10 Ways to Get New Small Business Customers
Network Groups Local Newspapers
Brochures, Leaflets and Flyers
The Mail Shot
Partnerships
Calling Card
Telephone Sales
Newsletters
Monthly Magazines and Trade Journals
The Internet
NOTE
The following suggestions are not the top ten ways to gain small business customers, nor are they in any order of performance. There are too many parameters that will affect the success of using the same tactic in two different locations/situations. However, by doing some local research, it will help you become more clear as to which methods will be most effective.
The following suggestions are not the top ten ways to gain small business customers, nor are they in any order of performance. There are too many parameters that will affect the success of using the same tactic in two different locations/situations. However, by doing some local research, it will help you become more clear as to which methods will be most effective.
Network Groups
Almost every area has a business networking group, if not a dedicated small business group. The idea here is to build up a rapport with other small business owners who, it is hoped, will recommend or use your services/product on the basis that it is preferable to deal with someone you know this has been proved to be so. Groups also provide added benefit this means that when you talk to a customer and that customer wants a product/service you do not provide, you will be able to get the deal based on your networking knowledge and connections. Your local Chamber of Commerce will be able to help you, and you may want to sign up with them.
Visit our article on 'Small Business Clubs'
Local Newspapers
If you provide services/products that serve a local community, you must have exposure in your local or free paper. The weekly cost is generally £25 a week: you can decide to insert weekly at £1,300 a year, fortnightly at £650 a year, or monthly at £300 a year. Having an advert in the classified section is less expensive than having an advert in the news pages, and block booking will reduce the cost by 10 - 25%.
Brochures, Leaflets and Flyers
Many small business owners will tell you that brochures etc are a waste of money as they very rarely bring in business by themselves: I tend to agree with that comment.They are useful for exhibitions an envelope stuffing with the monthly statement, but struggle to carry a message to potential customers as they have leaning towards presentation rather than the technical issues of your business.
Leaflets/flyers can have a more specific message about special offers and current prices: the things that customers want to see. The presentation is not as important as on the flag waving brochure, and the customer generally has more belief in what you say due to the more basic presentation.Providing your customers with up to date information is essential, with the cost efficiency of leaflets/flyers I suggest past and current customers receive something as regularly as you can afford.
Visit our article 'Writing a Mail Shot & Sales Letter' for more information.
The Mail Shot
It is most important that your mailing list is as relative as possible to your target customer. You can get lists for small office, home office (SOHO) that will give you access to those needing supplies of relevant products that are used or consumed in that environment.
However, if you sell to small medium enterprises (SMEs) you will probably need to know turnover, type of business, employee numbers and profit & loss details to enable you to target, say, turnover between £1 - 5m , under 20 employees, and in profit, to supply office lease equipment.
Cost is the key to successful mail shots. With an expected response of about 2 - 10% you have to mail a significant amount of prospective customers. To get 100 responses you need to post between 1,000 - 5,000 letters that's £600 for stamps alone, using an average of 3,000 mail shots.
The other resources headed-paper, brochure, envelopes and time, easily brings the total to £1,000 for 300 responses - being a cost of between £3 - 10 for each lead. Almost every product has a customer user/buyer statistical breakdown if you know this, you can improve sales drastically. Its about good research, and knowing your product and customer.
Visit our article 'Compiling a Mail Shot'
Many small business owners will tell you that brochures etc are a waste of money as they very rarely bring in business by themselves: I tend to agree with that comment.They are useful for exhibitions an envelope stuffing with the monthly statement, but struggle to carry a message to potential customers as they have leaning towards presentation rather than the technical issues of your business.
Leaflets/flyers can have a more specific message about special offers and current prices: the things that customers want to see. The presentation is not as important as on the flag waving brochure, and the customer generally has more belief in what you say due to the more basic presentation.Providing your customers with up to date information is essential, with the cost efficiency of leaflets/flyers I suggest past and current customers receive something as regularly as you can afford.
Visit our article 'Writing a Mail Shot & Sales Letter' for more information.
The Mail Shot
It is most important that your mailing list is as relative as possible to your target customer. You can get lists for small office, home office (SOHO) that will give you access to those needing supplies of relevant products that are used or consumed in that environment.
However, if you sell to small medium enterprises (SMEs) you will probably need to know turnover, type of business, employee numbers and profit & loss details to enable you to target, say, turnover between £1 - 5m , under 20 employees, and in profit, to supply office lease equipment.
Cost is the key to successful mail shots. With an expected response of about 2 - 10% you have to mail a significant amount of prospective customers. To get 100 responses you need to post between 1,000 - 5,000 letters that's £600 for stamps alone, using an average of 3,000 mail shots.
The other resources headed-paper, brochure, envelopes and time, easily brings the total to £1,000 for 300 responses - being a cost of between £3 - 10 for each lead. Almost every product has a customer user/buyer statistical breakdown if you know this, you can improve sales drastically. Its about good research, and knowing your product and customer.
Visit our article 'Compiling a Mail Shot'
Calling Card
Wherever you go you should always leave your mark be that Monday morning or Sunday afternoon. Always have a business card to hand, or a brochure if necessary. If you deal with email make sure your signature makes it very clear what you do and where you can be contacted don't worry about overkill. A letterhead is a must, and so is a compliment slip for attaching any number of items.
Visit our article '
Stationery Printing' for more information.
Telephone Sales
This is not for the faint hearted or highly strung! Learning to accept constant rejection is an ability far beyond most of us. So, I suggest paying someone else to do it either in-house by a trained employee, or out sourced to a marketing agency. If you have a product and business that can pay £20 - 30 a lead, resulting in ten leads for £200 - £300 you should make a good return on a product costing £800, and further sales will not incur this cost.
Likewise a product costing £400 would not be viable unless you used an in-house employee who also doubles as an office worker the dual role is also a necessity as eight hours a day telesales will result in one less employee working for you!
Visit our article 'How to Make Telephone Sales' for more information.
Newsletters
We seem to have forgotten that newsletters did not derive from the Internet, they were always here. Similar to a mail shot, however, a newsletter is about informing and not selling (well not quite so openly).
Few of us would welcome a newsletter that was designed to get sales, but knowledgeable news is received with interest. I am only too aware that the readers of our newsletter want interesting and relevant knowledge and not information on our products.
Compiling a monthly one page newsletter that you post or email is fairly easy once you get used to the format and content. You would not sit down at the end of a month and think about what to write, you collect information over the entire month you may find you have too much information and that half of next months newsletter is in hand. Look about you for your initial list of mail outs: local papers, directories in library, names from friends, friends of friends, TV, Internet, endless names...
A newsletter says that you are an expert, someone who has an opinion, that you are approachable, that you have answers, that you always strive to find a better way for yourself and your readers - this is why good newsletters reach far and wide, and hopefully repay your time and resource with sales (now I can't drop the hint any more than that :))
Visit our article 'Writing a Newsletter' for more information.
Monthly Magazines and Trade Journals
They say that buyers have to see an advert 11 times in the paper media, with that reducing to 7 on the Internet, with specialist magazines/journals somewhere in between. This means that most small business owners immediately look at cost not surprisingly! At best, a reasonable advert in a monthly glossy would cost £400 , with an annual cost of about £4,000 after a discount.
As readers want to buy services/products from brand names, the least they expect is to be familiar with your advert. If you are looking at testing in a glossy the minimum period must be three inserts, unless you have a business that sells brand named products and your advert offers great savings, performance etc. Utilizing the notes in 'The Internet' section (below) is an answer to the question of affordability and a way of showing added value in your partnerships.
The Internet
It could be argued that the Internet does not belong in this list as it is time consuming and costly to have even a small degree of success. That said, the Internet can still be a generator of customers (and not a fancy brochure) if using Network Groups with the intent on pushing a number of businesses of mutual and relevant added benefit, and of course sharing the building and marketing costs. An example a plumber, an electrician, a gas fitter and a general builder could create a regional web site that is geared to these four services.
Further, whoever has the greatest share of business can have, pro rata, the biggest share of the expense, as is only fair. The Internet has more opportunities for small business than we currently see and those that have the drive and desire to create a business presence will succeed.
Source: http://www.bizhelp24.com/marketing
