Acquiring Clients Offline

The internet has impacted just about every business model that was around for the last 100 years. Although it has impacted many different industries, the fundamentals of acquiring clients either offline or online remain the same. Newspapers, the post office, banking, shopping, you name it, there’s probably no single industry that the internet has not had an impact on. As a result of this many business now solely focus on the online opportunities to grow their business thinking that the internet is the only way. If they’re focused only on online methods they’re neglecting a much larger and proven advertising model that’s still effective today. As large the internet may be, it’s just a small fraction of the world’s overall advertising budget. According to E-marketer the total ad spend is worldwide in 2014 is close to $656 billion while the digital ad spend for was $137 billion. As you can see worldwide there’s still significantly more money being spent offline than online.

Here are a few tips and strategies for improving your offline and online marketing efforts these are some of the methods used and understood by very established businesses. I hope these concepts will be invaluable to helping you grow your business.

Understanding the Lifetime Customer Value (LCV)
Many people don’t understand the lifetime value of customer, and not understanding this could be difference in your business succeeding or failing. The lifetime value of a customer is calculated based on how much the customer will spend with you your business over their lifetimes. If you understand the concept LCV, you can go negative to acquire that customer and still be profitable in the long run, this will allow you to budget to spend more than your competitors to acquire that client, because most businesses are only looking at the initial transaction.

For example if understand the average lifetime value of your customer was worth $10,000 to your business but their initial purchase would only be $50. Would you spend $100 or even $500 to acquire that customer if you knew the lifetime value of that would be $10,000? Chances are you would, who wouldn’t want to trade $500 for $10,000. But if you’re competitors don’t understand this concepts, you would always be able to out compete them.

I believe Jeff Bezo’s the founder and CEO of Amazon the world’s largest E-Commerce platform understands this concept well. He would often go negative to acquire a customer and look for ways to turn a customer into repeat buyer. His margins are also razor thin, his not looking to make money on the initial transaction or maybe even the first few transactions, he wants you to consistently use Amazon for all of your purchases, and this is where he’ll make his money back. I don’t know LCV of Amazon customers, but I bet it’s fairly high.

Jeff Bezo’s uses this principal repeatedly, with Amazon Prime, he’s losing money whenever  a customer purchases the Amazon Prime membership for free 2 day shipping, but this increases the amount of transactions the customer will make with Amazon, and whenever they need something they’ll think of shopping on Amazon instead of another E-Commerce platform or a brick and mortar store.

At Joonomy we fully understand the lifetime customer value, but we also understand for new and smaller businesses it may be still difficult to spend freely as you would like to acquire that customers because you have payroll and other expenses you need to meet currently. While with LCV you’re projecting the transaction several years down the road, you won’t see that money until you service that customer for several years. This is why at Joonomy we try to make acquiring new customers for new and small businesses as cost efficient as possible, by not taking a percentage of the earnings you make from Joonomy and allowing you to freely bid on jobs fit you or your companies skill set.

Pay Attention to Your Customers.
Remember we talked about lifetime value of a customer, with each customer you want to keep them for life, you want them to be consistently buying from you instead of purchasing from your competitors. You always want give them fair value for their purchases. As a business owner you have an obligation to treat your customers well, if you don’t they’ll find someone else who would.

It’s always less expensive to keep an existing customer happy than spending the marketing dollars to acquire a new customer. So as a business owner you always want to retain your existing customer base.

If you treat your customers well, this will also increase your chances of getting referrals.

Speaking Engagements at Associations and Conferences.
If you’re starting out this is one the best ways to build credibility and to get clients for your business. If there are conferences in town you want to make sure you reach out to the conference organizers to see if there are any speaking opportunities available for you, let them know of your expertise.

Getting an opportunity to speak at an association is often easier than trying to get a spot at conference, so you need to take advantage of these opportunities to grow your business with, by seeking speaking opportunities at associations. If you’re speaking at an association or a conference you’re often seen as an authority in the industry.

Just by speaking at associations, you could be offered business opportunities and be able to establish new clients. In fact this is how some business partnerships were formed. PayPal got started when Max Levchin sought out Peter Theil after his speech at Stanford, and pitched the idea of PayPal to him.

Sponsoring Events
Often you can sponsor events to help brand your business. This can work quite well with charities.

For example you can sponsor a cause and work with the charity by offering a portion of a purchase to go towards the charity.

A pizza business offered a $1 towards a charity for each slice purchased, this not only increased the sales for that pizza business, it allowed them to attract new customers and this also helped brand the business as a business that stood for a cause instead of just trying to make a buck.

You can also use sponsored events to offer samples of your products to potential customers.

Get Yourself Involved in Networking Groups
No matter what business you’re in there’s always networking functions that cater to that industry, if
there isn’t one you can start one on your own.

Networking opportunities are great to meet like minded people in the industry and  form relationships with. These can often to lead to someone referring clients to you and even establishing other business opportunities.

Joonomy will soon offer the opportunity for you to start network functions.

Direct Mail and Lumpy Mail
Although Email has cut down on the amount of mail we receive, the issue with email is that it’s such an inexpensive medium to deliver marketing messages to, so we are constantly inundated with spam and there are many valid promotions that don’t read.

Now if you really want to get your marketing messages read, it’s a good idea to send a letter to that person, instead of an email.

Some effective mailing strategies is to use lumpy mail, by using lumpy mail you’re invoking someone’s curiosity factor, they want to know why that mail is lumpy so this stands a better chance of your mail being opened, as opposed to the same letters everyone else sends.

Now if there are important prospects you really want to get a hold of you, you can even send them a Fedex, and it’s sure to get opened. I have used this strategy myself to land high paying clients with great success.

Getting Referrals
If you run a business you’ll want referrals. Referrals are one of the best methods for getting new clients. The person getting referred to you already has built in trust for your services or products through the initial referrer. One of the best ways to get referrals is to ask for it. Ask your clients/customers to refer friends who would be interested in your products or services. Offer them incentives for that referral. Of course it’s best if the referrals are done through word of mouth without incentives.

Referrals are the best way to get hired and to get new clients. Joonomy is a platform designed to help business owners by enhancing the referral process, to help your business get more clients and to help you hire the right candidates for your business.