You can double your clients or customers within a single month by following these simple but highly effective steps to generate leads and convert them into paying customers.
Create a referral program. Design a referral program that rewards customers for bringing others into the customer base. Rewards can be in the form of discounts, gifts, invitations to special events or “closed door” sales events where only certain customers are invited to take advantage of savings, exclusive products or other perks.
Weed out marginal clients and cater to the best. It is sometimes advantageous to lose customers if you orchestrate the loss. Prioritizing the kinds of customers a business prefers makes it possible to eliminate those who create unnecessary headaches and detract from better serving more valuable customers. And it also allows a company to focus on attracting those desirable customers who represent the bulk of the business and contribute most to profits.
Create strategic business alliances. By partnering with other businesses with which there is a common customer demographic but no actual direct competition, a company can expand its customer base quickly and easily. Those customers who trust other businesses and have proved their loyalty to them will be inclined to follow their recommendations or perceived endorsements of an alliance partner ”“ which is why corporate sponsorships of major events like auto races and concerts are so common.
By choosing good alliances it is possible to build all sorts of creative campaigns to increase the customer base. Advertise jointly, throw a party or event together, team up to support local charities or give preferential treatment to customers who also do business with strategic partners. The alliances are a form of networking that shares the common goal of growing each other”™s customer base.
Improve your conversion rate for leads and contacts. Keeping tabs on leads or sending contacts costly mailings can be a drain. As leads and contacts are made, they need to be converted as soon as possible into customers. Otherwise they can simply become a nuisance and a labor-intensive list of names.
Conversion requires getting to know the person, understanding their wants and needs and then fulfilling those in a way that is mutually beneficial by helping the customer while giving profit to the enterprise. If the current conversion rate is 20 percent for every 100 contacts or leads, that translates into 20 new customers a month. Boost conversions to 30 percent and that represents a 50 percent increase. Convert 40 percent instead of 20 percent and the customer base has effectively doubled without doing any extra marketing or advertising.
Go online and drive traffic to your bricks-and-mortar location. Create and optimize a website and it will act as a customer magnet that never sleeps and a business presence that extends around the entire world almost overhead-free. Give site visitors something valuable in exchange for them providing more information about themselves. Concentrate on getting contact information or a commitment to pay a visit in person to an offline storefront or place of business. They sign up on the site or visit the store, for example, and are rewarded with a discount, contest entry or a free consultation or service upgrade.
Attract 10,000 visitors to the site per month and convert only one percent of them and that will add up to more than 1,000 new customers per year. Convert 10 percent and 1,000 new customers will show up within the first four weeks ”“ an astonishing result that is entirely achievable.
James J. Malski is a certified business coach and founder of ActionCOACH of Connecticut in Westport. Reach him at jimmalski@actioncoach.com.
