Use these strategies to find new customers—and to keep them coming back.
By Beth Goldstein

Whether you’ve already launched a business or are just thinking about it, the odds of long-term success are against you! How do the survivors successfully identify, attract and keep good customers? What’s their secret?

Whether you’re just setting up shop or already have your business off the ground, you need marketing strategies that get new customers in your door and keep them coming back. The following steps will help your business not merely survive— but thrive.

1. Profile your customers. Who are your most valuable customers, and what do they want? While it’s important that you understand the products and services that you offer customers, it’s even more significant to understand what your customers value and why, so you can fulfill their needs. Don’t assume you know; ask them.

2. Play 20 questions with your clients. Imagine that your five most important customers are sitting in a room with you. What questions would you ask them about their purchases, their needs and interests, and the factors that influence their decision-making processes? Compile a list of 20 questions that will help you define your customers.

3. Keep your friends close but your enemies (i.e., competitors) closer. Identify several companies that offer competitive products or services. Discover what their benefits are to potential or current customers. Now compare your message, value proposition and target audiences. Make sure you can answer the question, “What sets you apart?”

4. Identify partners that support win-win relationships. What do you expect from a partner and how can it contribute to your growth? Can a partner’s strengths be leveraged to empower your business? A strong marketing alliance can reduce risk, share costs and improve time to market, so choose carefully.

5. Find out if perception is reality. How do your customers and prospects perceive you? Branding is the impression you leave through every customer touch point and involves more than a nice logo or cool tagline. Everything you do has to incorporate your message, because if you dilute it in any way, you won’t be sending a clear definition of the value you provide.

6. Prepare a strong elevator pitch. Ever find yourself in a room with a key prospect and you couldn’t succinctly explain your business to him or her? Perhaps you rambled on, never getting to the point, or you froze up. A 30-second elevator pitch will help you whet prospects’ appetites and get them interested in learning more.

7. Align marketing programs to meet sales goals. Sales and marketing have to work together to support growth. Develop a marketing program based on how many sales leads you need to generate and how long that process will take. Be proactive in planning your marketing strategy so it generates critical bottom line sales results.

8. Harness your passion as a strategy. Even the most successful companies have their share of ups and downs. How will you use your passion to get through the rough patches? List 10 reasons why you feel passionately about your business. Post this where you’ll see it every day to remind yourself why you’re going to work each day (even if that’s just down the hall). These 10 reasons will keep you motivated on the good days as well as the bad ones!

Beth Goldstein, author of The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Toolkit, is president of Marketing Edge Consulting Group (www.m-edge.com). She has more than 22 years’ experience in sales and marketing, teaches at the Boston University School of Management and is the instructor for the InnerCity Entrepreneurs business growth program. She can be reached at bethg@m-edge.com or 508-893-0976.