steer business their way (CPA firms, banks, law firms, Chambers of Commerce, consulting firms, weekly business papers, etc.) How do you find potential alliance partners? Ask, “Who already has the trust and respect of our prospects?” "Where do my customers go for advice?" "Who serves our typical customer before, along side or after we do?" These questions should help identify some good alliance partners.
• Make doing business easy, convenient, and risk free. Do not ask the other party to assume risk if they start a business relationship with you. Instead, for example, communicate an unconditional money-back guarantee. Don’t keep your guarantee hidden, broadcast it. A credible and specific guarantee will bring in far more business than it costs you. For example, at The Growth Coach, "We guarantee the value of all our business coaching services. If you are not fully satisfied with our initial coaching session, for whatever reason, we will promptly and respectfully give you a full refund." Our business coaching process is so effective and proven that we stand behind it with a guarantee. As such, clients have no financial risk doing business with any of our business coaches throughout North America. That's powerful marketing.
• Consider using telemarketing before or after your sales process. Use it to develop leads for your salespeople or use telemarketers to follow-up a direct mail or advertising campaign. Even consider using telemarketing to follow up a sale to see if the person requires any additional help, advice, services or products (warranties, add-on products, additional levels of service, etc.) If you just cleaned the carpet in two rooms of a customer’s house, call up a week later and ask if they would want additional rooms to look as good and offer them a discount as inducement for taking immediate action.
• Influence many people at once with special events/seminars. Consider hosting educational events for customers, referral sources, and prospects. Consider holding them in conjunction with other companies (newspapers, radio stations, suppliers, banks, CPA firms, industry experts, trade associations, complementary companies, etc.). This will allow you to tap into their customer relationships as well. For example, if you are an upscale travel agency introducing new exotic trips, consider co-hosting an event with an upscale magazine, jewelry store, auto dealership, country club, money management firm, etc.
• Consider using public relations. Public relations can be a powerful source of leverage as you educate and influence a targeted audience about your benefits, expertise, etc. Get to know the reporters in your marketplace and periodically call them with some story ideas.
• Leverage your past customer relationships. Revisit with past, worthy customers or inactive customers and express your interest in rekindling the relationship and solving any of their current problems. These folks did business with you at one time, wrote out checks to you, and may well be receptive to re-activating their relationship with you. However, you must identify and heal any unresolved wounds and share with them the benefits of doing business with your company once again. Give them an inducement (bonus, discount, additional service level, etc.) for taking action and ordering once again.
• Leverage indirect competitors to gain new customers. Indirect competitors are companies that you seldom go head-to-head with competing for business. For example, you could establish a formal referral relationship (swap leads, pay finder’s fees, share revenue, do co-marketing, etc.) with an indirect competitor that is much larger or smaller than you are or in a different geographic region. For example, a smaller CPA firm could establish an alliance with a large CPA firm and swap leads that don’t fit their respective niches. A small, traditional plumbing business could form an alliance with a plumbing company that focuses on doing only the tough, complex, big jobs. Leads could flow both ways.
Hope you found this business coaching blog on marketing strategies to be helpful. Simply pick a few and fully implement them. Results come from implementation, not thinking about implementation. Just do it!
Daniel M. Murphy
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System