“Memorable stories (good or bad) about the things you do are retold….from a customer to a potential customer. What kinds of stories are being told about you? – BillQuiseng.com
While we understand the importance of retaining existing customers, we also know that increasing business is possible by gaining more customers. It is therefore imperative for a company to get noticed by potential customers too. Increasing awareness amongst untappped markets and customer bases ensures that a company boosts its reputation and arouses interest about itself in uncharted territory. In order to gain the attention of a potential customer base, it would be necessary for a company to have a good understanding of the potential market, in order to prepare a customized and tailored strategy and messages to address the needs and preferences of those potential customers.
We know that the best way to get noticed by potential customers is to optimize your online presence, such that your business shows up when such customers would be searching for products / services / brands similar to your company. Ensure that the SEO on your online profiles is strong and regularly updated, as this would boost SERP ratings and search results. Putting in place a strong content strategy is also a great way to noticed by potential customers – blogs, articles, and other relevant information with SEO capability would get your company the desired attention from a wide audience. The good news is that companies do not need to have in-house capabilities but could solicit the services of a top class content writer and a professional agency specializing in SEO and marketing techniques. It is necessary to harness the visibility and potential of social media sites, and companies must ensure that they have active and regular updated profiles on such sites to boost credibility and awareness. Video and Content Marketing are highly sought after today to increase visibility and it would be prudent for companies to link their websites to their other online portals.
While many new channels of communication may have come into existence, there is no denying or doubting the potential of email marketing. It is a quick and cost effective method to reach a large number of people simultaneously, and the messages could be customized for particular prospects as and when they respond to the initial message. This is when a company can categorize prospective customer groups and create separate email messages for each group such that they see value and benefit from associating with the company. Including focused benefits, pertinent value, and clear calls to action is a great to noticed by potential customers, and encourage them to take action. It would be a great idea to also include some relevant industry information or helpful tips that a potential customer could find useful – these non-selling focused messages tell such customers that your company is interested in being a value-added partner too. This approach is always better to increase sales and noticed by potential customers.
There is possibly nothing worse than stale content, and obsolete marketing material. Ensure that your company’s marketing materials reflect the needs and requirements of the target audience, and highlight the benefits that the company’s products and or service would bring the client’s business. Market research and keeping abreast with the changing needs and preference of potential customers, will ensure that when you do send out promotional materials, these customers would instantly be able to see value. We know that it is a lot harder to attract new customers, as opposed to retaining current ones. Getting new customers is a long and arduous process, but by doing the right things it would be possible for a company to get noticed by potential customers, and get them to become actual buying customers. As customers increase their knowledge and become more aware of trends, companies, and the options they have at their disposal, their demands and expectations are sure to increase, making it even more challenging for companies to get and sustain their attention.
On the other hand, it has become easier for companies to at least find potential customers given the number of resources to gain customer information, relevant pieces of data that can be had online, and the spurt in the use of social media. It has become relatively simpler for companies to gain information about customers, but simultaneously harder to connect with them since customers now have a lot more knowledge, are keen to know a lot before they buy, and they know exactly how to get what they want. In addition, the vast number of marketing and communication channels can also pose a problem for companies. While these may mean multiple routes through which to connect with customers, it also means a whole lot more of effort, time, money, knowledge about each channel, and would require formulating targeted and customized messages for the particular channel and prospective customer groups.
There is no doubt that it is imperative for companies to get noticed by potential customers, and do so in an overcrowded and noisy marketplace. Every company must have strategies in place to ensure that they can increase their business by gaining new customers, and it would depend on the company, the industry it operates within, and the kind and number of target customers. Text messages, emails, events, seminars, shows, newsletters, and other such methods can work in conjunction and prove to be extremely fruitful when trying to get noticed by potential customers, and initiate direct conversations to forward the association. Research shows for example, that a focused newsletter is a great way of getting in touch with prospective customers, and at least 89% of companies using it believe that it is one of their prime channels to generate leads.
There is of course, blogs and articles published by a company that help them get noticed by potential customers. It is even more effective to allow people to be able to leave comments and reviews – these become a path to a two-way conversation between a company and its readers. It would be necessary for a company to respond when a person does leave a comment – this would encourage the continuation of the communication and could lead to a casual visitor becoming a long-standing customer. Many companies tend to ignore comments – this proves to be a fatal mistake especially if a reader may have left a negative comment. Whatever the nature of the comment – it would be imperative to acknowledge it, thank the reader for the time to comment, and let the person know what possible steps could be taken.
An updated, relevant, interesting, and enticing website is essential for any company trying to get noticed by potential customers. It is essential for the website to have highly relevant and insightful content, which would be beneficial to every customer – irrespecitve of their ‘journey’ with the company – even for those yet to begin their journey. Whatever the kind of content, it must be useful and consistently help the readers either to gain more knowledge or as a solution to some problem they maybe facing.
There is no dearth of ideas on how companies can get noticed by potential customers and retain existing ones. Some may work well, while others may not. However, in trying new things, companies do learn a lot about the market, customers, and their own businesses, which is a great way to improve. It is however, important to remember that the best of ideas would fail if the execution is imperfect, and it would be necessary to pay attention to put the ideas into practice after strategizing and ensuring that the company would be able to get more customers and keep the existing ones too.
