“All of your customers are partners in your mission”-ShepHyken
Customers are considered the lifeline of any business. Every business owner has a high vision & mission to improve the customer base over the years. Analyzing customer needs &improving profitability is essential for any business. How do I get more customers for my business, is the constant question hitting the business owners & sales representatives over centuries. Until the advent of the internet, customers are attracted through traditional marketing campaigns. Nowadays, businesses can reach any extend to connect with their customers & grow their base. Marketers not only make efforts to gain new customers, but also they want to retain the existing ones. It is a proven myth that customers familiar with your brand are more likely to buy from you often & increase business over time.
In the era of the 21st century, every successful business must know the most effective ways to optimize lead acquisition & customer retention to stay ahead of your competitors. So here comes the big question
What is a Customer Base?
Your customer base is the group of customers who repeatedly buy the company’s products or use your organization’s services. This group of customers frequently engages with your business & offers financial value. Based on your buyer persona & industry, your target audience can be improved. The customer base is a valuable asset to your business. Identifying such customers will help your marketing, sales & customer service team to build a strong relationship with customers.
A subset of customers within your customer base is often referred to as the installed customer base that actively avails your products or services. This subset excludes the customers who haven’t made purchases in recent times. These customers are considered as creamy layers of your customer base who must be actively focused to build productive relationships. So identifying such customers & personalizing their marketing efforts is highly useful for any business growth& ROI. Of Course sales & marketing team plays a crucial role in engaging existing customers & offering a delightful experience. So here comes the next billion-dollar question how to improve & retain your customer base.
Here are few tactics that must be followed to build a strong customer base & improve it drastically as the business grows
Know your Prospects & Customers:
“The more you value your customer, the more you become successful”
Having a clear understanding of your customer base plays a key role in improving your customer base. Yes, it ultimate aim of any marketer as it helps to meet specific requirements & expectations of your customers. Crystal’s clear understanding of customers’ needs & requirements will help to align your products & services. More importantly, this method gives your a clear opportunity to stand out from your current competition & serve better. It also creates a balanced relationship that can accelerate & customize client’s requirements.
Steps to understanding your customers:
- Have intelligent customer Engagement techniques
- Have robust buyers Persona
- Turn data into customer analytics
- Understand, analyze, predict & plan your future
Benefits of understanding your customers:
- Improving customer confidence
- Building your own brand
- Improved business collaboration
- Meeting service level expectation
- Increased profit & revenue source
Provide Free Trial Offers:
Want to grab the attention of potential leads? Free & trial offers work well. Yeah, you read it right. People tend to give it a try when they are ready to buy or invest in your products directly. In simple as a company you can collect valuable information about customers & surprise with freemium offers. From small businesses to global corporations when you offer free newsletters or provide quality content, then for sure customers will be keen in knowing your business & buy your products. This helps marketers & sales teams to craft personalized customer services based on the products they use.
Incorporate Online Marketing Strategies:
The objective of any business is to drive customers online & improve their visibility across the internet. In recent days the internet plays a wide role in helping out customers in providing all resources relevant to their business requirements. So having a comprehensive website should be the ideal choice for any business as it gives a clear picture of what your brand stands for & the services they provide. And most importantly website must be well optimized to boost customer visits & forecast smart insights. Alternatively, SEO is one the effective way to generate quality leads. As per research by HubSpot, 94% of the B2B buyers search online before trying or purchase any product or service.
Optimizing relevant keywords for your business helps prospects to find you between thousands of search results. So you may have a question is optimization is highly recommended to rank your website ahead of your competitor? Well, if you are looking for honest answers to increase your customer base, the big Yes. A prospector existing customer can use any device to search about your products or services. So having an optimized website can offer a better user experience. From lead generation to lead conversion & improving sales revenue is possible when you a well-optimized business website for your business in place.
Second, the most important strategy is having well-optimized social media pages. In recent days, especially during this pandemic the way business operates & achieves their goals drastically depends on social media. Defining your campaign objectives right helps to generate relevant leads & target your prospects effectively. Social media has the power to analyze measure & project accurate targets to improve the relevant customer base.
Benefits of Online Strategies:
- Implementation of low-cost marketing operations
- Measurable & trackable insights
- Demographics Targeting
- 24*7 Customer Support
- Able to analyze & collect data for personalization
- Time effective marketing
- Improve customer base
Leverage Your Customer Network:
Your existing customer base can be the best place to reach out to new customers & improve your business. Leads generated through word of mouth or referrals are often called as strong leads. Any day tap into the existing network to identify who can be potential customers of your products or services. This works well because of earned trust. So who can be potential buyers than strong recommendations within your network? Brainstorm with them to understand their requirements clearly & convert them to your clients. On the other hand, this process helps you to expand your network & develop a great business structure.
Include Call To Action:
There are plenty of strategies you can try to draw the attention of new customers. One of the most efficient & immediate, actionable levels is having a call to action to every piece of marketing strategy you roll out. Be it your social media post, weekly newsletter, or any offline marketing strategies, Call to action clearly engages your customers & prospects.
Benefits of call to Action:
- Grow your audience
- Increases sales
- Directs your readers needs
- Boost your conversion
- Improves brand visibility
Offer Great Customer Service:
“Treat the customer as if you are that customer” – Anonymous
If you want to keep existing customers on track, then excellent customer support services come into the picture. Most of the customers would have walked away from any business if they are offering the right service at the right time. So it is quite important to offer great customer service to have a positive impact on the customer base. As the business grows gradually, it is important to respond to your customer instantly as it makes them feel good.
A loyal customer has the power to choose your products & services consistently over competitors. This helps B2B marketers to establish strong business relationships & onboard new business. Similarly, unhappy customers must be taken care of & marketing teams should look at them as an opportunity to grow your customer base with excellent support service.
Get your feedback regularly:
Have you ever experienced a situation or you’ve no idea about attracting new customers? No more worries. Collect & read your customer reviews/ feedback. Clearly, it gives proper feedback about what goes well & what doesn’t. Keep aside your positive feedbacks & deep dive into negative reviews as it is the core area where your focus needs to shift. There are many ways to collect customer feedback. NPS (Net Promoter Score) is one of the greatest surveys as it gives a clear picture of qualitative & quantitative data about your customers.
Importance of collecting feedback:
- Measures customer loyalty
- Shows areas to improve
- Boost referral marketing
- 360 degree of customer insights
Loyalty Programs:
As your business grows, it is important to try out all methods &adapt to the changing needs of the market. It is a smart strategy to keep track of your financials & analytics as a customer comes from different sources. So offer a loyalty card or exclusive discount to clients who sign up for your email. Thus customer contact details should be captured to grab attention & boost revenue. Explore the unexplored avenues as your customer base increases.
Conclusion:
“Every single interaction, you have with your customer, is an opportunity for you to create something remarkable”- Joey Coleman
Never settle for one particular approach. As the business evolves, it is important to refine your approach & scale up your activities to convert all prospects without any barriers to your clients. Need to know what works best for you & need to reframe your marketing approaches, then we’re just a click away.