Whenever you start a new business you ask yourself one of
most important question "How can I get customers?" Or if you have some customers already you say it like this "How can I get more customers?" .There are many ways which you can promote your services or products but it seems not every company owner is utilizing from them. I was on MSN messenger
other day and there was a friend online who was reading some of
articles I have written so far.
As he was telling me that he found them interesting etc I suddenly asked him this question "What do you like to read about?" And he answered
question like this "I like to read about
internet and computers but what I really want to read about these days is how to get customers, a short article. I then said "Well you know what you just gave me an idea of what to write about my next article .
I will be telling you some tips which I think will work if implemented well and bring customers to you .
This friend I'm talking about has recently started a web hosting company and he is trying
best he can to make it
best company and take his share from this industry. So that is how I got
idea of writing this article.
It is really hard to promote a new company into a crowded industry such as
web hosting industry where people start new companies daily.
Like I said before there are many tactics which are legitimate and as a company owner you are supposed to use them for your company and see
outcome.
As you can see now, Today in this article I will explain some tips which you can use to get customers or more customers .There will be 12 tips as
title of
article says and most of them will not cost anything if you want to use them for your company.
But You know when you want to start a business you will have to invest some cash into it and see how it goes so that is why
tips which will cost you something worth all
money you spend on them.
All
12 tips I covered here can be used for any business type even though I wrote them for
web hosting companies. All right why don't we start explaining
12 sure ways to get more customers ? Ok then here we start doing so.
1.Referral Program.
This is one of
best ways to get customers or new customers. You can setup a referral system which your current customers can sign up to refer customers to you.
You give
customer a special tracking url which he can then give it to any one he wants to sign up through his special tracking url.
So whenever an existing customer's url is used then that customer gets a commission like 15 % of
price .Also you offer his is own account where he can track
statistics of his campaign etc.
It is better to automatically sign up any new customer
referral program so he or she can start referring customers to you right away without having to go through another sign up process than
first sign up process which is when filling out
order form.
For that reason ask
person whether or not to sign up for
referral program with
same information provided with
order form .
And for
management and
tracking url which we I mentioned above you can use many ready programs and scripts which will just do that and more .Some billing soft wares allow you to sign up affiliates and give them that special tracking url .
That is
number of tip and it works well because I have seen it and used it for my company and recently I made some research and asked some hosting companies how they got most of their customers and most of their answers were through referral system. So start setting up a referral system and see how it comes out.
2. Word of Mouth
This is very similar to
referral program except that
existing customer doesn't get any commission and no special tracking url.This one works very well too and I saw companies got customers in that way. In order to make an existing customer refer new customers to you ,you should be providing good service to him and he should be happy .
So make sure you do
best you can make your existing customers happy because happy customers mean more business is on
way and that they will not hesitate to refer new customers to you.
Ask your current customers what they think of your service and if they are happy or not and if they say that they are happy then ask them to write a testimonial or a review about your company etc.
So basically your existing customers will refer new customers to you if they are happy with you .
3. Weekly and Monthly Special Offers.
This is another good one to get more customers. You can offer special monthly offers and see how
sales will soar. For example if you sell 100mb for $10 monthly then you can make it a special weekly or monthly offer and sell it for half of
price.
And as you can see if anyone orders that package from you he will save $5 which is a good thing :) and that is why most people would be interested in.
Of course to get a good profit you might need to set special rules for those offers like saying applies to monthly payments etc even though I don't think it is good thing to do because this might make some potential clients to say away because they might want to order that package and prepay for six months or one year service and if they make
payment for example one year in advance they will save $60.
That may not be good for you but it is for them but allowing them to make payment in advance like that will get you more customers.
You can also set a date which
offer will expire and won't be available anymore .So make weekly or monthly special offers and watch your sales soaring .
4. Offer Huge Discounts.
Yes it is true .This one is like
weekly and monthly offers as customer would save some money by ordering any package with
discount on it except that it might be only for monthly payments. Offering huge discounts will get you more customers.
You can offer discounts in many ways like saying order for six months service and get 30% discount etc.
Make sure you don't offer too many discounts as you would always want to generate profit .You can start offering discounts at
end of
month but why wait when you can start now and observe
results ? :)
5. Give Bonus with every order.
Well this is a good one too and it is easy to use it for your company . I have saw many companies giving out some good bonus for just ordering anything and you can do
same for your company . You can give a bonus to
client whenever a customer makes an order .
There are many things that you can give out as a bonus to for example sending a url where he can download a special e-book , template etc for free . You can give anything you want as a bonus but it is good to keep in mind that
bonus should be something you think would be good for
customer or he would interest in etc and not something that will make him say what that is what they call a bonus? :)
Also it is good to give
bonus after you receive
payment and set up
account so you can feel you didn't just give a bonus in case no payment is made. Start giving out bonus and see how your business grows .