Marketing for new customers — beating the plateau

So you’re past those initial years since starting your business. You’ve got some runs on the board, grown your customer base and made some money.

If you’re like many businesses, however, things start to stagnate and new customers become scarce.

How do you continue to grow your business when sales have plateaued and the phones don’t ring like they used to?

By now you’ve done the all the marketing basics like letter-drop flyers and brochures in the local area. You’ve advertised in magazines, given out a million business cards and run sales campaigns. You’ve even and overhauled your website. Now’s the time to try some new, targeted marketing strategies that will drive long-term growth in new customers for your business by shaking things up.

It’s about getting off your seat and getting those new customers by using these three dynamic and clever marketing strategies:

1. Get short-burst video testimonials

You know how great your business is and what is sells, but every one of your competitors makes the same claims.

There’s so much marketing noise in your business space that new customers don’t know who to trust or what to believe. This is where you need to give them social proof so they choose to buy from you and not from anywhere else.

Forget testimonials on your website — everyone does them. You need to be more dynamic and get live customer endorsements of your products and services.

Shoot a simple, thirty-second testimonial of your best customers singing your praises. It becomes real, more sincere, and has an emotional impact which will draw new customers to your business.

But you don’t need to be Stephen Spielberg or have the box-office budget of Titanic. Just take your phone with you everywhere you go and ask happy customers if they don’t mind filming a short video testimonial. You practically have a production company in your pocket; use it to capture these marketing nuggets of gold.

Once done, post these onto your website and social media platforms. The best thing is that it costs you nothing. Don’t forget to ask your customers to share these videos with their social networks as well.

2. Get social media savvy

I have stopped nearly all my traditional business marketing in the last 12 months and have embraced social media as my next-stage long-term marketing strategy.

At first I was sceptical but realised I needed to adopt a more businesslike approach to my social media. New customers don’t care what you ate for breakfast or how good your new business logo looks. They want to know how your can solve their problems.

On my business Facebook page, for example, I was posting a lot of articles about our services and what we do. Boring! No one cared because all business owners post the same thing. Then one day I tried something more direct.

I had just saved a client over $100,000 in tax so I did a quick post on my business Facebook page telling people about it. Within minutes I had people calling me and wanting to book in and see me.

If you don’t have a business page on social media, get one. Then post success stories rather than pedestrian stories. Link it to a video testimonial, and you will leverage the impact tenfold.

3. Target 10 new customers

Don’t wait for the phone to ring or for new customers to find you. Be proactive and go and find them.

Make a wish list of ten new big customers you would love to have. Set yourself a deadline to get them and design a direct marketing strategy to attract them.

You could try: Sending them free samples.

Writing them a personal letter (not impersonal emails).

Giving them a free trial period to use your products and services. Send them lovely gift-wrapped samples of your products.

Inviting them to special customer nights. Everyone loves to try before they buy so give them an opportunity to do so.

In this sea of sameness, be different and savvy.

You have a great business, but new customers don’t know you exist and the same old marketing tools will only get you so far.

To hit that next stage of new customer growth, go beyond the basics and target the customers you want.