To be successful in business, you have to attract customers. I’m not just talking about those first-time customers, but also those who will purchase from you on a regular basis. Customers put you in business in the first place and allow you keep your enterprise operating. Just the same, a lack of customers will force you out of business in short order.

You can never honestly claim to be “in business” until you first have customers. Of course, you can register a company, lease office space, invest in equipment, develop or acquire a product to sell, and hang out your shingle. But, until that first sale, all you have are expenses.

Few businesses fail when they have a steady stream of customers willing to spend money in exchange for their service/product.

Companies that establish workable systems to consistently attract customers are those most likely to succeed in the long term.  Customers are the greatest asset of any business. It’s the customer list that significantly adds to the value of a business.

Customers mean revenue. They’re the very force of every business (large and small); therefore, your focus as a business owner should be the continuous building and nurturing of your own customer list. This is what sustains your enterprise, gives you an income and enables you to consistently expand and earn even greater sales and profits.

Acquiring new customers and then keeping them for life is what it’s all about. Ideally, it should be a matter of delivering superior products and service, then renewing the sales relationship with each new customer so they repeatedly and happily purchase from you. With this kind of customer satisfaction, you’ll not only turn one-time buyers into lifetime customers, you’ll also automatically gain many more first-time customers by word-of mouth referrals.

Business success begins with the first-time customer. Unless you already have a large list of customers,  your primary focus should be attracting more first-timers on an ongoing basis.

So where do you begin when attracting more customers is your goal?  In a word…marketing.  Effective marketing is what brings customers to you. A dependable, consistent marketing plan and implementation system delivers customers efficiently, on a regular basis, and for a much lower investment than the hit-and-miss methods many business owners attempt. No business can achieve optimal success without solid and consistent marketing. Without an effective marketing program in action, your growth and success in any business is unnecessarily handicapped.
 
A simple definition of marketing would be anything that you do to get or keep customers. Your newsletters, social media posts, ads, newsletters, websites, sales letters, direct mail packages, brochures, etc., all represent part of the marketing picture. The same goes for your sales personnel, service staff, letterhead, business cards, as well as the sign on your office or shop.

Every representation of your company, every contact you have with prospects or customers, every perception a prospect or customer gathers is marketing.  Marketing is a never-ending function of business. You are always marketing whether you realize it or not. And every facet of marketing either helps your business prosper or it hinders growth and profitability. Everything is marketing and  marketing is everything to your success!

If you want to expand in the most expedient, cost-effective and proven way, you need to take a good look at your overall marketing strategy. When you realize that “everything is marketing”, you begin to look at your business operation in a whole new light. You’ll see obvious mistakes when you consider how your customer or prospect might view a particular situation, event, or marketing document.

There are four key factors of successful marketing to consider:

1. Product/Service. You must have a quality product or service with widespread appeal and you need to be either competitively priced or offer something that’s superior to what anybody else offers.
2. Prospects. You need to have a market to sell to. Who are your prospects? Is the market large enough to serve your constant growth?
3. Media. You must have a way to get your message across to your market. What methods provide the best, most reliable access to your market?
4. Message. The message is your communication with your market. It’s everything you put into your advertising and marketing materials to convince prospects and clients to buy.

All four factors are essential to marketing success.

Think of your business as a bridge that has four main columns supporting the entire weight of the bridge. The four columns are the four factors mentioned above.  These four columns are the supporting structures that provide the rock-solid foundation of your business. A deficiency in any one area throws the whole bridge into peril. In your business, any weakness severely hampers your profit opportunities. When all four areas are strong, your chances of success are exponentially multiplied.

The best place to start is to spot the market first. Identify a market with “wants”, then determine which of those desires your product/service can fulfill. Next, decide on the media that will enable you to access this market segment and then prepare a strong sales message. In order to attract first-time customers economically, you’ll need to develop an appealing marketing message—one that gives you a clear competitive advantage—and deliver it to the best prospects in the most effective and cost-efficient way.