Marketing to Get New Customers Is Tough

Think about all the advertisements you see on any given day. If there’s a space, there’s an ad. Newspapers, magazines, billboards, the sides of buses, the roofs of taxicabs, hotel keys, and flip-down trays on airplanes all carry ads. There are even ads on the backs of bathroom stall doors.

Television and radio have long been supported by advertising, and you’ll probably agree that the amount of broadcast advertising seems like it’s surpassing actual programming content.

We’re also exposed to a constant stream of messages vying for our attention online. Search ads, flash animation, pop-up boxes. With every click, there’s another advertisement!

There’s no escaping marketing messages.

Marketing to get new customers can be expensive and time-consuming. How can you compete? How can you get customers into your business?

Despite the rise of the Internet, direct mail advertising is still not only viable, it is incredibly effective. Just look in your mailbox if you don’t agree. It’s filled with postcards and letters enticing you to open them and read them. It must be working, or businesses wouldn’t continue using this time-tested marketing method.

Unfortunately, direct mail advertising can be expensive and time-consuming. You’ve got to develop a campaign (or pay someone else to do it), design and print the ads (or pay someone else to do it), buy and/or maintain your list and mail it (or pay someone else to do it), and finally, measure the results (or pay someone else to do it).

Getting ’Em

Most entrepreneurs spend a lot of time, energy, and resources on customer acquisition, and any entrepreneur will tell you that time, energy, and resources are the three most valuable commodities. They are also three of the most expensive and difficult marketing commodities to sustain.

I am an eager and continuous student of marketing and business. If you’re like me, you’ve probably also read countless books and articles about different marketing strategies designed to help you get more new customers into your business.

With every passing week, and with the constant expansion of the Internet’s power, it seems that there’s always some new marketing strategy or tool to learn about, with each proclaiming to be the best way to get more customers. No doubt, it’s a challenge to figure out what works best for attracting new customers to your business.

When I speak around the country about newsletter marketing and effective customer retention strategies, I like to use the leaky bucket analogy.

Think of your company as a giant bucket of water. The water in your bucket represents your customers—the lifeblood of your business. Every drop of water that leaks out of your bucket is a lost customer and lost sales, including all future revenue. Ouch!

If your company is like a leaky bucket—and every business is to some degree—then it is paramount to your survival that you continuously fill your bucket with more water. After all, no water, no business!

So the question is: How leaky is your bucket? How many holes does your bucket have that are letting your customers constantly pour out?

Be honest—does your bucket simply have a few leaks around the seams that let customers occasionally seep out, or is it riddled it with holes, and customers are gushing out from every one of them?

If I can be blunt, my guess is that your bucket has more holes than you even know about. But don’t be too embarrassed; most businesses do.

There are two ways to keep the water level in your bucket full and, therefore, customers in your business:

1)     Constantly add more water, new customers, while previous customers continue to pour out.

2)     Plug the leaks in your business, and keep the water you’ve already got in your bucket.

Ten. Embrace your leadership role. Let’s face it, people look to you for guidance. You’re the head of your company, the authority, the guru, the problem-solver. People, especially in this economy, do get worried. They look to others for leadership and guidance. They look to others for wisdom and confidence. This is a very, very good reason for sending out a monthly newsletter—you keep promoting yourself as the go-to resource in your industry.

Keep in mind at least 90 percent of the world are followers and as much as 10 percent of the world are leaders. Choose to be a leader. Wake up every day and ask yourself, “What am I doing to behave like a leader?”

To wrap it up, if you can change your negative attitudes and behaviors and adapt a mindset and strategies that set yourself apart, if you can wake up every day and embrace the challenges, if you are grateful for what you have, avoid the negativity, and surround yourself with positive people, if you take action and implement on multiple fronts, then you and your business will have an awesome ride.