Ensure a Smooth, Clean Onboarding Process

Whether your business involves selling products or services, convenience is the name of the game. The easier it is to get started, the more likely prospects (or leads) will be to follow through with converting into happily paying customers. Enabling the opposite (obstacles that could make onboarding difficult) will only deter future customers, harming your revenue stream and word-of-mouth reputation in the process.

Gather Pools of Customer Feedback

Not all consumers are created equal and assuming so will be your downfall. Regardless of your business or industry, the more you know about your competitors and customers, the better. And what better way to do so than to get the intel right from the horses’ mouth? Some of the best methods for collecting customer intel?

Conduct Surveys: Sending surveys via email, direct mail, social media, etc. is a great way to ask direct questions and get direct feedback. It’s ideal for filling in the grey areas when unsure about product design, brand acceptance, etc. Your best bet is to offer some form of incentive for filling out – also, make them short and simple for more entries!

Focus Groups: For larger product launches or campaigns, it pays to gather samples of people to provide in-depth feedback. Some of the info may appear abstract, some direct – consider hiring some analysts to make the most of the information you gather.

Social Media Polls: Arguing with a co-worker over a small detail? Run a quick poll with a small ad spend behind it to get a single response from one, direct question.

If you’re serious about gathering quality customer intel, consider hiring a trusted market research firm.

See Customer Service As An Investment

There was once a time where having a customer service team was seen as a novelty. Not anymore! Pretty much regardless of your industry, trust there will be healthy competition at all price points, so fail to help your customers out and they’ll leave for a competitor without hesitation. This is particularly true in the social media era – a time where consumers look to Twitter and other networks for real-time assistance (minus the hold music).

Bottom line, it costs a whole lot less to keep your customers happy (and paying) than it would to maintain a revolving door of a customer base – trust us. Having to aggressively market and advertise for the *chance* of maintaining revenue pales in comparison to just keeping a loyal customer base present.

Set Up a Solid Loyalty Program

Like it or not, consumers want incentives for pretty much everything. They want to be rewarded and guess what – if you don’t do it, your competitors certainly will. The best choice? Set up a strong customer loyalty program, which creates a plethora of benefits for your business.

This works to encourage customer loyalty (increasing the value of each customer to acquire and keep), while providing an avenue to collect their shopping and spending habits, which can be used to personalize your long-term marketing efforts.

The post Tips to Improve Customer Retention appeared first on Newton Search.

Invest in Local SEO

When people want information, they ‘Google it’. Get your business in front of potential customers, boost your SEO profile by setting up your free Google My Business profile. This is equipped with your website, address, phone number, pictures, store hours and reviews that people can reference.

Community Relations

People generally love when businesses give back, especially to their communities. Partnering up with local charities and donating to good causes is a great way to put your local business in a positive light. Not only will your brand get local recognition, but they will be received in a positive light.

Run Social Media Contests

Consumers tend to prefer brands that are interactive. Social media algorithms tend to limit the reach of business pages and prioritize reach for personal pages. Run contests that encourage fans to post about your business. These posts tend to yield high engagement, which is ideal for local businesses.

Utilize Review Marketing

Yelp is one of the top platforms for customers to leave reviews, especially restaurants. In the world of reputation management, you can see this as a liability or an opportunity. Insufficient or negative reviews will deter new customers from giving your business a chance. The trick is accruing positive reviews. Not only will accruing positive reviews not deter potential business, it will actually bring you more customers than none at all! We recommend providing loyalty customers incentives, such as future discounts for leaving positive feedback on your review pages such as Yelp, Google and Facebook!

Run Events For Local Press

Local news has one thing that national news doesn’t and that’s the relevance of proximity! One thing that makes them appealing is their ability to feel more personalized. Businesses can utilize that by hosting events and asking the press if they want to cover it. TV, radio or social media coverage is a great way to get free exposure among the right publics.

Partner With Local Businesses

There’s one obvious thing you have in common with your neighbors… your location. With that said, you’re serving the same community, and while you might not have all of the same customers, word-of-mouth can be a vital part of your local marketing strategy.

Partnering with local businesses helps you reach each others’ customers, allowing you both to win. It’s even better if you can think of something that relates to both industries, that way you can bring the whole group together!

Organize + Participate in Networking Events

Piggybacking off of the idea of partnering up, network events are a great avenue for gaining exposure among potential business partners. Remember, it’s also about getting to know you and your brand, which can help create some great ideas. At the end of the day, your goal is to forge alliances, and that’s what you can do!

Run Digital Ads

Running ads on search engines and social networks can be a cost-effective way to reach your ideal customers and you can target them by location, too! Set targeted campaigns that promote local sales to increase brand awareness and foot traffic.

The post 8 Ways to Promote Your Local Business appeared first on Newton Search.

Here are the proper steps to take to get your small business on the map and customers in the door!

Establish Your Brand

• The first step boils down to the raw fundamentals. Establish what makes your business unique. What makes you stand out? This is going to shape your brand for potential customers and always consider that all future marketing and promotional efforts will come down to your brand?
• Do you like Coke or Pepsi? The infamous taste test proved that the preference of most were tied to the brands that each respective company followed.
• Your brand should have a set of characteristics and values that people identify with. That’s ultimately what makes them choose one brand over another.

Build Out Buyer Personas

Your buyer personas should reflect your ideal customers. They should highlight what kind of people will shop at your business and why. These are the type of people your brand should appeal to, your brand’s messaging and feel should accommodate these people.

Good buyer personas come from extensive research. We know it’s annoying and business owners don’t have tons of time to dedicate to things that seem insignificant, but it’s well worth the investment. Knowing who you’re targeting will help shape everything from your website to taglines, your tone of voice, creative concepts, and everything in between!

Build a Solid Website

Your website is like a bridge that connects customers to your business. It’s how they can learn about what you do and how to move forward.

Consider your ideal customer when designing your website. Even consider hiring a top web design agency! You want to focus on making everything seamless and easy for your customers, an aesthetically pleasing site is nice, but should not be your priority. Your website isn’t part of an art exhibit, you should focus on performance!

Find Avenues for Discovery

Having a great website is awesome, but it’s only as powerful as its actual potential. In other words, your website can’t be that effective if potential customers aren’t regularly finding and visiting it.

Here are some golden opportunities for generating exposure!

Search Engines

Search engines are especially fitting for local businesses. People are likely to search for things like “restaurants near me” (or anything as far as industries are concerned). Search engines are great because they bring customers to sites that offer products/services that people are directly looking for. Leveraging these search engine threads to rank for relevant keywords allow businesses to significantly increase traffic and potentially, sales!

Social Media

Your customers are using social media, so you should too! Don’t make the mistake of being present on all social networks because it’s just too time-consuming Instead, focus on 1-2 outlets that your ideal customers will be using (this is another benefit to doing persona research).

Social media not only offers a method for potential customers to find your business but also a way for them to get help! Customer service has evolved and people are looking to networks like Facebook and Twitter to contact businesses rather than calling, so being active on these networks presents a whole new opportunity for customers acquisition AND retention!

Local Press Outlets

Leveraging local press is a great way to raise awareness for your brand. You have to create something “newsworthy” and pitch it to the press in a way that serves their best interest. Getting featured in an article or covered in a TV segment will provide you with the boost you need to increase other marketing efforts.

Emails

Starting and promoting a newsletter can help nurture current and potential customers. Sending them exclusive promotions mixed with education content is a great way to establish brand loyalty and maximizing e-commerce sales.

The post How to Promote Your Small Business appeared first on Newton Search.