What is the hardest part of starting a business and undoubtly you will say, finding the customer!!! Especially if you’re an Internet based business the customer base feels so huge that you might get lost in it. Having a good website and produce quality products is good but won’t do any good if you have no one to sell them for.
Customers don’t find us – We have to find the customer! In focusing on this theory, where or better yet HOW to find my customer?
There is no one simple way of doing this. Trying several ways of tapping into customers can be the trick to increasing your chances of expanding your customer list. So see if the following will give you some ideas.
Have a plan. Who will buy your products? What age group, educational levels or social groups do your customers fall under? Answering these critical questions could be the make or brake of your business as you want to use the correct language, words and phrasing to address these people. You can’t communicate to an 8 year old the way you would to an 18 year old or 80 year old, so learn about your customer first.
Work with your local newspaper to advertise your business, products and services. If you want to publish an advertisement, instead of going for one big advert try to put several small ads on different pages of the paper. People will remember a name or a sign only if they see it repeatedly several times. That is what you want to achieve.
A great way to find customers for your online business is by joining relevant forums. Most of the online forums are free to register and here not only will you be able to find customers but also be able to network with other business owners who might be having similar businesses or better yet complementing products or service providers which would bring great opportunities in terms of either partnerships or joint promotional campaigns.
Give a little to gain a lot. Giving out free samples to customers is a great way of promoting your product. If they like the product they will definitely buy it once it is on the market. Try to keep an open mind about your products and services so that at an initial stage if your customers prefer your product or service to be customized differently, give it some thought. It could be the idea you never thought of but might work wonders.
Finally but most importantly, be open to feedback! Criticism and Compliments – BOTH! Remember at the end of the day, the more people talk about you and your business the higher the chance of succeeding.
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