How to get more customers without doing more marketing

When business goes quiet, you might feel pressure to start doing more to get leads. Post more often. Take out another advert. Say yes to the networking thing. It feels productive, but most of the time the problem isn't that you're doing too little. It's that what you're already doing isn't working as hard as it should.

So here's the more useful question. Before you start doing anything new, are you getting everything you can out of what you've already got? Three areas in your business can usually be improved to help create more business, and none of them need new activity.

The people who have already shown interest

You probably have a pile of warm contacts you've forgotten about. The enquiry from four months ago that went quiet. The client from two years back you did good work for and never spoke to again. A list of email addresses sitting in a spreadsheet doing nothing at all.

These people already know what you offer. They trusted you enough to get in touch, or to buy once. The likelihood of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent, versus just 5 to 20 percent for a brand new prospect (Marketing Metrics, Farris et al., 2010). Winning back a client who already knows you is far easier than finding a new one, and it costs you nothing but a bit of follow-up. Before you go chasing new leads, go back through the old ones first.

The message

If you're getting visitors and enquiries but they're not consistently converting to customers, you need to find out what, between "interested" and "bought," isn't landing. Maybe it's something in the messaging. Perhaps the website isn't clear about who you're targeting or why you're the right call. Maybe the offer isn't clear, or the next step.

Improve that and you convert more of the traffic you already have. Same effort going in, more customers coming out.

Knowing what actually works

Most small business owners can't say which part of their marketing brings in customers. They keep doing all of it, because they're scared to stop the wrong thing. Track one simple detail, where each new enquiry comes from, and you find out fast. Then you can stop doing what doesn't work and focus on what does.

A focused approach

Marketing isn't necessarily about doing more, it's taking a targeted and focused approach. It comes from a clearer message, following up with the people who already know you, and tracking what's working and what isn't.

If you're not sure where your own leaks are, that's what a free health check is for. I'll look at what you're doing now and point you at the one or two changes that would bring in more, without adding to your week. Book a free call.