President at AudateMedia. We create content marketing for Small to Large-Sized Businesses to engage new clients from Online to your Door.
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There are three reasons why businesses fail despite the owner planning what service to offer and what products to sell. Others may talk about more reasons than what I’m about to tell you; but if you ask me, there are only three and they are the problems in terms of leads, conversion and customer retention. These three factors, no matter where you go and where you are in the world, don’t change.
They are the determining factors of how well you do your business or if you really have a viable system set in stone. Today, I’m going to tell you what most businesses get wrong and what you can do instead. Let’s talk about each of these factors one by one.
Leads
Most business owners make the mistake of buying leads from software that can generate thousands of names, emails and phone numbers for them. While I see nothing wrong with that, this traditional method is obsolete and cold-calling is becoming more and more ineffective. If there is any success out of it, it’s only at 2{618b0fa1bfd859da34e34fa699be8b64dcae71968b20dc3f031b8e0ddb1c0d3f}.
Rejection is highly likely in this strategy. Cold emailing thousands of cold lists as well could block your email auto-responder, so that too is a no-go. Here’s what you can do instead. First and foremost, you need to do market research. Failing to do this means the death of your business.
It’s the usual sickness of most business owners. They try to think of a product or service to sell first and then they think of the market next. You can turn this mindset the other way around by asking yourself. “How can my service or products help my market get what they want?”
Don’t be like a lot of marketers out there who are talking to themselves instead of listening to their customers. If you’re still using this approach, my suggestion would be to do things differently this time.
Don’t just think of a service or product to sell then try to find someone who wants to buy it. That’s an expensive way to run a business. By simply finding out what your customers’ problems are and modeling your business based on your customer’s needs, you’ll have customers coming to you instead of you hunting for them to buy your product or service.
Conversion
Conversion from prospects to buyers is what happens when you have warm and piping hot leads. You see, people exchange money when they get value. And with what has been mentioned earlier, when you find out what your market wants, you’ll realize that in the online business world, the currency isn’t money but problems.
The more problems you see out there, the more you can tell that there is an opportunity for you to build an income. Whether it’s to help a client in building a website, a landing page or a structured online funnel, conversion happens when you do your homework: to develop a product or service that will fit the needs of your market.
When that happens, it’s only logical that customers will be more than willing to pay for your offer because you are solving the very problem they are having. Especially when it comes to growing their online business.
Retention
Most businesses tend to think that getting more leads will resolve their feast and famine financial business challenges. Not so much. The real reason why a business can stay thriving for so long is by knowing how to retain customers.
You can still make money off of those who are already your customers. No problem if you keep building your lead pipeline — that’s always a good thing. But the best people to help you make more money than ever are your repeat customers. If you can provide the best service that helps alleviate your customer’s problems, they will become your number one advocate. They can refer more customers to you and you could have a steady stream of customers.
In conclusion, modern buyers are intelligent; they demand authenticity. There’s no need for fancy words to convince them to buy your product or service — you simply have to be genuine in helping them solve their problem.
From a marketing standpoint, the reason why your business would thrive in these trying times is because of the people around you. These people could be your leads, your converted customers or your repeat buyers. Manage leads, conversion and retention the right way and you could become an undisputed brand that is top of mind to your audiences.
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