What’s the easiest way to make more sales? Make more clients. It’s not enough to simply maintain your current customer base, as these consumers will slowly trickle away from your company’s reach.

Whether you want to maintain your current sales volume or take it to the next level, you need to build clientele. Of course, getting the right customer to see the right messaging requires a careful, curated strategy. As a small business owner, you also have to contend with larger competitors who have access to bigger, better advertising budgets.

But with some sly decision-making, you can increase your customer base on a dime.  Here’s how to build clientele with eight simple steps.

1. Know Your Audience

To find the right kind of clients, you first need to know who they are. Generic advertising efforts carry inordinate costs and dreadful conversion rates. To make the most of your small business budget, it helps to target your ideal customer right off the bat.

Start your search inward rather than outward. Leverage your website analytics and user data to pinpoint broad similarities.

Nowadays, the more precise, the better. Once you generalize your target audience, you can further segment this information into buyer personas. With different buyer profiles on hand, you can craft hyper-focused marketing campaigns that reach out to every type of customer in your target audience.

2. Optimize Your SEO

A small business website is one of the most cost-effective outreach methods available. What’s the secret to seeing results? Curated keyword targeting and on-point search engine optimization.

When you understand your audience, you can anticipate their search engine queries. By controlling a high rank on relevant keywords, your ideal clients will naturally discover your business.

If you’re serious about your company’s SEO, it’s imperative you run a high-quality blog with frequent updates. These blog posts should provide information relevant to your ideal clients.

Once you hook them in with a great blog post, lure them into the sales funnel by encouraging signups for your e-mail newsletter. If you thought emails were outdated, think again. The ROI of email marketing is four times higher than the next leading digital marketing strategy.

3. Find Affiliates

Here’s something to consider: You’re not the only business trying to appeal to a certain demographic. From review sites to popular blogs, there are countless mediums drawing in the same clientele. These provide an opportunity for you to instantly improve your outreach.

Collaborate with these owners as part of an affiliate marketing campaign. They can bring news of your company to your target audience with a single blog post, building your customer base along the way.

4. Try Remarketing

A significant portion of potential customers never crosses the finish line. For example, check out your cart abandonment rate. How many clients turn away from a purchase at the last minute?

Just because they left doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. With a remarketing campaign, you can display advertisements to specific consumers that almost made a purchase — and then didn’t. Oftentimes, a small one-time discount could be enough to turn these potential customers into lifelong clientele.

5. Create a Referral Network

Your customers can serve as lead generators with the right incentive. Odds are your target audience associates with other potential customers. And in most cases, consumers are more likely to convert when encouraged by a friend rather than the company itself.

How do you build a referral network? That depends on your industry. If you’re selling low-to-mid end products, a gift card or one-time discount can go a long way in incentivizing your current customers to refer a friend.

For more expensive products or specialized services, referrals demand a personal touch. These could include a paid meal or high-class gift.

6. Be Social

Social media platforms, especially Twitter and Facebook, are built upon the notion of sharing. Every time you post a new blog article or release a new product, that’s an opportunity to inform your followers. If you’re lucky, these followers will share your company’s content with others, expanding your reach and improving customer growth.

Recognize that the average follower isn’t likely to share planned, corporate social media announcements. Jazz things up with an energetic campaign, and you’ll reap the rewards.

7. Cast a Wide Net

While we mainly focused on digital marketing thus far, that’s only one piece of the puzzle. After all, your main demographic may not exist on the internet alone. And if your products target older consumers, they may not use the internet at all.

So what are your other options? TV, radio, and even newspaper advertisements can still give you a bang for your buck, so long as you choose the right channel.

But covering all your marketing bases can take a pretty penny for most small businesses. Business funding is an intelligent way to get the money you need now so you can make more later.

8. Establish Valuable Partnerships

The little guys need to stick together. By sharing information and resources, partners can give you access to new customers that you previously couldn’t reach.

Of course, your company will need to offer something in exchange if you’re looking for new business partners. And remember not to work with any immediate competitors.

So, You Know How to Build Clientele?

The real question is, what are you waiting for?  The sooner you expand your customer base, the faster you enjoy the results such as more sales, better SEO, and improve profits. Many of these strategies on how to build clientele are completely free, but business funding is always available for those looking to take things to the next level.

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