Menu
4 Incentives Your Online Business Can Use To Attract New Customers
By Rodney Laws | Marketing
If you’re looking to grow your online business then reaching new audiences and converting them into paying customers is going to be essential. But how can you do this?
In the article below, we take a look at four incentives your online business can use to attract new customers. Read on for inspiration.
Once you’ve got a loyal base of customers who are happy with your products or service, you can use this to draw in new customers.
It’s likely that happy customers will recommend your business to others at some point anyway, but you can be proactive and create a referral scheme that encourages them to do so.
To start with, you need to ensure that you are providing the best possible experience for your customers — so once someone makes a purchase, send a follow-up email and ask for any feedback, offer additional advice or relevant products. Take on board any feedback you’ve been given by customers, and work on areas in your sales or fulfilment processes that might need improving and the product or service itself. You don’t want to ask customers to refer your business to someone unless they are completely satisfied with the experience.
Once you know a customer is happy, you can send them details of your referral scheme. For example, you could ask them to score how satisfied they were with their experience out of ten, and then share the referral scheme with customers that answer eight or above.
When you’re setting up a referral scheme, it’s important to make sure it’s worthwhile for both your business and the customer. You don’t want to make it easy for people to refer others and access a considerable discount if those that they refer never make a purchase — but you also don’t want the process to be so complicated that the customers don’t benefit from it.
Many businesses will provide customers with a referral code to share, and if someone signs up or makes a purchase using that code then they get a discount or offer, and the customer that referred them also gets a reward.
Referral schemes are a great way to engage with your existing customers and attract new customers at the same time.
Special discounts and offers are a great way to hook new customers. If someone’s been considering purchasing or signing up, then a special offer is going to help convince them to go for it.
To maximise the effectiveness of a new customer discount, ask people to sign up to your email list to receive the discount off their first order. This way if they don’t end up ordering even with the discount, you have their contact details and you can send them further marketing emails and tailored discounts that will encourage them to buy.
When someone does purchase, make sure you track what they’ve ordered and ask them to sign up for an account so you can store their details. Not only will this mean it’s easier for them to check out again in the future, but you’ll also be able to send them personalised emails with relevant products and offers.
If you’re offering a new customer discount it’s always important to make sure that you’re able to turn them into a repeat customer by providing them with a great experience and keeping them engaged.
Another great incentive you can use to attract new customers and encourage them to keep coming back is a loyalty scheme.
A good loyalty scheme can make shoppers feel like they’re getting better value and could encourage them to buy from your business over one of your competitors. It’s also great for customer retention. The information that you collect from customers who sign up to your loyalty scheme will give you a better insight into their interests and preferences, so that you can target your marketing more effectively — and keep your customers happy.
To start a loyalty scheme, you need a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve, and it could be worth asking for feedback from existing customers on your ideas. Popular loyalty schemes often involve collecting points that add up to money off or discounts, or more tailored, exclusive offers that change as customers shop more often.
If you want to attract new customers then you could include an additional incentive — such as bonus points — on your first order.
Whatever you decide, it’s important to find the right balance between offering good value that will attract new customers, but not devaluing your products or ending up losing money.
Running a social media competition is a great way to increase your reach and awareness of your business, and can be an attractive incentive to new customers. You’ll be able to get your followers talking about your brand, interacting with your posts, and sharing it so that it reaches a wider audience — and people who haven’t purchased from you will enter the competition as well.
In order to run a successful social media competition, you need to be really clear on the goals you’re trying to achieve. If you’re aiming to find new customers, then it needs to reach new audiences. The prize also needs to be something that would appeal to potential customers as well as existing customers — they could be winning your most popular product or a credit to spend in your store.
Start by outlining your goals and budget so that you know what you’re working with and how you can measure the outcome.
Then decide on the rules for entry and the prize. You need to make it simple enough to enter that people aren’t put off, but don’t make it too easy and ensure that you get enough engagement. Ask people to comment or share posts and tag other users as entries to the competition.
It’s also important to be clear about the rules and deadlines for entry, any location-based restrictions, and also to make sure that it complies with the social media platform’s rules.
And once you’ve decided on how you’re going to run the competition, you need a plan for how you’re going to promote it. You can use a range of channels — share it via email marketing, on your website, and consider promoting your social media posts so that it reaches people that might not be following your account.
If you’re looking to attract new customers to your online business, you need to start by reaching out to them and making them aware of your business.
Once you’ve hooked them, you can then use incentives such as a loyalty scheme, discounts, or competitions to persuade them to make their first purchase.
