Automate your stream of leads, and mine those that you already have.
No surprise.
It’s not going to shock anyone that has been successful in business to market yourself and to retarget those that are already your (past) customers. But, then why are businesses struggling? It can be hard to do, and keep up with. Even marketing companies have difficulty marketing them selves when they are busy helping customers with their marketing.
Why not automate it?
Setting up automation can take time, and ironing out the kinks will also take time, but once you get it, you will kick yourself for not doing it sooner. No shame here! We all do it. This is just your friendly reminder to get it done, put it on top of your list, stay late, work weekends, but get it done.
Love starts at home.
First, retarget those that already know you. Low-hanging fruit is the easiest to pick, right? They don’t have to be educated as to how wonderful you are, they already know. The success that come from recapturing them will help fund the effort to educate new prospective customers online.
Learn from the past.
Because you have customers, you know what kind of folks that they are, what they like, and expect. That info will greatly inform you when you build a “Buyer’s Persona.” A fancy term for a potential new customer. I like to make a few, and diversify them. Diversify by gender, age, location, whatever you think gives you some unique ideas. Get to really understand the current customers, and leverage that to create as detailed personas as possible. Marketing online will allow you to specify dozens of variables so that when you do spend any money, you can first test a market for a tiny bit, to confirm you’re on the right track before you spend much more.
Quicksand or firm ground?
This testing is invaluable, you spend a tiny amount to verify the bigger cost later. Smart. What if the results from the test is inconclusive? Most online advertising will give you the breakdown of genders and ages inside each test to see if some part is performing while the rest isn’t. I consider this “panning for gold.” If there isn’t any ray of sunshine inside the results, perhaps a new or different creative approach. Once you have some creative that is getting positive results, run it, or try to best it with another ads. Pit them against each other with A/B comparison tests. It can be just a little cost but yield great results. Your audience will tell you in 1-2 days what works with a tiny test. Then run the best ad until results start to run dry.
Second verse, same as the first.
If the ad is running well, scale it up if you can. Don’t overwhelm your business or your team though! Once you see begin start to wane, start developing some new ads to test and run the best one again, same as before.
A molehill, not a mountain.
Yes, it does take time and money. But, if you have a customer base to educate yourself with who they are, and what they like, you are really halfway there. Once you get in the rhythm of developing ads, or working with a team that will do that for you, it doesn’t have to be difficult. You are attempting to create a goose that lays golden eggs here. But once you do, you just have to feed it once and awhile. You’ll reap great results “almost” automatically. After the initial ramp up of the first few ads, the effort is minuscule to keep the ball rolling. Have faith! If you have a product of service that is better in some way than your competition, then by all means, promote that first, then keep doing that. Add new qualities to promote while continually reminding your potential customers why you are the obvious choice.
All you have to do is start.
