7 Easy and Affordable Ways to Attract New Customers Online

A business can only thrive in a ferocious market when they’ve got the right strategy to keep attracting new customers and retaining them as well.

Even if you’ve built up a loyal core customer base, attracting new customers can be a bit challenging. By understanding what digital marketing is you can apply some tactics to help you in getting more online customers and still manage costs at the same time. 

In this article, we’ll share seven tips you can apply to attract new customers online.

1. Form business partnerships

Building meaningful partnerships is the foundation for a successful business and it is one of the cheapest ways to attract new customers.

A partnership is a voluntary collaborative agreement between two or more parties. This means that all participants agree to work together to achieve a common purpose or undertake a specific task, share risks, responsibilities, resources, competencies, and benefits.

To get started make a list of the companies you’ll love to partner with and approach them. Choose companies that complement the service or product you offer.

Good examples can be between saas companies, a makeup artist and a hairstylist, an event manager and a caterer, or a social media marketer and a video content creator.

When you find the company that matches your needs, negotiate and agree on the terms and conditions that bind the partnership. Remember to set clear expectations before you start working together. 

You can follow these 6 tips to make your business partnership work:

• Share the same values.
• Have a track record together.
• Clearly define each partner’s role and responsibilities.
• Select the right business structure.
• Put every agreement in writing
• Be honest with each other.

 

Building quality business partnerships
is one of the keys to running
a successful business.

 

2. Build a responsive website

A website is one of the best marketing tools you can ever have for your business. It represents your business online and serves as a place where customers can visit at any time to learn more about your business.

To help you attract more customers, build a website that’s user-friendly, mobile-friendly, search engine optimized, and fast. A good digital marketing agency can help you build a bespoke and professional website. 

But if you’ll be doing it yourself make sure you follow good web development best practices like:

• Choose the domain name extension that matches your kind of business.
• Use a responsive design.
• Don’t use stretched images on your website.
• Don’t upload videos directly to your website, host them on video hosting platforms like Youtube and Vimeo.
• Optimize the alt tags of your website images.
• Create search-optimized web content.
• Pay attention to on-page SEO when creating your web content.
• Create blog categories so your website structure is easy to understand.

 

A website is the first impression
you leave on an online customer.

 

3. Create relevant blog posts

After building your website populate it with relevant blog posts to help you get found on search engines. Blogging on topics that address your customer pain points would position your business as a leader in your industry and help you drive traffic.

Sites that get more web visitors rank higher on Google search results page and are perceived to be thought leaders. More web visitors means more sales opportunities for your business.

To help you create the kind of content that can rank high on search results you’d need a strong SEO strategy and a content plan. Your content plan should include when to create and publish high-quality content.

When people find your content valuable and interesting to read they’ll share it with their network(who might be a prospective client). If you’re not sure where to begin check this out to understand the kind of content that drives web traffic.

 

Every business intending to attract
new customers must have an
SEO strategy and a content plan.

 

4. Be active on social media

Actively listening and engaging with conversations taking place in your field would help you create brand awareness and attract new customers. 

Use social mentioning tools to track a variety of words and phrases related to your business and industry. Monitor relevant keywords and hashtags used on social media, and create social media posts that use those hashtags. 

Follow your competitors on social media and feel free to give helpful advice when their users indicate they are having problems with their service. Avoid criticizing your competitors on social media, focus on being helpful.

Another way to get new customers is by using testimonials and social proof in your social media content. So prospective clients can trust you to solve their problems.

 

The more you engage people on social media
the more customers you attract.

 

5. Invest in paid media advertising

With paid media advertising you can reach a specific audience and get quick returns on your investment. You can target customers based on their interests, location, and demographics so you can attract those most likely to purchase from you.

To make sure you utilize your marketing budget and avoid wasting funds, place ads on the platforms you know your audiences are active on. Narrow your campaigns to specific audiences so your chances of getting more customers would be higher.

If you’re running a Facebook ad you can target lookalike audiences, audiences that share similar characteristics with your present customers. 

 

Always create a strategy before
launching your campaigns.

 

6. Offer new customer discounts

The search for valuable deals would always be a consumer behaviour and being able to offer them affordable service would put you upfront for acquisition. 

This doesn’t mean you drop down your prices instantly, rather you give them an offer they’ll find difficult to resist.

If 96% of consumers use coupons and 92% of consumers always look for a deal when shopping then chances are you’ll attract new customers faster using this method.

Offers like cash discounts, percentage discounts, free shipping, value-added offers, member-exclusive rewards, and product bundling can be very effective.

AliExpress is a good example of a business that uses newcomer deals to attract customers as you can see in the image below

And while give-away might not seem like the best plan for a small business looking to grow, it would pay off in the long run. 

 

Grab the attention of your target customer
with value added discounts.

 

7. Sign up with Google my business

Google My Business is a free tool that lets you manage how your local business appears across Google products, like Maps and Search.

Most customers would run a search about a product or service before making a purchase decision.

And businesses that have a verified Google my business profile would appear on the first page for a search that’s related to what they offer especially if they are located near the searcher. 

Here is a result for the search query “restaurant near me”.  

Google says 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visited a related business within a day and 28% of those searches result in a purchase.

To make your business look trustworthy you can add photos, videos, and reviews to your profile. Consider including details like a direction to your business location, opening hours, phone number, website URL, and more so prospects can take the next step easily. 

 

If you operate a local business of any kind,
getting properly set up on Google my Business is a plus.

 

Final Thoughts

Marketing is mostly affected by consumer behaviour and as you try these tips you’ll get to know which works perfectly for your customer. The results won’t be spontaneous, but they’ll surely come if you get things right.

We believe you’d attract new customers this season and we’d love to know how it went applying these tips. Let us know in the comment section below.