How to get closer to your customers in 2020

Did you know that it’s significantly more cost-effective selling to existing customers than finding new customers? Client acquisition can cost as much as 9 times more than selling to your existing customers. The probability of selling to a new customer is said to be in the range of 5 – 20%, against 60-70% probability of selling to existing customers.

Selling to your existing customer just makes business sense, but to sell to them, you need to be able to understand and predict their needs. The better you understand them, the better their customer experience will be and the more likely they become of turning into advocators and promoters of your business. But just how do you get closer to your customer? Three strategies that will help you achieve this are:

1. Harness the power of social media

Unless you are running social media advertisements, social platforms are a predominantly free medium to expand your business. By bringing the “human” aspect of your business and its culture into the social space, you position yourself to engage with your customers and by understanding what in the social spaces it is that they react to, engage with, and so forth, you are able to better connect with them. Use those connections to construct surveys about their needs and requirements and to start new conversations about their needs, so that you are positioned to construct solutions that answer to those needs.

2. Perform surveys

If you want to know what matters to your customers, the best way to find out is by asking them directly. Surveys that take a few minutes to answer are a great way to invite feedback and are more likely to be answered than a lengthy survey. Construct the survey to focus on the information that you require most and consider questions that are yes/no in type as well as a few open ended, for those customers willing to expand on their responses. If you anticipate a poor response to your survey, get in front of it by offering an incentive or a prize to entice more survey entries.

Be sure to document the responses that you receive in your customer management system and then turn that information into marketing material so that your customer knows that you have heard them and acted on their feedback.

3. Host or co-host an event

A social or similar event will place you in the same room as your customer and give you an opportunity to speak directly to them. If you are a member of a business network, consider co-hosting this event with one or more of your network partners as this will assist you in introducing your business to new customers that you can build new relationships with. Consider an incentive such as a lucky draw from a business card box – those attending the event would then leave their contact details with you, and you could contact them after the event to start a new customer conversation that could turn into a new journey together.

Getting to know your customers requires an investment of time and money, but it will position you to understand first-hand what your customers’ needs are so that you can construct a solution that answers directly to that need. This kind of insight will save you from falling prey to an advertising failure down the line.