How do you find your new customers?

[findmenewcustomers]

How do you go about finding new customers and how do you promote your websites thought the UK ?

It be interesting to know how you found your most new customers, did Facebook or Google get you results?

 

[14Steve14]

Advertising in specific magazines gets me most customers. Also sending lots of press releases to these magazines will get more business recognition.

 

[sezar]

It depends on what of business you are in. I would say starting a blog can help you get some quality visitors. They can later convert to clients.

 

[Jenny Johnstone]

An awful lot of our clients come through referral and word of mouth, but when actively advertising our printing services we use social media a lot. I've recently run a Twitter and Facebook competition which massively increased our followers and therefore substantially raises awareness of the business - which is turn has historically turned into future sales. Also just starting to trail out Twitter adverts to see what kind of return they can bring in, but certain use social as lead generation, and it works!

 

[ryedale]

90% word of mouth, 10% through spotting opportunities where someone might be looking for a designer / web host.

 

[HazelC]

I go networking A LOT - clients gained

I post on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter & Google+) A LOT - clients gained on Facebook and Twitter

I have a referral scheme and am often referred / word of mouth sales

I upload blog posts 2-3 times a week and I have had quote requests from my site.

Current sales:

Networking - 20%
Social Media - 40%
Word of Mouth - 40%

 

[british steve]

5% Google search. 15% word of mouth. 60% by direct mail. 5% from Twitter and the last 15% via online affiliates. Dropping Adwords was the best thing we have ever done, we spend less now and get much higher return on investment. Used to spend around £6.5K per month on Adwords across several sites - now we spend less than £2.5K per month. Direct mail really works for us - we get 3 times more customers from direct mail than we had from Adwords.

 

[purely14]

I work in Building Services, primarily for domestic / consumers doing heating, plumbing and electrics. Work comes from referrals, Google Maps, manufacturer referrals (eg boiler companies), and some from lead generation companies such as Rated People.co.uk and MyBuilder.co.uk.

Going to invest in a direct marketing campaign like the chap above - think there is a lot of mileage in that.

Adwords has never worked for us despite a very good website. Only people that click on the links and cost us money are Adwords 'Professionals' trying to get business for themselves - nah!

 

[AshleyB]

All very interesting, thanks

 

[clickthroughkings]

Hey guys,

I would like to know what kind of bad experiences that you have had with adwords. If managed correctly it can be quite good. Although the clicks cost you money, its more about the return on investment.

Thanks

 

[lynxus]

I go networking A LOT - clients gained

I post on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter & Google+) A LOT - clients gained on Facebook and Twitter

I have a referral scheme and am often referred / word of mouth sales

I upload blog posts 2-3 times a week and I have had quote requests from my site.

Current sales:

Networking - 20%
Social Media - 40%
Word of Mouth - 40%

Interesting, Is it possible for you to elaborate on these? What do you do? How do you do it? What kind of things do you think of while doing it.. Check lists?

A guide to this ( or at least what you do ) I think may be of great help as its clearly working for you.

 

[White Man Van]

prospective clients - 20% prospecting; 80% networking and referrals

 

[purely14]

Hey guys,

I would like to know what kind of bad experiences that you have had with adwords. If managed correctly it can be quite good. Although the clicks cost you money, its more about the return on investment.

Thanks

Our ROI on AdWords has always been extremely low despite a nice website.

From a budget of £40 per day we may get 2/3 clicks, which in turn lead to appx 0.5 phonecalls when averaged out over the week.

Consensus in my industry is that's about what we should expect - very poor ROI in my opinion

 

[clickthroughkings]

Our ROI on AdWords has always been extremely low despite a nice website.

From a budget of £40 per day we may get 2/3 clicks, which in turn lead to appx 0.5 phonecalls when averaged out over the week.

Consensus in my industry is that's about what we should expect - very poor ROI in my opinion

Have you tried BingAds?

The clicks and competition on Bing are normally a lot lower, so it would be a good place to see if the PPC model works, then you kind of know it's budget issues that are really hampering your ROI as you are missing vital impressions on Google.

Let me know if you need a hand with anything.

 

[businsessinchina]

We get alot of clients from different sources , some are leads that have become comfortable with us after the signed up to our newsletter and continue to do business with us.

These leads were generated from ad-words , LinkedIn , Facebook , twitter and YouTube ads.

When started out we found that Linkedin networking was a good place to start and find that first few clients that really helped our business grow. Maybe focus on the clients you have too as it much easier to generate revenue from existing clients over finding new clients where the of client acquisition is high.

 

[ricardo_varela]

I would mention that for businesses that have a physical location or work a specific area its probably cheaper to make sure their map, Google+ and other business listings are ok before any AdWords stuff.

After all, with things like local listings showing on the right on top of the google results, categories showing Google carousels of business photos and >40% of the searches triggering local... why only do AdWords?

 

[crossting]

Most of our customers are from adwords, but I do not this is a good way for all kinds of business.
the key point of adwords is to find the best / high profit niche..

 

[find-accountants.com]

Try all the above......but patience is key.

 

[Banksbroo]

My company sells specialist perforated paper.

We have very good ranking for key search terms, and this is out primary route to new customers.

80% come through Google search (organic listings, no PPC), 10% Bing (ditto) 10% other.

UK wide customer base, so geographic marketing not suitable.

No social media. No advertising. No email marketing.

In effect new customers come looking for us, we don't go looking for them! Works very well for me, but I'm not sure I would recommend it as a model for everyone!

The main effort goes into keeping customers: providing a high level of service and exceeding customer expectations in product quality, delivery times and sorting out problems if things don't go to plan.

 

[garyk]

How do you go about finding new customers and how do you promote your websites thought the UK ?

It be interesting to know how you found your most new customers, did Facebook or Google get you results?

well given that your using a username 'findmenewcustomers' no doubt you will be telling *us8 how to do it?

 

[businessfunding]

For us Adwords was a disaster - big bills and a deluge of rubbish proposals

Best ever was refers from bank manages immediately they declined a deal. Ironically this died when banks stopped lending

Tried to replicate with accountants with only moderate success

Targeted letters/brochures still have good impact for us

 

[Office Cleaning]

Tried all sorts over the years. Telemarketing, which was relatively effective but now waste of time/money - people simply use the phone a lot less. Direct mail, again, worked initially not so much now.
Our biggest source of getting leads is via adwords (bing has nowhere near the same coverage/traffic). Adwords was very effective for us, but recently (last 6 - 12 months) the ROI has dropped massively - the costs have rocketed, it's become untenable.

 

[MatthewRJones]

I tweet at Marketing and Web Agencies (Target Customers) and set up meetings.

 

[ricknisoles10]

You have to do more branding and promotion to get new business clients. Now a days Social media is a key concept to make your business brand.

 

[TeamPadded]

We get alot of clients from different sources , some are leads that have become comfortable with us after the signed up to our newsletter and continue to do business with us.

These leads were generated from ad-words , LinkedIn , Facebook , twitter and YouTube ads.

When started out we found that Linkedin networking was a good place to start and find that first few clients that really helped our business grow. Maybe focus on the clients you have too as it much easier to generate revenue from existing clients over finding new clients where the of client acquisition is high.

Thanks for the advice, as a newcomer to linkedIn, can you please specify anything in particular that may well help to get the first few clients in. Since LinkedIn is more for fellow professionals could you advise a good way to approach these potential new clients?

 

[marklew]

Thanks for the advice, as a newcomer to linkedIn, can you please specify anything in particular that may well help to get the first few clients in. Since LinkedIn is more for fellow professionals could you advise a good way to approach these potential new clients?

For LinkedIn, do not send a generic message and spam everyone. Target who you want, add the same groups as them, add them as a 'friend' as part of the same group and target your message to them and their business. I get a lot of people approaching me on LinkedIn, I delete the majority. Follow it up with a phone call if you do not get a response, but don't hassle people.

Also being active and answering questions (similar to this forum) in appropriate/related groups will improve your profile if you are offering good advice/insightful posts, people will click on your profile/add you and will get things started. It gives you credibility that you know what you are talking about.

You can sign up for premium and target people and 'InMail' people and better manage who you target and who has viewed you. Ensure your profile is as good as your CV, showing results, skills etc, get recommendations from existing clients of your work, attitude etc. I would recommend setting up as you (and not a company as some do) and create a separate LinkedIn company (rather than passing the company off as a person), keep this updated, offer detailed info on your company/link it to your web page.

 

[ineedadollar]

Ive been using adwords but it seems to be expensive with low ROI if any
But trying a few different words and tweaking it
I advertise on a few forums etc but I'm going to try sending products to reviewers

 

[emailchopper]

wonderful though, all post reply are very helpful, i would like to say - Thanks to all.

 

[Begum.Ewan]

It always depend on what business we are talking about, but nowadays I find social networks invaluable. If it's not obvious to do otherwise, instead of starting a blog, try running a facebook fan page. It's closer to people, you can get to know your customers, get a better feel about who they are and what they may want from you.

 

[telemax]

Thanks for the advice, as a newcomer to linkedIn, can you please specify anything in particular that may well help to get the first few clients in. Since LinkedIn is more for fellow professionals could you advise a good way to approach these potential new clients?

I use Linked In to find a company contact name Then Google the phone number, call them, and either speak to them in person or send an email if I am given it.

 

[RogerLoyyd]

It is right that all these things are depends on your business type. If your business provides first class services to the customer that is beneficial for them then you can get success to find new customers for your business and yes facebook and other social media sites will help you a lot.

 

[Dalycom]

We attend local networking events and make sure we're active on social media (twitter, facebook, google+, linked in etc.). It definately helps raise awareness which leads to future business.

Also do regular mailshots and keep in touch with existing clients where we can up/cross sell where possible...in a non - harsh way of course.

 

[Office Cleaning]

@MatthewRJones "I tweet at Marketing and Web Agencies (Target Customers) and set up meetings."
Interesting - I'm pretty certain quite a lot of traffic is going this way - certainly for us. Our ROI on adwords is way down, G has doubled the costs over the last year alone (they cite increased competition but no-one in our game is making enough to make it worthwhile to pay the sorts of sums they are asking). Even allowing for the decrease in ROI and a massive tightening in leakage (constant updating of neg keywords, restrictions of areas etc) there still is huge drop in impressions.
This tells me people are searching elsewhere for our type of services, or being targeted in the manner you mentioned.
Any more tips on this approach?

 

[webgeek]

I ask a few existing clients to mention us to any business owners, friends, neighbours and/or relatives who might need a hand with their online marketing.

We don't want to try and see how fast we can grow and aren't set to scale infinitely. So, for us, it's a matter of attracting and retaining 20 or so clients who fit well with our way of working / mindset and whose expectations are realistically achievable with the budget they've got available.

A personal introduction and recommendation is worth hundreds, if not thousands of Pounds worth of advertising, especially where pay per click and SEO / marketing are concerned.

 

[MatthewRJones]

@MatthewRJones "I tweet at Marketing and Web Agencies (Target Customers) and set up meetings."
Interesting - I'm pretty certain quite a lot of traffic is going this way - certainly for us. Our ROI on adwords is way down, G has doubled the costs over the last year alone (they cite increased competition but no-one in our game is making enough to make it worthwhile to pay the sorts of sums they are asking). Even allowing for the decrease in ROI and a massive tightening in leakage (constant updating of neg keywords, restrictions of areas etc) there still is huge drop in impressions.
This tells me people are searching elsewhere for our type of services, or being targeted in the manner you mentioned.
Any more tips on this approach?

I would first build up your followers, your target audience - businesses and business owners in your target area. Then I would tweet cleaning tips, share photos of your latest jobs, behind the scenes make your profile engaging. And then tweet at businesses with an offer they can't refuse. Hope this helps

 

[integrity Rules]

well given that your using a username 'findmenewcustomers' no doubt you will be telling *us8 how to do it?

perceptive comment; i notice no more posts from aforesaid; but he sparked an interesting thread , anyhows.
julia

 

[integrity Rules]

5% Google search. 15% word of mouth. 60% by direct mail. 5% from Twitter and the last 15% via online affiliates. Dropping Adwords was the best thing we have ever done, we spend less now and get much higher return on investment. Used to spend around £6.5K per month on Adwords across several sites - now we spend less than £2.5K per month. Direct mail really works for us - we get 3 times more customers from direct mail than we had from Adwords.

Your stats on efficacy of direct mail are compelling. You are B2B, so presumably you start with high quality lists.
Notice no mention of e mails , are they part of your direct mail campaign?
Julia
West London Colonics

 

[Storage King]

Marketing of your business will always depend on who your target market is and what you want to achieve from it.

Here are some of the things we do....

PPC
Networking
Provide good service for word of mouth referrals
Contact past customers with exclusive offers
Leaflet drops
Newspaper wraps
Gumtree adverts
Mailchimp email marketing
Direct mail
Lamp post signage
Sponsorship
Radio advets

 

[Office Cleaning]

@MatthewRJones "I would first build up your followers, your target audience - businesses and business owners in your target area. Then I would tweet cleaning tips, share photos of your latest jobs, behind the scenes make your profile engaging. And then tweet at businesses with an offer they can't refuse. Hope this helps"

Many thanks for this, very useful. The only problem is that unfortunately cleaning is as dull as ditchwater, why anyone would want photos of us cleaning is beyond me. But I see what you are getting at so thanks once again for your pointers. I still cant but fail to see Twitter as a lot of people shouting about themselves - all noise no signal. Adding pictures of cleaners and cleaning tips seems akin to adding a damp log to a fire, but when in Rome...

 

[Dorita]

Hi, what would be your advice on Health and Medical tourism? Offering our Services in Budapest for clients all over the world (mostly UK, Norway,Sweden...) We have tried adwords, but the ROI was almost 0 we have tired facebook likes and fun pages, but no clients from that. I have tried few newspapers... but nothing yet