Many new businesses put a huge focus on finding new customers – and for good reasons. After all, the more clients you are attracting, the more likely it is your business will grow. However, attracting new customers is expensive. You have to devote a lot of time, energy, and money into trying to appeal to them. A much cheaper way of making sales is to increase loyalty amongst your current customers, who you already are in contact with and don’t have to spend on attracting. You do, however, have to ensure they remain loyal – and I’ve put together a few simple ideas which can help you achieve it. Let’s get started with some of the basics.

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Up your service game

First things first – ensure your customer service is making a big enough impact on your customers. Every time you make a sale or get an inquiry, your service must be pitch perfect, friendly, attentive, and, ultimately, better than your clients receive anywhere else. But also, you need to ensure you keep in contact with your customers. Making a sale is one thing, but connecting with your customers is the most important part of the process. Instead of focusing on new acquisition, try sending thank you emails or messages – perhaps ask your clients if there are any issues. Maybe you could send them a discount code or offer them a deal the next time they buy anything. Don’t forget, on average, acquisition of customers costs around six times more than retention, so you have some room for maneuvering.

Stop trying to sell

Not every person that walks through your door or sends you an email will buy from you there and then. But depending on how you react to them, they could still end up becoming a customer. If you can show that you genuinely care for their needs and help them out with what they might be looking for, it can leave an indelible mark. And when that customer decides they are ready to buy, it is likely they will come to you. The truth is that when a client feels like you have their support and assistance in mind, they are more liable to talk about it with other people, which increases your potential market even further.

Create an application they cannot resist

Apps are a great way of giving something back to your customers and keeping your company at the forefront of their minds. In fact, they are so useful that many businesses utilize mobile or web application development and offer it free to their customers. It all depends on what your business offers, of course, but there are many different ways it can help. For example, let’s say you are a digital marketing agency – maybe you could produce a simple desktop app that customers use to check performance, or research industry keywords. Going in an entirely different direction, let’s say you are a baking equipment and ingredient store. Maybe your app could offer a broad range of recipes that you can create from all the stuff you sell in-store. Not only will these give customers something useful, but it will also drive traffic to your store, both online and off.

Reach out for feedback

If you can reach out to your customers for feedback, you win on two different levels, First of all, it gives you a chance to improve your business and helps you see everything your company does with a fresh pair of eyes. But it also tells your customers something incredibly important: you are prepared to listen., When a client suggestion ends up as part of the way you do business, they will feel like they have a stake in your company, and will be more inclined to use you again.

Personalize every experience

Finally, forget what you read about data – it’s the personal experience that counts for the vast majority of customers. Sure, you can use data to inform your behavior and find out what customers really want. But in the end, it’s the one-on-one experiences that will mark you out as a great company to do business with. Get to know your clients as individuals, and connect with them on a human level. The next time they consider looking into your industry, there is far more likelihood they will call you up if you go down this route.

How do you keep your customers coming back, or are you struggling to retain clients once you find them? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

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There is one thing that is applicable to all aspects of the workplace that is valued more than stats, marketing, and tech. Trust. It is what will build bridges, seal deals, and communicate with care. Staff needs to trust your judgement; you need to trust your staff will deliver the goods. The transactional process that we engage in as customers is the “what are you going to do for me” attitude without ever doing anything in return. Trust in business is not just on a human level either, we look for the trustworthy clients to work with, and it is something we are not too keen to dish out to anyone, and other businesses are not so keen to dish out to you too! This could be losing you customers. How can you redress the balance?

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We need to establish trust with our clients in a manner of ways. The cliché of honesty being the best policy is a cliché for a very good reason, it’s because it’s true. People speak of transparency in business being an admirable quality, and it’s something they strive for in their companies, and in themselves. The very notion of being open and honest, in whatever scenario, from a big client meeting to talking around the water cooler, it makes for a very easier life than trying to “big up” your business when you don’t have the goods to back it up. The same goes for things like accreditation. Clients like accredited commercial builders are contractors that you are willing to put trust in to expand your business base, or to work on your new buildings to the standard you need them to do. Being accredited is just an official statement that these people are trustworthy, and by having a piece of paper saying that you are officially reliable may sound irrelevant to smaller businesses, but these are the tools you need to get your business to the next level.

Trust as a leader is a skill that can take a lifetime to perfect, but you can get it correct now. Striking the right balance as a leader that gets work done and makes time for their staff is a difficult task, but it is one that will help to strengthen bonds between colleagues and yourself. There is a big separation between the boss and the workers in an organization, but it’s not an us versus them style situation. This again reinforces the transparency aspect. Taking on board other viewpoints and looking to your colleagues for support helps to develop trust as an important tool. Starting an open-door policy, welcoming feedback, or just making the effort to spend time with people you don’t normally are all approaches that are not just good for the staff, but it’s good for you. Start by opening up the floor to some honest debate about the state of affairs, and welcome constructive criticism about the business workings. Your colleagues want to make their working environment better, not worse. So implementing trust should be top of your priorities.

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The one thing that any business owner could hope for is that people are thinking about their brand even when they’re not directly in contact with it. The more memorable the business, the better a chance it gets to finally, eventually convert those people thinking about it. So, even when you’re not directly winning over customers, you should be thinking about ways to make sure that their memory of the brand stays ever fresh. Here, we’ll look at three ingredients that make a really memorable brand.

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Consistency

Times change and the different strategies and focal points of a business change. What shouldn’t change, however, is your branding. If you don’t have a core value to stick to, you’ll find it hard to keep any customer. Similarly, if that value isn’t part of a brand that stays consistent, then how do you expect people to be able to remember what your business is about? The best way to ensure branding stays consistent is to identify the brand story. This is distilling the business down to the core of what it offers customers. It’s about identifying those values at the heart of it and making them the center of any message. Your brand and messaging can evolve, but as long as you have a brand story to stick to, it carries that consistency and those central themes all the way through.

Exposure

A business becomes a lot more memorable if it takes every opportunity it can to make itself more visible, too. Besides reaching out through outbound marketing like social media and email campaigns, make sure you have a strong inbound presence through your website, content marketing and the like. Make it easier for customers to find you. At live events, get more info on how to stick out and make yourself all the more visible with the right swag and branded wear for your team. If you have any business property, even if it’s an office and not a storefront, make sure that you’re considering the curb appeal and the visual impact of it. Never miss an opportunity to put your brand front and center wherever your business is operating.

Communication

You shouldn’t be the only one making noise about your business, of course. Instead, you should be outsourcing that job to those customers already supporting the business. To do that, you need to build a real connection with them. Make sure you’re replying to them when they comment or ask for support on social media. Get them involved with community-based marketing campaigns and giveaways. You can even incentivize them to spread the word by offering deals based on sharing posts online. But the best way to make sure that you’re getting them to communicate well is by paying attention to what they say and taking the time to really address them like people.

A great brand always sticks to the core of its message. It always puts it on display. It always keeps the customer in the loop. Master those three aspects of your branding and you’ll find your business is the one thing that the market just can’t forget.

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All bosses need to work hard to ensure their employees always feel valued. Failure to do that would mean you have to deal with high staff turnover. Also, your workers will never reach optimum productivity if they don’t care about your company. With that in mind, I wanted to offer three basic tips today that could make all the difference. If you use this advice, your workers should begin to build new levels of respect for you as their manager. Like it or not, the people who work for your brand are more than numbers. They have lives and ambitions just like you. So, it makes sense to help them achieve their goals if they work hard and show dedication.

Make sure everyone has a retirement plan

The first thing you need to do is ensure that everyone has a retirement plan in place. Some of your workers might use private schemes. However, you should still offer them a workplace 401k. That process might seem complicated, but there is lots of help available. Small business 401k plan providers will work with you to come to an arrangement. In most instances, your employees will contribute a portion of their salary every month into the fund. They do that before you make tax deductions. When they reach retirement age, they just cash in their policy and live the good life. Of course, they do have to pay tax when the time comes to withdraw their funds.

Offer opportunities for progression within your company

Nobody wants to feel like they’re in a dead-end job with no prospects. That is why you must provide a career advancement path within your operation. Some people are happy to stay in the same roles their entire life. That’s fine, but plenty of others have bigger ambitions. So, you should help to facilitate that. Provide lots of training to the right people, and promote them whenever possible. If you do that, you should end up with an experienced team who understand all the ins and outs of your business. That should help you to make higher profits and deal with any issues fast.

Provide financial rewards for people who go above and beyond

Rewarding people when they do something impressive is always a wise move. While opinions are split on this matter, I believe monetary rewards are the best option. If someone can see the difference in their wages, they are likely to repeat the action. Before you know it, every worker will go above and beyond the call of duty to impress you. Just make sure you get the level of reward right. Bonuses should never account for more than around 10% of an employee’s monthly pay packet.
Now you know how to make your workers feel valued, you should start making changes today. When all’s said and done, you want to see smiles on their faces when you arrive each morning. That is never going to happen if they hate coming to work and think you’re less than approachable. So, get to know all your employees as much as possible and show them you value their contribution.  

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Love them or hate them – meetings are an absolutely crucial part of business and have been since the beginning of time. People who need to complete tasks need to meet up and talk about their duties at some point.

Forbes know a lot about business, so when they say that face to face meetings and talks are so important, we all need to listen.

‘You do business with people, not entities. The beauty of communication is found in the nuance that’s only felt in face-to-face conversations. This is especially important for women because we’re better at picking up on body language and changing emotions that can only be sensed in person. And when a whopping 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by non-verbal cues, talking face-to-face becomes more important than ever. After all, it’s easy to misinterpret a text or email. Especially for sensitive or otherwise important communication, having tone and body language for context makes a difference. On top of that, meetings foster greater buy-in from staff and stakeholders. A lack of in-person communication, on the other hand, means constituents miss out on the reasoning behind decisions, making them less likely to engage. What’s more, it’s easier for them to feel less accountable. When making any kind of request, the probability of getting your desired answer is greater when you have a face-to-face meeting.’

The above – from Forbes magazine – is crucial for you to take in. If you’re a business owner slinging about tasks from a phone – then your employees do stand the chance of misinterpreting your tasks. Not their fault, but because it is easy to misunderstand text as it needs context that nobody has the time to type out. There’s a lot of value in the words that come from your mouth – so find the time to talk in person.

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It’s easier than ever to arrange a meeting since we all have phones connected to work servers and emails – and there is even Meeting Room Software – so you can’t really find a way not to do it. Arrange meetings around the big tasks and issues you can’t afford to be misinterpreted.

Team meetings are great for building relationships within the team and offer a space for your team to support each other. They are vital for learning more about the team and their motivations. Meetings give a space and environment for honest and critical feedback that would be unprofessional to serve through and email. It’s a time where everyone has an opportunity to communicate and listen, which can increase the value an employee feels that they have to offer the business.

That all being said – meetings should be consistent and shouldn’t happen too often without reason. You and your staff do need to work at some point and if they are dragged off to meetings, then they can’t be working! As with everything, balance is key – do not neglect the importance of meetings though!

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We live in the modern age. An age which requires speed, speed and more speed. This era of technology and ever more rapid communication is amazing, but it’s also overwhelming for a small business just trying to make it in the world. Still, even the smallest fish in the biggest ocean can make a mark if they understand how the ocean works. It’s all about looking at your specific industry, and seeing which few marketing techniques have actually garnered results from your target audience. Don’t feel overwhelmed by the industry as a whole.

This may all be easier said than done, and I realise that, because your company has most likely already implemented some form of marketing campaign. However, the key is to stand out from the crowd, and, most likely, numerous other businesses within your trade are using similar marketing tactics to you. To be unique, then, you have to think outside the box. You have to look at what your potential customers want and offer it to them in a way which captures them entirely off-guard. Here are some ways you could do that.

Generate some hype.

Of course, there are many different ways to create a buzz around your company. You might do a little networking on the streets, and you could think of a quirky marketing gimmick related to your style of service, in order to appeal to your target audience. Of course, your target audience isn’t just out on the street. A great way to reach them is through the power of social media, and sharing some exciting content on Instagram or Twitter, perhaps with pictures of goods your company offers, could be the way to boost local hype for your business.

Do something personal.

Believe it or not, your potential range of customers don’t actually view themselves as “customers”. These are people, and when they’re purchasing a good or service from businesses within your industry, they don’t see themselves as another cog in your business design; these people see themselves as somebody who needed something, and they went to the best place which seemed to be offering it.

This is the key. You’ve got to stop thinking about your business as an end, and start seeing it through the eyes of your customers; as a means to an end. People don’t care about the company itself. They just want to buy a good or a service from a brand that they can trust, and this is the tricky part. You have to show that you’re different to the other players in the market.

In my opinion, the best way to do that is to do something real. Handwriting a letter to existing customers, for example, shows that a human being has taken time to talk to them specifically. Even sending a quirky, well-designed flyer could re-capture an old customer’s attention, and you could use a Weekend Printing service to do so in a professional, polished manner. People like the personal touch. They might even refer you to their friends if they feel you’re different, and you could offer them rewards for doing so. Think outside the box.

Ensure your team is on the same level.

The most important aspect of a successful marketing campaign is a real campaign, as I’ve said many times. If you want your business to project a driven and motivated image, everybody has to be on the same page. Your employees need to all want the same things for your business. Ensure you hire the right people for the job.

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