Creating a successful operation that looks good to others is not an easy task, especially since you have to fight for survival during the early stages. Establishing a great infrastructure and organizing your team, as well as separating your personal views from your corporate values (in order to be perceived as more professional), is not simple. Needless to say, all of this has to be achieved on short notice (let’s face it, no one wants to do business with a company that’s still a work in progress) and you need to do all of this on a modest budget. With that in mind and without further ado, here are several ways in which you can realize all of this.
1. Tell a story
If you hope to achieve success in the business world, what you need to do is have a good origin story to offer to your clients. Everyone likes to hear about the triumph of an underdog and it’s for the best if you could portray yourself and your team in a relatable light – an ordinary person with a great business idea.
Mentioning your humble origins will also portray you as someone who has worked hard for their success instead of achieving it overnight. You don’t have to retell your entire path to success, seeing that your audience probably has no time or patience to hear the full story. Yet, briefly reflecting on where you came from and where you are now is always a great idea.
As for the storytelling techniques you should employ, try to address your audience directly, and stick to the point. Most importantly, your story needs to contain the 5 C’s (circumstance, curiosity, characters, conversations, and conflict). The most common misconception comes from the idea that your business (or you yourself) is the protagonist when this pivotal role should clearly go to the customer.
your story needs to contain the 5 C’s – circumstance, curiosity, characters, conversations, and conflict
2. Make a great site
The next thing you need to focus on is making a great site where your audience will be able to contact you or get informed on a broad range of topics. Generally speaking, hiring professionals to design the site may be expensive, but it’s usually worth the investment. Other than this, you need to invest a fair chunk in your digital marketing (especially your SEO) in order to boost its visibility. What good is even the best website if no one can find it? Here, everything matters, even the extension that you go for. Sure, .com is a standard option; however, opting for an extension like .me TLD can give you numerous wordplay options that would resound strongly with your target audience and leave an overall great impression.
3. Work on your brand awareness
Brand recognition is the end goal, but in order to get there, you first need to raise brand awareness to a satisfactory level. For this to work, you must focus on two major issues – the message you’re sending and the channel you’re sending it through. These two often work in combination. One example can be seen in the world of digital marketing where your website needs to be admirable, regardless if you’re currently using social media, SEO or email marketing. The same goes for traditional methods for raising brand awareness. For instance, instead of just using a landline for your customer service, you need to pick a vanity number like 1800 numbers in Australia in order to appear more reputable.
Learn more about branding below:
- 4 Basic Steps in Creating a Brand
- Self-Branding: How to Separate Yourself from the Crowd & Build Credibility on the Internet
- How to Make a Brand Statement Through Your Physical Structures
4. Focus on your existing customers
Generating return customers is a great idea from the ROI standpoint, seeing as how only 8 percent of the regulars make as much as 40 percent of your entire profit. Nonetheless, this is far from being the only reason why you need to focus on your existing customers. If you do this right, you’ll gain a lot of brand ambassadors, who will promote your business, products, and services. Also, the word about your incredible customer service and positive customer experience will be exactly what it takes for your business to be seen as a force to be reckoned with. Lastly, satisfied customers are more likely to leave reviews and rate your business positively on business databases like Google My Business and similar platforms.
Let more about growing your customer base below:
- How to Win Back Old Customers
- How to Build Effective Customer Service Strategy for Your Online Business
- Effective Tips for Handling Unhappy Customers
5. Reach out to new people
Once you have all of the above-listed three areas covered, you can now afford to turn your focus towards new audiences. The reason we put this last is due to the fact that it’s quite easy to get sidetracked here. Namely, you have your primary demographic (qualified leads) but a lot of new business owners fear that if they commit to this one demographic too hard, they’ll be missing out on everyone else. Truth be told, this is a better alternative than casting a net that’s too wide and missing everyone. By specializing, choosing a sub-niche and channeling all your efforts towards one carefully chosen and researched demographics, you can get a much better cost-per-conversion ratio.
Conclusion
Naturally, these five methods are merely a tip of the iceberg of all you can do in order to attract customers and make your business into a reputable entity within its respective industry. One more thing you need to know is the fact that one-size-fits-all solutions tend to be highly ineffective, which is why you must know your business and your industry inside out for this to work.