How Can You Reach Out to New Customers and Clients?

For new small businesses wondering how to reach out to new customers and clients, here is a 10 step guide to get you going.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Bringing in new customers or clients is a vital part of running a business, whatever industry you are in. For new businesses, it’s even more difficult.

Even if you think that you have as many clients or recurring customers as you need, you should always have a plan to bring in more—you never know which clients or customers could abandon your business in favor of another! 

How can you effectively reach out to new potential customers or clients? We have put together a few tips in this guide to help you.

1. Identify Your Customer Base

Before you can sell anything to anybody, you need to know who exactly you are trying to sell to. You can identify your customer base by using analytics tools to work out the demographics (for example, age, gender, location, interests, etc.) that you have most success selling to. If you are starting a new business or are aiming to target a new demographic, do your research into how best to appeal to this demographic.

2. Cold Calls / Emails

Cold calls have a bad reputation, yet they can still be effective and are still a cornerstone of many businesses’ marketing strategies. Cold emails are another strategy that can be just as effective, if not more so in many situations. If the product or service that you are selling is more complex and the sales process requires a number of different steps on both sides (e.g., if a potential client needs to consult their superiors and their finance department before making a decision), emails can be much more beneficial than cold calls. When it comes to quick sales of one-off products directly to consumers, cold calls can be more effective.

3. Advertisements

Advertisements are the most well-known way of attracting new clients or customers to your business. Setting aside a percentage of your income to dedicate to advertising is highly recommended by many different business gurus. When it comes to choosing what type of ads are the most effective to run, there are several different types. However, there are three broad categories that advertisements usually fall into:

4. Online Ads

Purchasing ad space on websites may be an effective way of reaching your desired customers. Browsers such as Google offer PPC (or Pay-Per-Click) advertising, a popular advertising model where you only pay each time one of your advertisements is clicked on. This automatically scales costs based on how successful your ads are—although, of course, you still need to make sure the content of your ads is appealing in order to sell your product or service!

5. Social Media Ads

Social media ads are a specific type of online ad that only runs on the social media platform that you have chosen. Examples of social media platforms that allow ads include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, and many more. Social media advertising is often an effective and cheap way to target a very specific demographic using simple and easy-to-use tools. If you do not have time to develop a full social media marketing strategy, you may be able to outsource this to a digital marketing agency and let the experts take care of everything for you.

6. Traditional Ads

Traditional ads are those that appear in media such as magazines, on TV or the radio, or on billboards. Brochures and flyers are also examples of traditional advertisements. While these usually cost more than online or social media ads and may seem outdated, there are some advantages to using traditional ads. For example, if you are aiming to target a demographic that is less likely to use social media or the internet, such as older generations, traditional advertising can be very effective.

7. Blogs

Blogging is an often overlooked tool for reaching out to potential new customers or clients. This can work particularly well for businesses that operate in a very specific industry that people are likely to read about or research online. For example, if you are selling cybersecurity software, starting a blog about cybersecurity where people can learn about the topic can draw in web traffic. You can then direct this traffic to your own products via links. How upfront or subtle you are about selling your own business in these blogs is up to you, and there is a lot to be said for either approach. If you don’t have the time or expertise needed to start your own blog, you may be able to connect with the owner of an existing blog on that topic and arrange a guest post or even get involved with affiliate marketing. 

8. Events

Sometimes meeting people in person is the best way to bring in new customers or clients. Depending on where you live, there may be local business networking events that you can go to and advertise your business. If you are running a B2C (business to consumer) rather than B2B (business to business) company, the events you attend may be different. For example, if you are running a restaurant or café, setting up a stall at a local food festival and offering out free samples can be a very effective strategy.

9. Directories

Many people consult directories, either online or offline when choosing a company to provide a service. Getting your business listed in directories often comes with a fee, but it can be extremely beneficial in terms of expanding your outreach.

10. Word of Mouth

The most traditional of all forms of marketing is the most simple—people recommending your business to others while talking to them. Word of mouth is an often forgotten but essential aspect of bringing in new customers or clients to your business. Spreading the word about your business through verbal recommendations is not exactly something that forms a part of a marketing strategy—rather, it is the usual result of an effective marketing strategy. 

 

So, hopefully this post has provided you with an outline of how you can reach out to new customers and clients. Remember, an effective strategy is usually comprised of many of the above components rather than focusing entirely on just one or two. The better your outreach strategy, the more likely it is that people will talk about your company. Of course, you need to make sure that the products or services you offer are good quality, otherwise what people say about you may not be that great! As for how to do that, that’s a whole other article…