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“How do I get new customers?” isn’t the question you should be asking.
At the back of your mind, the most important question should be “which customers will help me grow my business in the long run?”
At the end of the day, there are customers that help you grow your business with positive feedback and word of mouth…then there are “needy” customers that take time to please and often detract from the happiness of your staff. Sound familiar? These are common scenarios across ALL industries, whether or not you’re working with B2C or B2B (in the end, we’re all marketing to people, right?)
It’s not a problem with your staff, your process or your strategy. Sometimes, it’s simply a problem with the fit between brand and customer.
Just think about it. If you’re a high-end fashion brand, do you really want your sales team to be tied down working on closing deals with a penny pincher?
Sometimes, you need to say “no” to one customer, in order to say “yes” to three more, that will actually appreciate the work you do. The question is – how do you find the right clients?
Identifying Your Best Customers
You probably already know your best customers, at the back of your mind. From anecdotal experience to overall trends, you probably already have an inkling of where your best sales are coming from. But – as with anything in marketing – it’s always wise to have numbers to support your judgment.
Using Google Analytics
Google Analytics should be the first place you look for customer insights. Drill down to your geographic reports tab and find out where your customers are coming from. The customers that spend the most time on your website – who are they? Where was the source of their visit? Do they find you via organic Google searches, or referral traffic? Do they go to your website through social media?
Using Facebook
If you’re active on social media, chances are you already have a wealth of insights at your fingertips. On Facebook, navigate to the Insights tab of your business page (don’t have one? Get one set up!). This is a great resource to launch a Facebook campaign, as well as review who your best followers are.
Not only does Facebook provide information about your follower’s age, gender and location – but they’ll also segment this information based on their rate of engagement on your page.
Take a look at the data – the numbers may surprise you.
Ask Your Sales Team
The employees that know your “best” customers are usually those that have been working in sales the longest. Experienced salespeople know instinctively which sales will “fly” or “crash” within the first 2 minutes of a sales call.
Make sure that your marketing team communicates with your sales team, in order to ensure that the traffic you’re sending through the pipeline is actually resulting in sales. After all – 1 good sales call is worth more than 20 meaningless calls. Don’t let “number of sales leads” distract you from the most important metric – sales!
Review Your Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve identified your most loyal customers, you need a marketing strategy that allows you to reach out, connect and convert new customers on a regular basis. At Cucumber Marketing, we call these “awesome clients” NACs (this stands for “New Awesome Client”)
Review your sales cycle on a regular basis. Ask yourself – “would I sell to these customers again, knowing then what I do now?” Sometimes, it’s not about the incremental sale – it’s about the sales you could have gotten if you’d had a more strategic approach.
Agree with your marketing sentiments? Or do have a different opinion? Let us know! Contact our marketing agency in Downtown, Vancouver for a quick chat – no stress! We always have chocolate 😉