As we enter the lead up to Christmas business owners really want to end the year on a high. But securing those all-important sales, doesn’t mean you always need a new audience to increase sales.
An integrated multi-channel marketing strategy can assist your business. It can be the driving force to bringing awareness to your business!
Our talented team of marketing experts at Carrick Creative have spotted, is that businesses are solely focusing on building a new audience. When discussing their marketing strategy it often becomes clear, existing customers have been forgotten and left behind. Now, that’s not to say that building a new audience isn’t important for business growth. However, you really shouldn’t be ignoring the audience/customer base that you have previously built.
As we’ll explain in this blog entry, we’ll identify the power of your existing audience, how you can nurture them and how they can help you increase those all-important sales!
Warm Audience
Your online audience can be made up of past customers or people that have been following you for a while. They are an audience that is most likely aware of what you have to offer and most likely interested in it. From a marketing perspective, it’s much easier to sell to an audience, that know, like and trusts you.
If, for example you release a special offer, people already in your network are more likely to purchase that deal. They’re familiar with you, they like your business, they find your business interesting, they share similar values and so on. Whatever their reason might be for being part of your network they’re going to be more receptive to any new deals that your business puts out there compared to someone that has never heard of your business before, has no idea if you are reliable, offer a good service or a quality product because they’ve never had any experience with you before.
So how can you nurture your warm audience?
Social media provides a great place for audience engagement and nurturing. You could go live on your social platforms and encourage people to ask questions. Or perhaps you could run a POLL on your Instagram story and get them to choose which new product is their favourite. It’s all about keeping visible, extending that conversation further and becoming a business that the prospective customer has a genuine interest in. And as we just explained above, those people that have interacted and have been aware of your business for some time are much more likely part with their hard earned cash compared to someone that hasn’t.
Let’s now look at the next stage of the journey, retaining their custom.
It’s so important that you try to retain business from existing customers.
When someone has had a brilliant service from you, they’re statistically more likely to come back to you. A great way of doing this is through email marketing.
If someone has purchased a product from you and consents to receive emails from you in the future, then you can add them to an email funnel. You can update them on a new product launch in the future, or offer them a discount code as a thank you for being a valued customer.
So other than repeat business, why is nurturing your existing audience so important?
Let’s talk advocacy. Yep, your customers could really do some of your marketing for you! Let us explain. When someone becomes so impressed with the service that you are providing or the products that you have to offer… what do they go and do? They go and tell someone else about it.
For example:
“I had such a great experience at the spa hotel the other day, the staff were so attentive!” Or “You should check out this product range, the smell of these candles is insane!”
Those customer words are incredibly powerful. More so than you saying you have a spa vacancy on the weekend, or that you have just released a new scented candle. When a customer shares their own experience, they’re doing some of your marketing for you. They become advocates for your business! Particularly, now when individuals social media platforms are so powerful. Imagine if that existing customer takes a photo at your venue or shares a photo of your product. With minimal effort, your business is in front of a whole new audience, one that has potential to see what your business is all about.
So as you’re planning your marketing strategy for Christmas and 2022, make sure you’re focusing on your existing audience just as much as building a new one! Remember you don’t always need a new audience to increase sales!
Let us know how you get on; we’d love to hear how you’re going to switch up your marketing strategy.