As marketing expert Dan Kennedy says, the worst number in marketing is 1. If you’re relying on 1 source for all of your leads and new customers, you’re setting yourself up for trouble.
- Source: Skypower
Below, I’ve listed 31 different ways to get new customers.
As you go through the list, think: how can you incorporate these tactics into your marketing?
1. Search engine optimization: Get your website to show up in Google’s non-advertising results. This includes the regular “organic” results as well as the local results (Google+ Local, formerly Google Places).
2. Google AdWords search advertising: Place ads in Google when potential customers are searching for you.
3. Google AdWords display advertising: Show ads to potential customers who are surfing around the internet. Includes YouTube and Gmail advertising.
4. Bing/Yahoo/MSN advertising: Advertise in other search engines to get in front of more customers.
5. Facebook advertising: Show ads to Facebook users. Facebook provides precise demographic and psychographic targeting.
6. Free Facebook marketing: Create your Facebook Page, build up your Likes, and interact with your customers and prospects.
7. Twitter marketing: Generate a tribe of followers and connect with influencers on Twitter.
8. LinkedIn marketing: The #1 place to connect with other business people online. Especially helpful if you’re B2B.
9. YouTube marketing: Create your channel and publish videos online. Little-known fact: YouTube is actually the 2nd biggest search engine, after Google!
10. Blogging: Publish news, opinions, and thought leadership on your blog. Blogging is great for SEO. Also, publishing “guest post” on other blogs can expand your audience.
11. Webinars: Host online virtual events to get in front of an engaged audience, and then make a special offer at the end of the presentation.
12. Teleseminars: Host group call-ins to educate your audience over the phone and present a special offer at the end.
13. Offline events: Build your credibility and strengthen your relationship with your prospects and customers by meeting up in-person.
14. Free publicity: Get mentioned in the media so build credibility, name recognition, word-of-mouth referrals and leads. Hard to beat publicity!
15. Television: Advertise on TV in your local market (or nationally).
16. Press releases: Got news? Publish it online on sites like PRWeb.com and webwire.com.
17. Deal/coupon websites: Offer a special deal on websites like Groupon.com.
18. Retargeting: Show ads to people who visited your website, as they surf around the Internet.
19. Classified ads: Post tiny little ads on sites like Craigslist.org as well as in your local newspaper or in niche magazines to attract prospects.
20. Email marketing: Build and nurture your email newsletter list, so you can send special offers to your own subscribers.
21. Radio advertising: Advertise on the radio in your local market or nationally.
22. Email advertising: Advertise to subscribers of other email newsletters.
23. Contests and viral promotions: Run special costs and viral promotions to build word-of-mouth buzz.
24. Print advertising: Advertise in newspapers and magazines.
25. Word-of-mouth referrals: Implement a referral marketing system in your business, so you get multiply your customers by word-of-mouth.
26. Joint ventures: Create reciprocal promotions with complementary businesses.
27. Affiliate marketing programs: Build a network of affiliates who send you leads and customers in exchange for commissions.
28. Direct mail: Send sales letters, postcards, brochures, catalogs and other forms of “snail mail” to leads, prospects, and customers.
29. Lead generation: Create a free report (or other form of free information) and offer it in exchange for your prospect’s contact information. By breaking your sales process into steps, you’ll widen your marketing funnel.
30. Autoresponders: Put automated email follow-up sequences in place to nurture and automatically convert your leads into qualified prospects.
31. “Old-fashioned” selling: Pick up the phone, hit the road, or hire a sales team to sell your products or services.
Of course, all 31 of these might not all be a good fit for your business. But I’m sure there are at least 5 or 10 tactics listed above that you could give your business more customers and greater stability.
Here’s what to do now: From this list of 31, make a list of 5 new tactics you could incorporate into your marketing over the next 90 days.
And if you did that… How many new customers could you attract? How much faster could you grow?
(Hey, what marketing sources did I miss? Post a comment to let me know!)
