4 Strategies to Expand Your Customer Base
Every business owner, no matter how small or big their company is, wants to expand their customer base. This doesn’t only require attracting new customers but also doing your best to keep your already existing customers so they don’t leave your business and turn to your competitors.
A growing customer base also means a growing business, and a steady stream of prospects who reach the end of the lead funnel is the benchmark of any successful business. You’ve probably heard of many different strategies that help expand your customer base, but not all of them are equally successful.
If you really want your efforts to be successful and show good results, here are some strategies you won’t be sorry you tried out.
Know Your Ideal Clients
Some businesses focus on getting as many clients as possible, and they don’t care about who their clients are. This is a big mistake because you can’t sell your products to anyone. Instead, you need to have ideal clients and create customer profiles.
Ask yourself who your product is designed for. Even if it can cater to different types of people, there is probably one group that can benefit from it more than others. You can figure out your ideal client groups by observing your existing clients.
Some things you need to take into consideration when you’re creating ideal client profiles include:
- Demographic profiles. These profiles consist of objective, factual and statistical data that explain who your ideal clients are. Some of the things that go into demographic profiles include your client’s age, gender, income, occupation, marital status, geographical location and ethnicity.
- Psychographic profiles. You need a deeper and more subjective understanding of who your ideal clients are. Psychographic profiles cover things such as beliefs and opinions, mindsets and attitudes, as well as goals, dreams, and aspirations.
- Behavioral analysis. Finally, this is the process of understanding how a specific group (in this case, your ideal clients) acts and behaves. When you understand their behavior, you will be able to predict their actions regarding the products you are selling.
Offer Excellent Customer Support
Customer support is important for customer retention and customer acquisition, and it offers you an opportunity to create a customer experience strategy. A happy customer is a returning customer, and that is why you should always treat every customer who contacts you with respect and patience.
Customers who experience good customer support are also more likely to recommend your company and products to their friends and family.
Here are some tips on how you can provide outstanding customer support:
- Be fast and concise. If your customer service representatives lack effectiveness, that will cause a lot of frustration. Not only will the customer on the line wait too long for an answer to their question or solution to their problem, but customers who are waiting for a free channel will also become frustrated.
- Be empathetic. Customers are sometimes frustrated and irritated when they call customer support, which is why representatives need to be understanding and empathetic. Show customers you understand their frustration and want to help them solve the issue as fast as possible.
- Don’t use scripts. Every customer is unique, and so is the reason why they are contacting your customer support. Your representative needs to listen carefully and give honest replies, and not just use a canned script to answer questions.
- Admit your mistakes. Sometimes, your company will be the one in the wrong and it’s important that you admit to those mistakes. Always apologize and offer to fix the problem, at your expense if necessary. This builds trust and restores confidence.
- End the conversation properly. Don’t rush to finish the conversation with one customer so you can move on to the next one. Take a minute to thank them for their call and ask them if they need help with anything else. You can also offer to email them the transcript of your call and urge them to contact you whenever they have another question or issue that needs solving.
Set Up Referral Programs
It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. However, both are important if you want to expand your customer base, and there is one way that can get you both – referral programs.
The greatest value you have from your customers is when they bring in new customers. But not a lot of them will refer their acquaintances to your business without an incentive. If you set up a referral program, however, people who bring in new customers will get certain benefits.
Those benefits can be anything a customer finds appealing, such as free products or samples, discounts, free shipping, and so on. Referral programs are popular because they are mutually beneficial for both you and your customers.
The power of referral programs is much greater than some companies realize, as 77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends or family.
However, it’s not enough to set up a referral program, sometimes you have to remind your customers of its existence. The best times to do this is when a customer has done things such as:
- Filled out a survey about your company/products and left positive remarks.
- Used your services for a year or more.
- Left positive reviews of your company/products on social media or on your website.
If you want to give your customers a way to invite their contacts more easily and efficiently, set up a contact picker that will simplify and speed up this process. This advanced tool lets your referrals search for, select and share contacts without leaving your website.
Create a Knowledge Base
A knowledge base is also known by two other names: customer education and self-serve customer service.
Knowledge bases aren’t a new concept at all. They represent a library of information about your company or products and help customers solve issues on their own. They consist of various forms of content such as articles, images, videos and infographics.
A good knowledge base is a vital instrument in expanding your customer base, and if it’s done right, it can even solve most problems a customer would otherwise need to call customer service for.
An educated customer is a happy customer and if someone has all the answers they need, they will be more likely to put their trust in your company.
A knowledge base software is a necessary tool for any company that wants to build a knowledge base and thus help their customers get answers to any questions they might have, without sacrificing the quality of their customer service.
A knowledge base software makes the process of creating a knowledge base much easier and more effective. It analyzes all recurring topics, frequently asked questions and issues, and then collects them all to help you create the perfect knowledge base.
If you need any help with writing content for your knowledge base, just keep one thing in mind – look for trends. If you keep getting the same question or comment over and over again, that is the perfect topic for an article for your knowledge base. But don’t worry about that too much because, if you use the software, it will do the hard part for you.
Final Thoughts
Your customers are what keeps your business running. Without them, you wouldn’t have a company at all, so it’s important to always keep them happy and satisfied. And when customers are satisfied with your company and products, their number will increase over time.
Don’t expect amazing results right away, as customer acquisition is a long process that takes a lot of effort. But if you apply the strategies you’ve just read about and do so with patience, people will recognize your company’s worth and become paying customers.
