Clever ways to attract more customers online

If you Google ‘how to attract more customers’, you will find hundreds of tips and tricks on getting more business. All the way from letter drops right through to giving away free stuff – obviously some ideas are not always practical, especially if you are a small to medium sized business. The key question you've got to ask is, what is relevant to your business? Because we know that being relevant and having a clearly defined marketing strategy will make it easy for customers to also decide whether their values and needs align with your offering.

We’ve curated 5 tips to consider when attracting customers to your business.

1. Identify what success looks like to you

It’s easy to feel like you need to dive into running large scale campaigns and spend hundreds of dollars attracting an online audience to your business. However, your success may look different to this. What if 5-10 clients that you deal with regularly is all you need? If so, wouldn’t it be better to focus your energy on specific customers who may be looking for just that? Tailored and personable service? When identifying what success looks like, it is important to factor in:

• Return on investment goals

• How many customers does this in turn mean you need to walk through your 'doors'

• And lastly, where would you like to see your business in a year or three years time?

2. Ensure you have an online and where applicable, offline presence

Given the past two years globally proving that we can and where possible will choose digital, it is almost impossible not to be recognised as a reputable business without even a tiny digital footprint. From Google business listings where customers can write real reviews, right through to a detailed website that is indexed by Google, every bit counts towards attract more customers. After all, a social media profile and website are the “face” of a business. By encouraging user-generated content (UGC), sharing reviews and feedback where potential customers can see them, and engaging with existing audiences regularly and in a variety of forms, brands can ensure they are maximizing their online visibility where it matters.

3. Content is king!

According to Sprocketwebsites, on average in Australia, Instagram posts remain relevant for 21-24 hours. But let’s face it, as a consumer, once you have refreshed your feed and new content fills your screen, how much are you really thinking about that last post you saw? That’s why building content and plenty of it that is interesting and eye-catching is king. If you can share fresh content once or twice a day online on a channel, you will be sure to remain top of mind in your customer’s minds.

4. Learn from and about your audience

Once you have an online presence, you can easily see insights about your visitors behaviour at the click of a button. However, you can also start your own analytics style dashboard either from a CMS or from your personal notes. It would be important to note down things such as age, gender, location, interest, and recent purchases.

5. Automation and other short cuts

For many small-medium sized business owners, a common barrier that creeps up time and time again, is well, time! And lack of it. finding ways to automate online can prove to be a sure method to attract and retain customers online. Things such as chat bots, and pre-written auto response emails are almost expectations from customers today, who are also time poor and looking for custom solutions to their needs. Next time you think about asking a customer to call you, why not instead set up a call back system or chatbot that asks all important questions from the get-go.