How Small Businesses Get Customers
10 top tips on how small business obtain customers...
Network Groups
Almost every area has a business networking group, if not
a dedicated small business group. The idea here is to build
up a rapport with other small business owners who, it is hoped,
will recommend or use your services/product on the basis that
it is preferable to deal with someone you know this has been
proved to be so. Groups also provide added benefit this means
that when you talk to a customer and that customer wants a
product/service you do not provide, you will be able to get
the deal based on your networking knowledge and connections.
Your local Chamber of Commerce will be able to help you, and
you may want to sign up with them.
Local Newspapers
If you provide services/products that serve a local community,
you must have exposure in your local or free paper. The weekly
cost is generally $25 a week: you can decide to insert weekly
at $1,300 a year, fortnightly at $650 a year, or monthly at
$300 a year. Having an advert in the classified section is
less expensive than having an advert in the news pages, and
block booking will reduce the cost by 10 - 25%.
Brochures, Leaflets and Flyers
Many small business owners will tell you that brochures etc
are a waste of money as they very rarely bring in business
by themselves: I tend to agree with that comment. They are
useful for exhibitions an envelope stuffing with the monthly
statement, but struggle to carry a message to potential customers
as they have leaning towards presentation rather than the technical
issues of your business. Leaflets/flyers can have a more specific
message about special offers and current prices: the things
that customers want to see. The presentation is not as important
as on the flag waving brochure, and the customer generally
has more belief in what you say due to the more basic presentation.
Providing your customers with up to date information is essential,
with the cost efficiency of leaflets/flyers I suggest past
and current customers receive something as regularly as you
can afford.
The Mail Shot
It is most important that your mailing list is as relative
as possible to your target customer. You can get lists for
small office, home office (SOHO) that will give you access
to those needing supplies of relevant products that are used
or consumed in that environment.
However, if you sell to small medium enterprises (SMEs) you
will probably need to know turnover, type of business, employee
numbers and profit & loss details to enable you to target,
say, turnover between $1 - 5m , under 20 employees, and in
profit, to supply office lease equipment.
Cost is the key to successful mail shots. With an expected
response of about 2 - 10% you have to mail a significant amount
of prospective customers. To get 100 responses you need to
post between 1,000 - 5,000 letters that's $600 for stamps alone,
using an average of 3,000 mail shots. The other resources headed-paper,
brochure, envelopes and time, easily brings the total to $1,000
for 300 responses - being a cost of between $3 - 10 for each
lead. Almost every product has a customer user/buyer statistical
breakdown if you know this, you can improve sales drastically.
It’s about good research, and knowing your product and
customer.
Partnerships
The Internet has brought us a staggering phenomenon partnerships
and affiliates. Previously, most of us were unconcerned with
competitors or aligned services; as such we were not inclined
to promote an outside business/product/service that we had
no stake in. Now, if you do not have a working relationship
with another company you are being inefficient and ineffective!
This phenomenon is not the sole domain of the large company
it works just as well at the small end.
Do you know of businesses similar to yourself who have to
turn down work due to having too much? I do. I told a friend
to pop in and see the boss and ask about taking on this work
they are now both busy, and friends (not bad considering 9
months ago they were competitors).
Calling Card
Wherever you go you should always leave your mark be that
Monday morning or Sunday afternoon. Always have a business
card to hand, or a brochure if necessary. If you deal with
email make sure your signature makes it very clear what you
do and where you can be contacted don't worry about overkill.
A letterhead is a must, and so is a compliment slip for attaching
any number of items.
Telephone Sales
This is not for the faint hearted or highly strung! Learning
to accept constant rejection is an ability far beyond most
of us. So, I suggest paying someone else to do it either in-house
by a trained employee, or out sourced to a marketing agency.
If you have a product and business that can pay $20 - 30 a
lead, resulting in ten leads for $200 - $300 you should make
a good return on a product costing $800, and further sales
will not incur this cost. Likewise a product costing $400 would
not be viable unless you used an in-house employee who also
doubles as an office worker the dual role is also a necessity
as eight hours a day telesales will result in one less employee
working for you!
Newsletters
We seem to have forgotten that newsletters did not derive
from the Internet, they were always here. Similar to a mail
shot; however, a newsletter is about informing and not selling
(well not quite so openly).
Few of us would welcome a newsletter that was designed to
get sales, but knowledgeable news is received with interest.
Compiling a monthly one page newsletter that you post or
email is fairly easy once you get used to the format and content.
You would not sit down at the end of a month and think about
what to write, you collect information over the entire month
you may find you have too much information and that half of
next months newsletter is in hand. Look about you for your
initial list of mail outs: local papers, directories in library,
names from friends, friends of friends, TV, Internet, endless
names... A newsletter says that you are an expert, someone
who has an opinion; that you are approachable, that you have
answers; that you always strive to find a better way for yourself
and your readers - this is why good newsletters reach far and
wide and hopefully repay your time and resource with sales.
Monthly Magazines and Trade Journals
They say that buyers have to see an advert 11 times in the
paper media, with that reducing to 7 on the Internet, with
specialist magazines/journals somewhere in between. This means
that most small business owners immediately look at cost not
surprisingly! At best, a reasonable advert in a monthly glossy
would cost $400, with an annual cost of about $4,000 after
a discount. As readers want to buy services/products from brand
names, the least they expect is to be familiar with your advert.
If you are looking at testing in a glossy the minimum period
must be three inserts, unless you have a business that sells
brand named products and your advert offers great savings,
performance etc.
The Internet
It could be argued that the Internet does not belong in this
list as it is time consuming and costly to have even a small
degree of success. That said, the Internet can still be a generator
of customers (and not a fancy brochure) if using Network Groups
with the intent on pushing a number of businesses of mutual
and relevant added benefit, and of course sharing the building
and marketing costs. An example a plumber, an electrician,
a gas fitter and a general builder could create a regional
web site that is geared to these four services.
Further, whoever has the greatest share of business can have,
pro rata, the biggest share of the expense, as is only fair.
The Internet has more opportunities for small business than
we currently see and those that have the drive and desire to
create a business presence will succeed.
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