Building Customers – How To Build A Brand Not Just A Business

One would naturally consider STARTING as the most important step of a business. However, we propose that the most important aspect is building customers and sustaining the business. Because of the importance of this issue and the need for more businesses to emerge, it is necessary to continuously create awareness on ways business owners can turn their businesses into sustainable brands.

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The core of every business is having something to offer – a product, service, information, idea, or knowledge. With the advent of the internet, however, customers now have a wide array of choices, making the competition real and intense for anyone who has something to offer.

Every business owner, therefore, puts in effort, money, and energy into seeking relevance, making an impression, building customers, and also working towards that tipping point in their business(es). These tips are however not basically about selling your product, but building a brand out of your business. It would involve you infusing more personality into your business.

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How Do You Build A Brand?

Understand The Audience

Needless to say that every product, service, idea, or innovation you might have to offer would be totally irrelevant without an audience/market for it. The most crucial part however is identifying who your audience is and understanding them.

The whole essence of understanding your audience would be to effectively tailor your offer to their specific needs and/or wants. An average person might not see the need to purchase a product/service from you if there is no need for it. It is needless therefore trying to get your product/service(s) across to the wrong person when you can channel your effort into discovering who needs your product and how you can reach them. That is why building customers is very important.

Find Relevance

Marketing has since evolved from the product perspective to the customer perspective (building customers), where it is now common knowledge that the customers take the driver’s seat in the market place. Your responsibility, therefore, is to find ways of creating relevance for yourself and your business.

Create forums where you can interact with your customers. Take advantage of social media and stay in the subconscious of your customers. Ensure ways that allow your business to pop up in their daily activities, their conversations, etc. Be careful, however, not to turn into a nuisance.

Always Be Available

You know the idea of ghost workers right? Do not make yourself a ghost seller. It is bad for business. The truth is that most customers look forward to establishing a sustainable relationship with their sellers. Therefore, building customers means that you will consciously endeavor to make sure that your customers can always reach you when they need to. Include your contacts on pages of your website, blog, Facebook account, Twitter account, Instagram, etc. You will be surprised at the huge impact this can have on your business.

Wear Confidence Like A Smile

Exuding self-confidence is a key quality most customers look out for. While customers might actually know what they want, they also need to know that the seller knows his or her onions. Also, be confident in your products and services, which in essence means you need to ‘own’ the product/service/idea/information you are selling. Be confident to ask for feedback about your offers, and when you get them, share them with other people even on your social platforms.

Be Focused

As much as possible do not be a jack of all trades and master of none. Establish what you are good at, and stick to it. This also entails a clear understanding of yourself – who are you? What is your personality? What is your goal? A clear understanding of these questions makes it easier to sell yourself and your business to your customers. Be consistent in building customers, because consistency breeds trust.

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Take Initiatives

Get ahead of the game, anticipate what your customers would need, and make it available. Remember that there is a constant battle for winning customers, therefore be sure to keep tabs on your competition, stay updated on market trends and technologies, learn the current market language, etc. All these help ensure that you remain the obvious choice for customers.

Get A Support System

Because no one is an island, it is also never easy to run a business alone. Also, it can be very difficult achieving the desired growth and expansion rate, if you continually have to do everything on your own. It is important to build a good support system (no matter how small) relative to the size of your business, in order to ensure business growth. The larger your business, the larger your support system could get, and the greater your success in building customers.

Referrals

Word of mouth is one of the most effective methods of direct marketing, which, however orthodox it might seem, still works effectively. Never be too shy to ask your customers for referrals, but most importantly always measure up to the expectations.

Follow the points mentioned above and you are on your way to building a brand not just a business.

Let’s create visibility for your brand by putting your business on the world map. Contact us today to make your brand the preferred choice for our audience of entrepreneurs and business leaders.