How to Increase the Customer Base of Your Small Business
Adding new customers is one of the major goals of any business.
Here are three ways you can increase the base of customers you have frequenting your business: 1.
Increase the rewards for referral of new customers When you improve the rewards your existing customers receive for sending you new business, it becomes more likely that they will make the extra effort to do so.
This may cost a bit more to acquire a new customer, yet if the lifetime value of your customers is large, and your business has exhausted traditional methods of adding new customers, then this could be an avenue worth pursuing.
Just be certain that you also have another method in place to retain these new customer additions, such as a customer rewards or loyalty program.
This way, you are not spending more to acquire new customers who will not stay.
2.
Expand your business to new locations, or add a web-based component Expanding your business must be done wisely, yet it can help to draw in customers who otherwise might not frequent your business.
The same careful planning in choosing your first location should also go into planning subsequent locations, and you should spend some time helping the management of the new store to get trained so that the experience between stores is seamless.
The Internet is also a good addition to increase the number of customers you serve; with a web presence, you can do business with your customers whenever they get the urge to do so.
3.
Reactivate dormant customers If customers have purchased from your business in the past, but no longer do so, it pays to find out why.
Perhaps these customers are no longer able to, and can not be recovered.
But in other cases, contacting them again can result in them returning, which expands your active customer base.
The best part about this? Re-activating customers who bought from your business in the past is easier to do, and potentially more profitable than trying to win over people who know little to nothing about your business, or why they should become your customers.
One great way to do this is to tell them about a new product or service offering which you have just added, and which they might be interested in, based on their past purchasing patterns.
So, by making referral rewards more lucrative, expanding your business presence, and pulling old customers back in, it is possible for your business to substantially expand its customer base.
This improves your business' chances of survival, especially in difficult economic circumstances.
Copyright 2010, by Marc Mays
Here are three ways you can increase the base of customers you have frequenting your business: 1.
Increase the rewards for referral of new customers When you improve the rewards your existing customers receive for sending you new business, it becomes more likely that they will make the extra effort to do so.
This may cost a bit more to acquire a new customer, yet if the lifetime value of your customers is large, and your business has exhausted traditional methods of adding new customers, then this could be an avenue worth pursuing.
Just be certain that you also have another method in place to retain these new customer additions, such as a customer rewards or loyalty program.
This way, you are not spending more to acquire new customers who will not stay.
2.
Expand your business to new locations, or add a web-based component Expanding your business must be done wisely, yet it can help to draw in customers who otherwise might not frequent your business.
The same careful planning in choosing your first location should also go into planning subsequent locations, and you should spend some time helping the management of the new store to get trained so that the experience between stores is seamless.
The Internet is also a good addition to increase the number of customers you serve; with a web presence, you can do business with your customers whenever they get the urge to do so.
3.
Reactivate dormant customers If customers have purchased from your business in the past, but no longer do so, it pays to find out why.
Perhaps these customers are no longer able to, and can not be recovered.
But in other cases, contacting them again can result in them returning, which expands your active customer base.
The best part about this? Re-activating customers who bought from your business in the past is easier to do, and potentially more profitable than trying to win over people who know little to nothing about your business, or why they should become your customers.
One great way to do this is to tell them about a new product or service offering which you have just added, and which they might be interested in, based on their past purchasing patterns.
So, by making referral rewards more lucrative, expanding your business presence, and pulling old customers back in, it is possible for your business to substantially expand its customer base.
This improves your business' chances of survival, especially in difficult economic circumstances.
Copyright 2010, by Marc Mays
