From Blueprints to Online Reviews:
Building a Solid Customer Base for Your Startup
Here’s the hard truth: No matter how innovative a product you are selling, you won’t be able to go far without a strong client base to support you. Sure enough, this has always been one of many critical challenges for startups in industries like tech and retail.
You need to realize later on that your success does not solely rely on your business’s ability to generate new customers. Rather, it’s how you nurture existing clients who can provide long-term value. How else did McDonald’s become the world’s foremost fast food chain if it weren’t for a customer base spanning generations!
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves by saying your startup has the same potential as McDonald’s had, but if your goal is to build your business on solid ground, you need to apply the right methods.
So, what can you do to keep your customers happy and turn them into brand advocates? Here’s a nifty guide to help you get started.
Begin with a blueprint
Like any construction project, building a loyal customer base should start with a plan.
But taking the first step is often the hardest. You basically have a blank slate to work with and you probably have no clue about what you are going to do with customers on top of the other aspects of managing your startup.
One way to get around this is to lay the foundation of your strategy by:
Referencing your startup’s mission and vision. What is your business’s reason for being? Whether it provides “innovative solutions to modern-day problems” or focuses on “helping healthcare organizations save time, money and sanity”, your startup has to have a clear rationale that connects what you are capable of giving with what the market expects from you.
Using your brand identity as a template. As a startup founder, you can find a little of yourself in the kind of organization you are building. So, if you want your startup to act like a no-nonsense industry expert, you can infuse this personality with future client interactions. On the other hand, if you are selling fashion items, your brand identity can gravitate toward being playful or stylish. At any rate, your brand personality is crucial to how you create consistent messages that keep existing customers hooked.
Researching your competitors. We know what you are thinking, but when it comes to getting ahead in a highly competitive market such as yours, it’s imperative to know what everyone else is doing. Competitor research gives you insights on how other businesses go about with their customer outreach programs. You don’t have to copy what they are doing, but you can always look at their methods and improve them for your own ends.
Your blueprint doesn’t have to be highly detailed. You only need to underscore your goals and search for ways that will help bring your business closer to your target audience. On that note, we move on to the next step to building a solid customer base.
Visualize your ideal customer
Not all customers think the same about your business. Considering the diverse range of opinions you will have to sift through, finding people who are very likely to stay with you for the long run seems far-fetched.
But that’s only when your aim is too broad. Only a handful of customers will end up being your staunchest supporters, so you might as well focus your time and resources on those segments that can bring long-term value to your startup.
Creating an ideal customer profile should help you along those lines. You need your message to resonate with the right people and, in order to do that, you need to determine specific needs and expectations.
For this, it helps if you create an ideal client criteria. This can come in handy when you are looking for and qualifying high-value customers. Here’s how you can get started:
Step 1:
Sort your audience into demographic segments. For consumers, you can focus on data such as gender, age, and location. If you are reaching out to other businesses, you might want to go by corporate titles (IT managers, CFOs, and HR heads, for example), niches or markets, and business size.
Step 2:
Once you have divided your audience into segments, it’s important to understand the needs and expectations of each one. For instance, if you have a digital marketing agency that engages local cleaning businesses in Texas, your ideal clients should include residential cleaning companies that have trouble promoting their services through the right social media platform.
Step 3:
After finding out specific problems your startup can solve for each segment, you need to set up a scoring system. If a customer makes a repeat transaction, assign a point. If a customer signs up for a premium membership, assign a point. And if a customer abandons a cart on your Shopify site, deduct a point. These interactions can help you filter the best customers from the casual ones.
With an effective ideal client profile at hand, it will be easier for you to allocate time and resources on people who can bring more opportunities to the table.
Then again, it’s impossible to know if so-and-so customer has the potential to become a brand advocate without engaging them. This brings us to the third important step in building a solid customer base.
Build valuable relationships through outreach
We’re very fond of analogies, so here’s another: Your customer base is a plant that needs nurturing. Without water and fertilizer, it will die. Well, not exactly. But the thing is, your customer base doesn’t grow on its own. Just like water and fertilizer, information helps customers stay rooted to your business.
Outreach can make or break your brand’s ability to retain customers and turn them into advocates. In this step, consider the following ways you can reach out to ideal customers:
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Loyalty Programs:
For some, loyalty programs come off as unnecessary gimmicks, but they actually provide valuable opportunities for keeping existing customers and generating new ones. Referral discounts and other rewards and gift card systems like that of Amazon encourage current clients to actively take part in growing your business. Loyalty programs can also help you build a community that’s eager to learn more about new offers and participate in promotional events.
When it comes to creating an effective loyalty program, you need to know the kinds of incentives you want to give out. It’s also important to generate enough awareness about your promo offers using a mix of email and social media content. Lastly, you need to determine who you want to target for your loyalty program. You want your efforts to align with your goals, so make sure you engage the right people who will get the most value from your offers .
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Event Invitations:
Modern buyers are people who are bound to learn more about what your business can offer in the long run. Other than that, they need to learn new things. This should give your startup an opportunity to generate clout, build trust, and become a thought leader in your industry. The best way to do that is through events.
Webinars, product launches, and conferences can be costly and tedious to set up, but they can generate massive returns through proper execution. After all, events such as these are great for retaining customers who want to put their trust in a business that knows its niche better than the next guy. Just be sure to publicize your events properly across different channels.
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Customer Service:
Nothing can derail your relationship with a client quite like a technical issue. From defective products to unsatisfactory experiences with a certain service, your startup risks losing potential brand advocates if you are unable to solve their problems quickly. Worse, they might also taint your reputation and affect your brand’s ability to generate new business.
The best way you can retain customers is to provide substantial customer support. You might want to provide your audience with several means for them to reach out. Using the right CRM platform, customers can engage you through chat support, social media, or by phone. The platform can also help you organize your responses and reduce the risk of an escalation in the case of more severe problems. At any rate, being able to respond to feedback can keep your relationship intact.
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Reviews and Testimonials:
When it comes to building trust, improving your credibility should be your highlight. For this, you may need to highlight positive reviews about your products or services. Sure enough, 70% of people are likely to pay more for products or services with higher review ratings, so it’s safe to say that reviews can help urge existing customers to purchase or choose your offer again.
Other than reviews, testimonials can also add to your credibility. You can solicit these from long-time customers who are more than willing to help give your startup a boost. You can leverage their testimonials to draw in more brand advocates and grow a solid customer base.
As you can see, it’s not easy generating loyal customers from scratch. It takes time and the right process to reach out, qualify, and nurture people who would be valuable to the growth of your startup.
But what’s your take on this? Do you have your own process for nurturing loyal followers? We’d very much like to know, so leave a comment below.