Well, how do you get more customers for your local business? Let’s start with a poll I did on my free bookkeeping course site (AccountingForEveryone.com).
I asked ‘what would help your business most?’ and 54% said more customers. I guess it sounds obvious, but look at all the options:
|
If you search for marketing products (or get calls from marketers) they tend to be pushing SEO followed by Website Design.
Also, try phoning around your local web companies and ask them about ‘customer acquisition’ or ‘lead generation’. I can tell you now you are likely to come up with a blank.
This is because the internet may seem very old and established, but it isn’t. Most of the businesses peddling SEO and web services are techie types. The most up to date offer services such as backlinking, social media and mobile.
But they miss the point as my little survey shows. Businesses want more prospects. Everything else is boring detail or technical jargon they really don’t care about.
Now, if you are reading this because you are a small business rather than one trying to sell these services to another, please read on as this is for you…
The golden rule of marketing is to stand out. And to do that all you need to do is find out what your competitors are doing and do it better.
If you then get a little pro-active and let people know that you are better, then you had better be prepared for a lot of customers!
How do I know that? well, apart from experience, there is logic in it. If you have something that people want or need, then you are in business, right? Yes.
So if you run a restaurant, have you looked at all the other restaurants in your area? If not, take a day off and go and photograph them. You will immediately see how you can improve your biggest and cheapest advertising space: your shop front.
Do you have your telephone number up there? Do you have your web address? Do you have your Facebook page? (if you haven’t claimed your page yet, do it now). Have you got your Twitter feed setup?
Everything I have just mentioned is free. But the real point is, will it give you an edge?
Do you have regular customers? Would you like them to visit more often? Would you like them to tell their friends? Go and check out your competition. Are they offering any of the above?
What you have just in this short post is enough to get you well ahead, so I will end it here for now, but sign up on the right and join my club. If you want to get ahead, you need to research, and I will do my best to help.