1. Understand your market
Understanding your market is the first step towards granting your business the ability to speak and sell to the right people. Conducting market research is a good way to understand the underlying needs and wants of the population and it gives way for you to customize your products to their likes and needs.
2. Devise a marketing strategy
Do you know who your ideal cusomers are? Do you know why they prefer your products over your competition?
3. Satisfy your customers
Your business depends on attracting and maintaining repeat customers. No matter how good your product is, you won’t do well unless you treat your customers well. You and your employees must always keep service a top priority. This is specially important when you consider that often as much as 80% of a company’s revenue accrues from as few as 20% of a company’s repeat customers.
Satisfying your customers can translate in something as simple as going the extra mile for your top customers to generate word of mouth advertising, an invaluable business tool that rarely comes with a price tag on it!
4. Attract more customers
The key to attracting more customers from scratch is showmanship and advertising. This doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice the quality of your products for gimmicks. It means is that you should try to find a good sales pitch that goes beyond the slogan.
Using special display cases for selling products in your general store or using flyers and direct mail campaigns are all good methods for increasing the notoriety and potential for sales on site.
Having a website and updating it with fresh, targeted information is another step towards welcoming more customers. With the array of tools and possibilities that eCommerce offers, it’s never too far from the question to have an online store where you’ll be able to make your products available to a global audience.
5. Add value
This goes hand in hand with a sales strategy. To offer something extra to go along with your product. When your customers take something home with them it helps remind them of your business and invites them to come back to you.
A manufacturer of travel bags makes a deal with a car rental company to give away a free bag every time a customer rents a car for three or more days. the car rental company benefits because people are attracted by the special offer. The manufavturer of the travel bag benefits because the name and product are put in front of the public. If you’re entertaining you can give away a free prize for the first 500 tickets sold to your event. Free gifts and new ideas will help keep your product’s name in front of the consumer.
6. Educate your staff
Keep your salespeople informed. Teach them how to effectively sell your product and keep them up to date on new business ventures or changes in invenory. When it’s their turn to sell you should help them out.
This falls into a relatively new category in the market called Service Design, in which existing customers and prospective buyer are approached in a carefully crafted manner prepared to answer potential questions, requests and to provide an overal corteous way that reflects the core values of your organization and will project your business in a way that will be welcomed by customers the next time your sales people approach them.
7. Simplicity rules
Sometimes simplicity and generic quality can help you sell your product too. When the market is saturated with products that offer an overload of features and abundant attributes, by advertising the lower price, simplicity, and quality of your products and services, you may attract a number of customers who don’t want, or need the bigger name brands.
Sticking with concepts that have been proven and adding a little extra will improve the odds against failure. Sometimes this translates into putting survival ahead of innovation.
8. Learn from your competitors
Use search engines to keep track of similar products and services, visit their websites and premises regularily to keep an eye out on . Attend exhibitions and visit their websit
9. Capitalize on flaws
If your business has run into an unfortunate situation due to either a flaw in it’s operations or the unpredictable business cycles of the economy, dont give up. Promote!
This may very well be the best time to device a way to draw customers in despite the unfavorable climate. If the atmosphere is not ideal for your business to proliferate, you’ll need plenty of innovative ideas to bring in first-time customers. Sometimes moving your merchandise or services and advertising them where your customers are can help them gain popularity.
10. Know your business
Never take your products or services for granted. Know your business, look at it frequently and try it out if you can. Listen to criticism and learn your weaknesses before your competirors can.
Be aware that no product lasts forever. Many times it requires innovation and constant updating to keep your business competitive and to refresh it’s image when it’s no longer capable of attracting more custumers.