Marketing is all about understanding your customers and providing them with value to meet their needs and wants. In order for you to be successful you must clearly identify the demand for your specific product or service. In general most businesses can improve in this area through one way or another. Storytelling (see previous blog post here) is essential to improve your brand and capture the attention of your customers. To take it one step forward consider educating your customers, prospects, about referral sources and why it’s in their best interest to do business with your company.
Educating the right target audience has advantages, benefits, value, and results you can provide. Sharing the credible evidence/reasons to support and back up your promises with your customers. Educating your clients gives them more reason to trust you to deliver on your promises.
Marketing gives businesses the opportunity to communicate with, educate, and influence many buyers at once without actually “selling” anything. Communicating with your customers IS the goal, right? So instead of trying to one-to-one sell your products and services, focus on marketing to grow your sales. With the increase of technology, the action of marketing is advancing. Most business owners get stuck in their old ways and fail to consider all the new options, new approaches, and new strategies that might bring in the business they want. Marketing is nothing more than understanding the needs of your customers and then communicating to them the superior advantages/benefits they can derive by doing business with you. Think of marketing as ongoing education. You are educating customers, prospects, and referral sources why it’s in their best interest to do business with your company.
Let’s talk about the 5 ways to grow your business:
1) Keeping the customers you currently have
2) Bringing in new customers
3) Increase the average transaction size (unit sale)
4) Increase the frequency of purchases
5) Say “no” to bad customers/prospects
Basically, keep what you have, bring in more customers, sell larger amounts to them, and sell to them more often. Do one of these ways and your business will grow. Do two or more of these and your business can grow by leaps and bounds.