The Secret to Attracting New Clients in Crowds

Our perceptions sometimes get us in trouble. We might believe someone is thinking something about a situation, only to realize we were completely off base. Communication is the key to determining what someone is thinking, but absolute communication is not always possible. As business owners, it is our job to remove our perceptions about what our target market needs and determine what it is they really want. This is the secret to attracting new clients in crowds.

2-Way Communication is Key to Business Growth

The first step to objectively defining what a target market wants is to communicate with them. Effective communication allows us to eliminate the false perceptions and get to the bottom of what our clients really want. Opening lines of communication is essential, but it requires a great deal of creativity when you are trying to reach out to a large group of diverse people. Our tendency as business owners is to constantly supply information. If you are able to create a more symbiotic relationship between you and your audience, you will have more success.

How to Increase Sales? For Starters, Get People Talking!

The secret to attracting clients in crowds is to create an environment in which they want to participate. Look for ways to open up lines of communication with your audience. If you are sending a newsletter, encourage readers to respond with questions and surveys. You can tailor the questions and surveys in a way that enables you to learn about your audience, as well as allowing your audience to glean more information from one another. The way you ask your questions is important. For instance:

Broad Questions that Do Not Evoke Specific, Useful Answers
• Do you like doing business with our company?
• Do you read our newsletter?
• Have you purchased from us before?
• Do you plan to purchase from us again?
• Is there anything we can do to improve our products or services?

Questions that Elicit Useful Answers
1. What do you like about doing business with our company?
2. What is your favorite part of our newsletter?
3. What has been your favorite service purchased from us in the past?
4. What do you plan to purchase next and why?
5. What product or service would you like to see us offer in the future?

The second set of questions eliminates the ability to give only a yes or no answer. In order to answer the question, clients will need to tell you information you can later use to improve your business.

If you have a business website, you can also create a forum allowing your audience to interact with one another. You can also allow comment posting on your site, but in both cases, it is important to keep unhelpful comments and conversations under control. Moderate the communication on your website and forum, so it is as beneficial to visitors as it is to you.

Solicit Feedback

Another way to weed out perceptions and learn what it is your audience really wants is to solicit feedback about specific products and services. Understanding a group’s likes and dislikes is the secret to attracting new clients. This can be done with products or services you offer, or in regard to other products and services they have used. People love to give advice and information about things that have made their lives easier, as well as things that have made them unhappy. As you learn about their likes and dislikes, you can apply it to your business.

Apply What You Learn

Once you have gathered information from your audience, you need to apply it to your offers in the best way possible. This is the secret to attracting new clients because you are capitalizing on what you have learned about a group. All of the information in the world is useless if you are not able to translate it into something that will have them running back to you for more. This process requires a bit of trial and error, but you are already ahead of the game because you are aware of what your target market actually wants. A savvy business owner is able to turn knowledge into a way to attract new clients.

View every interaction with your audience as a chance to gather information. All too often business owners get caught up in getting their information out there and they miss out on the benefits of give-and-take with their audience. Continued improvement and success is only possible when we listen to our audience and give them what they want, instead of what we assume they need.