Tips for expanding your customer base and profits

S. JESUKUMAR, Eastern University, Vantharumoolai, Batticaloa

In today’s business world marketing is not a separate part of human life. After the introduction of Internet, marketing has been like a mobile phone in our hands. Customers and marketers try to gain maximum benefit in each and every transaction they do.

Not all businesses in the market reach success, but some businesses reach their targets than expected. Success and no success in the market depends on the strategies they use to attract customers to their goods or services.

As a marketer, how do you grab people’s attention, arouse their interest, trigger their desire, and motivate them to take action. If one can answer that four questions correctly and then you’ve identified the secret to achieving tremendous sales and marketing success in your chosen market.

The following tips on marketing can help one’s market to grow on the right track.

First know the customers. Marketing without proper understanding of customer needs and wants will not lead to success at all. It is much better to enter the market where you do not have direct competitor as you can specifically meet your target customers’ needs and wants.

Secondly gain customer confidence. Customer indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference or confusion are among the top sales killers in the business world. It’s up to you to project an image of experience, quality, dependability, excellent customer service, and/or value to your prospective customers in order to win their confidence.

If you haven’t clearly communicated the advantages and solid reasons for them to do business with you, then they’ll be hesitant to commit, and the sale will go to your competitor.

Third tip, penetrate awareness of your target audience by using some form of integrated marketing. In other words, the more ways the public hears about you, the better your chances are in achieving brand recognition, credibility, and greater market shares.

Effective marketing is partly the result of exposing your target group to your name and your selling points as often as possible, in as many ways as possible, and cost-effectively as possible.

Enthusiasm is contagious. If you deeply believe in your products, services, your company and yourself, then your prospects will pick up on that passionate attitude and feel confident and optimistic about doing business with you.

Fifth point, purchasing is an emotional decision. Instill in your prospects good feelings about your company, your business relationship with them, and how you can improve their lives or solve their problem. Accomplishing this is at least as important in the sales process as focusing attention on product features and benefits.

Dispel distrust. Gain customer confidence and overcome potential feelings of distrust by offering written guarantees of satisfaction, customer testimonials, references and by joining respected and well-known professional organizations.

Impose a deadline. To overcome the natural human tendency to deliberate, postpone, and delay, it’s often necessary to inject a sense of urgency into your ads, sales presentations, and marketing messages.

Whether supplies are limited or prices are going up at the end of the month, some prospects need to have a deadline or an incentive to motivate them to take action now.

Create a business marketing plan to identify and capitalize on your strengths and opportunities. Your strategic plan should also take into account factors such as your weaknesses, external threats, your marketing mix strategy like products/services, promotional goals, pricing strategy, and distribution decisions, media strategy, sales and expense budgets, and target market analysis.