Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2013; the recommended reading for 2013 and the advice on free online advertising and discount coupons reflect marketing practice at that time.
The first thing we need to do is try to identify the reasons why customers aren’t coming into our business. If we draw up a list, the possible, and practically the only, reasons would come down to these:
- Customers don’t know our business (they don’t know we exist).
- The business is in the wrong location.
- Our product or service is not as good as our competitors’.
- Our product or service simply has no market (there is no demand for it).
Whatever the problem with our business, there is a solution, and we just need to get down to work, unless the problem is that the business has no market. That problem may have no solution. For example, in the middle of the technological age, selling typewriters would be a terrible business, and so would being a retailer of a product that department stores sell at half the price.
Once the problem has been identified, it is a matter of drawing up a strategy, which, luckily, shouldn’t be too difficult these days. Recommended reading: 10 steps to improve your business in 2013
If our business is well hidden and customers don’t know about us, we have to make them aware of us
Today, with the internet, physical location doesn’t matter for some businesses, as long as they have a good shop window online. As we always say, the advantage of the internet is that the website of a business with €30,000 in turnover can look even more professional than those of companies with €2 million in turnover. To make our business more profitable, we will probably need to invest in advertising in the short term so that it pays off in the medium term.
(Read: How to improve your business’s sales using the internet)
Advertise in traditional media such as local newspapers, and use the free advertising the internet offers (a Facebook page, a corporate blog, etc.). It may be a good idea to use discount coupons for a while to get yourself known. The possibilities are endless. It is a matter of trying strategies until you find the one that works. Read: 5 ways to grow your business.
Give your business a facelift
Sometimes our business is well located, even on a street with lots of foot traffic, but it looks neglected, dirty, run-down…
So it may be time to swap our company’s logo for one that looks more professional, to replace the awning or the shopfront if it is damaged, or simply to change the colour so that people can see something has changed.
Study your competitors, review your prices, get up to date with your industry again. Bring in innovative new products your competitors don’t have, run loss-leader offers, and even hire a salesperson part-time to bring you new customers (public relations).
If your business is new and you don’t even have your first customers yet, we gave some tips for attracting those first customers to your business.
Use the three principles of selling in business
When a company carries out a plan to sell more, it basically comes down to getting more customers, more sales per customer and bigger sales per customer. Although it may sound like the same thing, it isn’t. We explained this in How to sell more in your business.
In the same way, we gave 5 marketing strategies to sell more at Christmas, although they don’t only apply to Christmas, and you can use those strategies to increase your sales at any time of year.
In short, capturing our market’s attention would mean making the most of our existing customers, selling more to them and winning new ones. Renegotiating with our suppliers to get better prices, and even looking for new suppliers. Adding original or more innovative products to our business, investing in advertising, changing the image of our business if necessary, and getting everything we can out of the internet.
Remember that every problem has a solution; it probably won’t be easy, but there is one.
Further reading
- 9 tips for entrepreneurs from Richard Branson
- 6 business ideas for young entrepreneurs
- Business mistakes four successful people learned from
- The best advice nine successful business people ever received
- 18 business lessons you’ll learn sooner or later
Featured image: Drew Coffman, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
