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Use your own insights
Write down what you already know about your existing customers – gender, age, demographics, income, location, likes and dislikes.
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Collect data
Send out a questionnaire to past and current customers, or friends and contacts, to collect some data.
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Have a focus
Don’t be afraid to create a niche and to make it as narrow as possible.
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Think about your proposition
Understand the problems that you solve and who they might apply to.
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Picture your target audience
Build a customer profile of your (imaginary) ideal customer with as much detail as possible about them so that you can picture an actual person to market to.
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Check out the competition
Do some research into your competitor’s customers – who they are and what marketing channels they use to reach them.
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Utilise publicly available data
Use YouGovProfiles to profile people who like similar brands.
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Tap into social media
Use social media advertising to test different segments like age or location and see which have the best results.
How do I get customers to come to my website for free?
Getting free traffic to your website from search engines is clearly important as it lightens your reliance on paid activity. This is known as organic searching (as opposed to paid searching).
Many customers who use search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing) don’t go beyond the first page of suggestions, so it’s important to ensure that the way your website is created and used helps to push it up the listings. The process of doing this is called search engine optimisation (SEO).
Here are some facts that reinforce why SEO is so important.
There are some best practice rules you should follow when building your website and creating content. Whilst you shouldn’t expect instant results, follow these rules and you’ll put yourself in a strong position.
- Keywords – Make sure that your content and metadata – the unseen data behind the web pages – contains words and phrases that your customers are likely to use in their searches.
- Links back – Identify well-respected sites in your industry sector that attract lots of traffic. Contact the sites and try to persuade them that it would be mutually beneficial for them to include a link to your site. In return, offer them a link on your own site. Submit your details to reputable directories, which will list your contact details and provide a link to your website.
- Mobile – Another optimisation factor that’s recently emerged is how well a website displays on different devices. For example, if someone is searching for your website on their smartphone but your website hasn’t been designed to display well on a phone screen, your site is less likely to rank high in a search.
- Keep it fresh – Having a blog area that is regularly updated tells Google that your site is fresh and current, whilst increasing the number of pages that you can appear in search results for.
- Go local – Local SEO tactics are important for smaller businesses that might not be blogging or creating a lot of content. Make sure your site is in the appropriate registries and all of your information is up to date.
Many of the things that make your website good for search engines go hand-in-hand with an engaging customer experience. For example, by updating content regularly – such as showcasing new products or adding more tips about using your services – you’ll not only encourage customers to keep coming back to see what’s new but also help to push up your search engine ranking.
Many businesses use outside specialists to help them optimise their websites. Here’s a tip: if you want to find SEO experts, search for them online and see how high they appear in the organic search list as opposed to the ones for paid for adverts – this will show you how good they are at optimising their own site.
Your website may be indexed by the main search engines without you needing to do anything, but you can submit your site to them. Each search engine has a different process for submission; submitting your website exactly as they specify will increase your chances of getting a good listing.
To submit your website to the key search engines go to the following sites:
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Print
Have a think if your business lends itself to promotion via leaflets, posters, magazine or newspaper adverts. Do similar businesses use these channels?
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Events and exhibitions
Particularly if you have a product to sell, nothing beats getting your business out there in front of people to generate sales and feedback.
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Public speaking
See if you can speak at events or get on the radio – shout about what you do and be known as the expert in your field.
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Sponsorship
Local level sponsorship (say a new piece of kit for a sports club) is a good way for local businesses to connect with local people and demonstrate goodwill and a care for the community.
