How to get your customers in the door

Introduction

With so many people vying for our hard earned money, it is easy as a consumer to shy away from the new and simply stick to the products and services that we are loyal to. This mindset is exactly what marketers are trying to break through in order to introduce the consumers of their target markets to the latest and greatest products that their company can offer. But getting your customers in the door can many times prove to be the most difficult task in sales. It is your job as a member of the marketing team to come up with a way of interesting potential, current and former customers in what you have to offer to the point that they seek you out and come to visit your establishment.

Instructions

The likelihood of seeing a sale through to completion is greatly enhanced once you have been able to convince your customer that it would be worth their while to walk through the doors of your establishment. All of the hard work happens before you are able to see your customer face to face and relieve them of their spending money. It is that hard work of getting your customers in the door that will be discussed in the following steps:

Steps



• Grand opening incentives - There are many ways you can get people to come to your store. One of the best ways is to have a grand opening, even if you are just wanting to get a new approach and just remodeled, you can have a grand re-opening. These types of incentives are usually accompanied by large crowds that want to get some type of product for free. Many businesses use raffles or other types of prize giveaways to get people to the new store and to become acquainted with what is available there.
•  Coupons - Many people use coupons to justify a purchase that they may not normally make or would normally save up to buy instead. Having coupons available can induce people who may not normally be interested in a product to actually become buyers. The people who bought anyway don't associate coupons with any kind of diminished value and the just continue to buy as well. Coupons may be a very good way to expand your customer base.
•  Free trials - Free trials are sometimes complicated and almost always require some type of "fine print" at the bottom of a contract. You may need to approach this type of marketing with caution unless you understand very well the problems that can be associated with free trials.
•  Special offers for first time customers - Retaining old customers is essential to all business, but it is also important to entice new customers to join. A great way to achieve this is to offer first time or new customers special incentives for joining or coming in. This may be a waived fee or membership charge or could even be free services offered the first time it is used. Be creative with what you offer new customers.

Conclusion/other suggestions

As you have been able to briefly ready about, there are many different strategies and tactics for getting your customers in the door. Some strategies are more committed than others, meaning that the investment of time, money, etc. will not always be the same. But if you are able to justify the means by the end result and your company is able to see an increase in sales because of your efforts, chances are that you will be happy with the success that you have found. Getting your customers in the door is not a cut and dry task. Different customers will need different motivation to make that step and come that close to making the commitment of buying. Your job as a marketer is to do whatever you can to raise awareness of the product and in doing so provide the customer with as much information as possible that will make them feel good about doing business with you and spending their money on the product or service that you have to offer them.

Rating: 0/5 (0 votes cast)

---

Categories: Advertising, Branding, Customer Service,

Help others find this article:
Socializer, Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, StumbleUpon

Favorites: Add to favorites
Tags: