When you’ve started a new business, one of the biggest challenges you face is convincing clients that your business is worth working with. After all, you’re the new kid on the block, and you’ve yet to prove yourself. This can make clients wary of handing over their cash to you, which is understandable, but not always very fair!
If you find yourself in this predicament and you are wondering what you can do to attract more clients to your new business, boost your profits and increase your profile, take a look at the following suggestions:
Build a Really Great Website
The first thing you should do, if you want to attract more clients is to build a really professional looking website, which tells the world that you are a serious business. It’s probably a good idea for you to use some of your capital to hire a professional web designer from https://www.freelancify.com/ for this because they will be able to come up with a professional design that showcases your unique brand and works on a range of platforms so that everyone who views it comes away impressed by your company.
Create Great Content
Of course, creating a good looking professional website alone isn’t enough, you need to fill your website with high-quality content that is easy to read, error-free and persuasive in nature. If clients are already worried about using your services because they don’t know how professional or reliable you really are, seeing a website littered with errors won’t do much to change their mind. If you’re writing isn’t great, and we all have things we’re not great at, hire a professional writer to do the work for you. It’s a worthwhile investment and one that you won’t regret.
Do Some Pro-Bono Work
It might not seem like the best thing to do when you’re trying to build a business and make money, but selectively doing a little bit of work for free can really pay off. The trick is to only offer a limited free service and to only offer it to big-name prestige clients. There are few people who will turn down the offer of a free service, and you’ll be able to increase your prestige by being able to advertise the fact that you worked for a huge company. If you can get them to recommend you to others or provide you with a testimonial, it could be as valuable to you as a massive marketing budget.
Think About Surety
So, clients are hesitant to use your services because your track record is unproven? What’s the one thing you can do to make them reconsider that is more effective than almost anything else? Buying a surety bond. Companies like www.meadowbrookdirect.com can provide you with a surety bond, which shows clients that you are serious about delivering. The bond will guarantee that you will deliver on any agreements or they will be compensated. It’s a great way to convince those all-important first clients to jump onboard and give you a chance. Then, it’s up to you to prove yourself and keep them coming back for more.
Offer Discounts
I know, I know. You want to make money, no you need to make money as a small startup. But of you just aren’t getting the level of interest that you would have liked or expected at this stage in your business, you might want to think about offering discounts of deals that will catch the customers’ eyes and make them more likely to take the plunge and give you a chance. You might feel like you’re losing out, but if it brings in more clients and you can impress them, it will actually make you more money in the long term.
Run a Contest
Running a contest, on a platform like https://www.viralsweep.com/contests/ is another great way to get your business noticed and increase your client base. By offering something attractive, such as a free wedding dress if you’re a bridal store or a holiday if you work in business, you’ll get your brand out there to more people. Sure, it won’t directly result in more sales, but the more people who know that your company exists, the more clients you are likely to attract eventually.
Offer Something That No One Else Is
No matter what your business is, there is probably something more than you can offer the kind of clients who would use your existing services. For example, if you run a copywriting agency, why not start offering custom made infographics too? This will add another string to your bow and might just make clients choose you over the competition because you are giving them something else that is very popular and which the competition isn’t offering.
Get Listed
You might think that because your business is online, getting listed in local directories is pointless, but many people still prefer to work with companies who are local to them, which is why, in many cases, it still pays to be listed in local directories. These are online directories that curate business information in local areas so that they are easily accessible by individuals in the area looking for a particular service. It might seem quaint, but it can still bring in a lot of business so don’t write it off as a marketing method.
Be Active on Social Media
If you want to find and reach out to as many potential clients as possible and convert them into paying customers without too much effort or expense, one of the best things you can do is to create business accounts on all of the most prominent social media sites. You’ll still have to put in some hard work creating interesting posts, videos, and offers, but posting online, reaching out to your followers and building relationships with them is a very effective and economical way of increasing your client base.
Has your startup been successful at increasing your client base quickly? Which of the above methods did you use? What else did you do to ensure that your company was a success?
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