Customers are the lifeblood of your company, and to be able to make your business flourish, you need to keep this stream steady. Still, attracting new customers for your business is not an easy task. With competition this strong nowadays, one has to approach this issue with all the seriousness it deserves.

Here are 5 strategies you can consider implementing.

Make use of your data

To attract customer attention, you need to have a very clear idea of who they are so that you are able to target them with your marketing campaigns.

You can’t expect to have good results if your target audience is defined as a millennial or a woman in her thirties. The clearer the vision you have of your ideal consumer, the more specific your marketing message will be, and the better it will resonate with your target.

Use data you have on your customers to create your buyer persona, and if possible, even several of them, so that you can segment your campaigns according to their differences.

Data you need to collect so that you can achieve this goal are:

• Personal characteristics. Make sure you know the age, gender, and location of your customers, as well as their family status, income, and education.
• Professional role. What type of industry do they work in, what is their position in their company?
• Values and goals. What are the things they value most in their lives? What are their professional and private goals?
• Pain points. What challenges are your customers facing?
• Influences and sources. Where do your customers search for information? Whom do they trust? What kind of content do they consume?

When you are able to answer these questions, you’ll be able to produce content and campaigns, which will fit the needs of your prospects, and significantly raise the odds of converting them into buying customers.

Get referrals and recommendations

You’ve probably heard a thousand times before that it costs much more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. In fact, some claim that the monetary value of acquisition is as much as 5 times higher than retention.

Still, your current customers hold more than just monetary value for your business. They can be your brand ambassadors in their own private circles, by starting and keeping word of mouth about your company alive and constantly spreading.

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the best ways to attract customer attention and ultimately new customers. Statistics say that 90% of consumers value the recommendations they get from their families, friends, and colleagues, while 74% find word-of-mouth a key influencing factor when making their purchasing decisions.

To leverage word-of-mouth marketing and make it work for your benefit, try some of the following techniques:

• Start a referral program. Incentivize your loyal customers with rewards for their engagement.
• Ask your top customers to leave their reviews on your website or other digital places. Some estimations say that around 77% of customers would leave a review if asked and if the process is convenient.
• Connect your company with thought-leaders in your niche or relevant influencers, which is a kind of social proof of your trustworthiness and reliability.
• Engage your customers to create authentic content and post it on social media.
• Offer discounts and giveaways. Your current and prospective customers are likely to engage with such content on their social media channels and spread the news about it with their networks.

Be visible locally

Nearly 46% of all Google searches are local, and most of these searches result in calling or visiting a local store within the very same day. If you want to attract customer attention, you have to be highly ranked within those searches, meaning you have to do a local SEO.

Your website needs to be properly optimized for getting top ratings in local searches. This means you need to have relevant keywords, anchors, NAP details, as well as relevant links to trustworthy sites. You also need to send good behavioural signals to Google, such as click-through rate, check-ins etc.

Still, a local SEO doesn’t end up optimizing your website to appear in local searches. An important part of getting high rankings is owning your Google My Business listing. You need to make sure you’ve entered your NAP details, as well as all other information your customers might find relevant and useful, such as your working hours, website etc. You can use GMB to share news about events, discounts, new products, and special offers and have them presented directly in the searches.

Other things influence your position in search results too, such as review signals – quantity and diversity of reviews, and social signals – engagement on Google and social media.

Position yourself as an expert

To acquire the attention of your potential customers, you may try to position yourself as a trustworthy and credible source of information in your industry. This may not be an easy task and you might need some time to establish such a position. Once you do, people will gladly do business with you and recommend your products and services. Here are some things you can do to push things forward:

• Have your own blog. Write about evergreen or fresh topics in your industry, focus on your customers’ pain points and try offering them a solution that works.
• Write guest posts for relevant blogs and websites in your industry.
• Take part in webinars or podcasts.
• Engage with your customers in local or specialized groups.
• Or simply growthhack Twitter to work for your business.

This will surely attract customer attention. Make sure that each piece of content you provide for your prospects adds value to their lives and is worth their time.

Hold in-person events

Even though you can reach almost everyone now through social media, the impact you make in-person can hardly be compared to the one you make in digital surroundings.

Many small businesses leverage this practice and hold public workouts or organize tasting events so that they are able to communicate directly to their potential customers. You can use such an event as a chance to get email addresses or other contact details of those interested in your products or services or have them sign-up for freebies or discounts. You can also create a hashtag that your event visitors can use to share their photos or other user-generated material on social media or even engage them with a contest and get them further involved with your company.

By including some of these strategies into your marketing efforts, you’ll get more customer attention and more qualified leads for growing your business. By following-up on these practices and constantly listening to the needs of your customers, you’ll get more conversions, and hopefully, more sales.

---

About the author: Michael Deane has been working in marketing for almost a decade and has worked with a huge range of clients, which has made him knowledgeable on many different subjects. He has recently rediscovered a passion for writing and hopes to make it a daily habit. You can read more of Michael’s work at Qeedle and on Twitter.

When not blogging (or working), Michael can usually be spotted on the track, doing his laps, or with his nose deep in the latest John Grisham.