So, you already have a team of specialists, paid for the office and hosting, the kettle boils water for coffee, and you understand: it’s time to think about ways to attract customers. Suddenly, the basic strategy, popularly called “sundressed radio”, does not work. Praiseworthy feedback from family and friends about your product does not bring brand recognition beyond twenty families. To raise your reputation, you hire a specialist and give him the rest of the budget. But soon, this money ends without any visible result. Employees are dissatisfied because they are deprived of free coffee. They are the ones who do not know yet about the lack of money for office rent and salary payment. After a month, the firm closes.

Not a rainbow scenario. But it shows well what happens if you do not worry about attracting clients in time.

Timely customer acquisition is the key to success

The very first rule, the failure to comply with which is strictly punished by market laws, is to think about attracting clients in the first place. That is, even before ordering a batch of goods or materials, recruiting specialists, creating a website. Before any action to attract customers, it is necessary to identify your target audience. This is required in order to make it easier for you to allocate the budget, not dissipating into inefficient ways of promotion.

Bedouins do not need scuba diving

Let’s talk about the target audience, that is, about the specific consumer segment of the market for which your product is designed. Without a precise definition of this group, any, even terribly expensive and accurate marketing will be, at least, ineffective. To understand Central Asia you should:

decide on the geography. You are going to sell your product (offer service) to residents of Europe, Asia, States, etc;
establish a socio-demographic trait. Sex, age, presumed place of work, etc;
predict the purpose of the purchase. For representatives of your TA, the proposed product is a way to improve your social status, earn money, solve household problems, express yourself, etc;
to determine solvency. The pricing of the product and the form of its presentation also depend on this factor.

Identifying the target audience first and foremost helps to differentiate clients based on extensiveness or impulsivity. The former make purchases in a rational way, the latter based their choice on emotions.

For example, a client who sells real estate from a wooden bar complained about the lack of lids came to our firm. Clients came to the site, read the offer and left, disappointed in the text. The client’s mistake was that he promoted his project with the expectation of an impulsive buyer, while the house, unlike a dress or souvenir, is purchased after long planning and weighing all the pros and cons.

Naturally, the text that mentioned coziness, the divine feeling from the creaking floorboards and the walls, soaked with inspiration, pushed away people who were looking for information about the quadrature, features of materials and infrastructure of the area.

Briefly about attracting customers to the site

Once the target audience is identified, the direct process of attracting their attention begins. There are internal and external techniques that ensure an influx of clients.

refer to the internal receptions:

creating a convenient design (ideally, UX design);
content content content.

The external stages of client acquisition are more diverse and more expensive. They are divided by:

audio/video advertising;
work with social networks and forums;
SEO optimization;
work with partners;
reputation creation on thematic portals;

Internal methods of attracting clients

In order not to come back afterwards, we will immediately point out the following promotion options: Dorway, spamdexing, swapping, clacking. All the above are the so-called “black promotion” elements. Their use is unethical and dangerous. Search engines quickly calculate dishonest sites and punish them severely. Therefore, if you are promised an immediate increase in visitors and call these terms – safely refuse to cooperate with such companies.

And now about the methods of promoting a healthy person. We will take as a basis the fact that your product or service is implemented with the highest quality. All you have to do is to tell about them correctly and convince a potential client that it is advisable to stay on your web resource. First of all, this is achieved through a properly functioning website. Here are the hooks, thanks to which your resource will be advantageously different from its competitors:

availability of specific data. On your site should be present the current prices for goods or services, phone numbers, photos in good resolution, feedback button in a prominent place, geolocation data. All this convinces the customer of your honesty and increases his level of trust;
involving the guest in the process. We remember what we are directly involved in. For example, the number of lids on our client’s website has increased (he sells books), when we have implemented a mechanism for small tests concerning the author or the work itself. For clothing stores, a good solution would be to create a virtual fitting room, where the guest can wear a dummy in a combination of things he likes, etc.;
creation of a small bait. If your portal is informative, then let the visitor to read part of the articles for free, or use all materials for a month. Travel companies can provide customers with free cab rides, discounts in hotels, unusual souvenirs;
provoking the client to a dialogue. Arouse his curiosity. For example, the phrase: “Stunning discount, which the world has never seen” will force the guest of the site to open the link and find out what is so stunning and unprecedented in it. Just do not overdo it with epithets;
creating authority. Here you can use the blog, which, in case of placing a lot of useful information on it (at least 50 articles), will convince the client of your professionalism, and if you have any questions on the subject, he will contact you. Plus, blog plays not the last role in SEO promotion of the product.
SEO-optimization. It will not ensure victory in the battle of competitors. However, the lack of competent SEO exactly guarantees defeat. Well-optimized site is faster on the first pages of search engines, and thus the audience coverage will be greater.

External ways to attract clients on the Internet

So, no one knows about your site except for relatives and friends. The primary task is to ensure that the maximum number of potential customers see, hear or read about the products and services you offer. First of all, it is necessary to storm social networks.

Social networks

Working with social networks implies constant activity. First, you choose the platform that suits your target audience. The most suitable for our country are such resources as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. They are followed by the popularity of Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. Then you create a group and generate content. Although social networks are used as a sales channel, but they are not exactly intended for this purpose. Their main function is to increase loyalty to you.

The main methods to attract customers through social networks include:

creation of thematic content (useful material directly related to your sphere);
creation of near-thematic content (useful as well as entertainment material that is not necessarily directly related to your sphere);
communication with clients (creating an active group where everyone can get answers to any questions they are interested in).

The style of presentation of the material in social networks should not be mothballing and official. Jokes, memes and funny stories are welcome. Google Alerts will help you in collecting relevant and reliable material for news creation. Clicking on the link is enough to enter the desired tag in the search field, and the resource will show you the latest publications on your request. Another useful tool is Popsters.ru, which allows you to analyze your publications and show which topics are more interesting for Central Asia and which social networks are more in demand.

Good helpers to find clients in social networks are:

Lidscaner. A resource that analyzes comments, depending on the requests specified in them. It allows you to quickly form the right TA;
Socfind.ru. It also searches for potential clients, depending on their preferences;
PowerEditorFacebook. High-quality and free (unlike the previous two) tool that allows you to easily manage your advertising campaign. Works only on Facebook;
Smore.com. A service that makes it easy to create newsletters and announcements.

Advertising

It can be organized in social networks, as well as in search engines, thematic sites and any other famous portals. It all rests on your wallet.

Media advertising

Media advertising is the one that is placed on the most popular Internet information channels. There are several types: banners, video advertising, branding. The more popular the portal is, the more the audience will notice your products. Unfortunately, the price of such advertising also directly depends on the popularity of the site. A little practical advice – be original. Classic banners, although still one of the most common forms, but rarely give satisfactory results. Users have learned how to ignore them.

Контекстная реклама

The content of this type of advertising depends on user requests. It allows to influence already potential customers who are at least interested in the service or product offered by you. The main advantages of this type of customer attraction are its relative cheapness and efficiency, as well as the ability to monitor the funds spent. You can place contextual ads in Yandex. Direct, Runner, Google.Adwords.

Teaser advertisement

Its correct implementation can get a significantly larger number of potential customers at minimal cost than when ordering media or contextual alternatives. Teaser is a kind of teaser that consists of an image and a small text, prompting the user to click. The impudence of the teaser directly depends on the advertisement he advertises, the advertiser of such a teaser, in short, the main thing is not to overdo it. Since excessive creativity in this topic is fraught with big problems for all of you, such as killed reputation, etc. teaser ads are created on special sites – teaser networks. The most popular of them is Directadvert. It takes only a few minutes to create a single teaser.

E-mail mailing

Recently, this method does not show such results as it used to. Therefore it is more used as a method of work with regular clients. But, if used correctly (unless the mailing is too intrusive and irritable), it is quite capable of attracting new customers.

Tips for using different channels to attract clients

Each of these types of advertising works well, but covers a certain TA. Therefore, it is desirable to combine them to increase audience coverage. It is also important to know that any advertising can be effective only with its systematic frequent use. Single launches do not give any noticeable result. Therefore, it is important to make competent preparatory work and accurately plan the whole company.

Unobvious ways to attract customers

Anyone loves to be surprised. And if you dazzle him, he will remember you. According to this principle, viral advertising works. It is enough to shoot one video is quite crazy and extraordinary, and the number of your potential customers will increase in three minutes by several million people. However, this method is quite difficult to implement and not suitable for everyone. The second way is much more pragmatic. Share your experience with your client. Participate in dialogues on thematic forums, conduct seminars, record video lessons. The more you create quality material, the greater the chance that you will be noticed. The main rule is to act all the time.