10 ways to attract and keep clients
Attracting and keeping clients starts with your digital ecosystem.
Once you’ve got your website set up to act as the hub of your digital ecosystem, it is easy to bolt on means to attract the right kind of interest in your website.
There are several options available, each of which requires differing levels of investment in both time and money to realise a return. Depending on your industry or niche, some of these will be more suitable than others in driving traffic to your website and making visitors convert into customers.
1. Blogging
Having a business blog is pretty much seen as essential today. Call it what you like — I’ve seen titles such as News, Resources, Knowledge Centre used — a business blog is the beating heart of the website.
Every time a new blog post is published, it can be used to automate traffic driven to your website by cross-publishing on social media such as a Facebook Business Page, Twitter or LinkedIn profile, or even on Medium.
You can even create Facebook ads from each blog post if you want by opting to boost the post for a time and budget of your choosing.
New blog post = new SEO juice. Every blog post affords an opportunity to publish new, keyword-rich content, enabling search engine crawlers to index your new posts and help drive search traffic to your site because your content matched the terms of a visitor’s search query.
2. Social media
Jumping on the social media bandwagon for business is not the same as having a personal account. There are guidelines for posting and commenting, sharing and liking, which are appropriate for business use. The key is to have ground rules and stick to them.
Social media affords you the option of reaching out directly to followers, to build a trust relationship, positioning yourself as an expert in your field by sharing interesting articles by other authors that appeal to your audience (‘curating content’) as well as your own self-created content that is hosted on your website or blog.
3. Adwords or PPC
Requiring a much larger spend to realise effective returns on investment, Google Adwords or pay-per-click advertising is another option for those with the economies of scale to make this work for them. You can target the type of searches that will result in better conversions from traffic driven to your website.
Be under no illusion: you’ll need a budget in excess of £1000 per month to make this happen. It doesn’t come cheap but is obviously worth it for those that it suits.
4. Social ads
Advertising on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or a number of other social platforms is a really good way of getting your feet wet if you’re contemplating paid traffic to your website. The bar for entry is low, requiring a lower average spend if you’re advertising, say, on Facebook, and the reach is potentially tremendous because you have the option of fine-tuning the audience to include exactly the people you’re targeting.
Reckon on £300–600 per month for Facebook ads and you’ll be in the right ballpark. If you’ve set up your website correctly, you’ll be driving traffic to convert through your email marketing funnel.
5. Email marketing automation
There are several pieces to this puzzle. Email marketing is but one because it presupposes that you have a sequence of landing pages set up on your website to drive traffic through a sequence that results in the visitor obtaining a lead magnet in exchange for a contact name and email address, which go into a mailing list and can be used to market more specific offers to them, as they already gave you permission and have expressed an interest.
Why go to these lengths over email marketing automation? Simple. It’s because it converts — remarkably well. If you’re looking to make a real impact with your website and email marketing, it’s easy to do so for relatively little money. If you have the time, you can even do it yourself if you have the inclination.
Remember: email leads convert. Really well, too.
6. Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is a relatively mature player in this game and has been around a while, which is not to say that it isn’t still a valid spend if you’ve a marketing budget and are seeking to get a good return.
SEO is always going to need to leverage good quality content, which always goes back to having that essential collection of blog posts to build from. Once you have a good quantity of keyword-rich posts, it becomes more attractive to promote them through backlinks and drive more traffic to your site by making sure you’re linked to from good quality referrers.
Factor in a spend of at least £400 per month and expect to see some results within the first 60–90 days. You’ll be amazed at the magic a good SEO consultant can work for your website and you’ll wish you engaged them sooner.
7. Email newsletters
Not the same as email marketing automation, though the same technology is used to some extent, email newsletters are used in a similar way to automated social media publishing to promote your quality content from the blog, as well as other relevant curated content and specific offers, to your subscribers.
You’ll need to start your digital ecosystem with a business blog to get the best out of newsletters, though they, too, like email marketing automation, can convert remarkably well. It’s well worth employing an expert to set things up for you and help to build your newsletter subscription mailing list, especially if you’re a really small business or startup.
The last three of my suggestions are all offline, but also work wonders to get new clients. It’s all about building trust, so that someone who knows, likes and trusts you can convert into a paying customer.
8. Referrals
There’s nothing better than someone coming to you from a referral. Work that existing client base to make them your ambassadors. If they can recommend you to other people, who convert into paying customers, they’re doing your job of marketing and advertising for you. It’s well worth establishing a list of existing clients who are happy to act as referees and provide testimonials, which you can get new people to talk to, so that you’re not the one doing all the talking.
9. Print advertising
Don’t neglect good, old-fashioned print advertising. Flyers, cards, pens and all sorts of other promotional items can be purchased inexpensively for give-aways at trade shows and expos, while adverts in local magazines and newspapers are also still a really good way of attracting the attention of interested viewers and getting them in through the door, especially if you have a bricks-and-mortar business.
10. Networking
My last recommendation involves going out to meet and greet. Networking is by far and away the most time-consuming of all these options, but is capable of tremendous rewards if you’re prepared to invest the effort in building relationships that last. You’ll even potentially save yourself the cost of some of the other options if you have a network of people that are constantly referring new business your way. Join a local networking group or even consider starting something yourself. It’s a great way of meeting new people and getting your name out there.
Summary
In this post, I’ve given you some food for though for how to get new clients and get them to advocate on your behalf. Don’t be afraid of taking a few steps, spending some money on promotion, and getting your name known. It could be the best thing you do for your business today.
If you’ve any suggestions or experiences, we’d love to hear them in the comments!
Originally published at PENNInk Productions.
