How to find the first customers for your small business?

If you are a business owner you’d know how important it is for you to get your first customer. The first customer is the proof that you have something valuable to offer and all your efforts and sacrifices are worth it. But for many small businesses, finding the first customers is one of the hardest things to do.

Therefore, whether you have just opened a small business or you’re an entrepreneur who’s found a new startup, you may as well take a look at how exactly one can get their first client. Because without a general direction, the struggle is unnecessary. Speaking from personal experience.

So let’s skip that, and learn some of the tactics that continue to bring new customers for many small businesses.

Usually owners of small businesses or startups are not marketing or sales experts. But during the first years, responsibility to attract customers falls on their shoulders. Let us help you fulfil the responsibility successfully.

Yes, it may sound annoying, but your profits aren’t going to be sustainable without this one. We know, sitting down and writing a business plan does not sound like something that will save your hides when you are burning resources like a spaceship taking off.

Still, hear us out.

Having a business plan is essential to attract the right people and get the right first clients to stay with your business for the long-term.

If you already have a business plan, consider focusing on better expressing your value propositions when you are outreaching for referrals.

We’ll let you in on a secret right off the bat: The better you know who your ideal customer is, the better your acquisition plan will be.

Therefore, the first step in making preparations for customer acquisition is defining your target audience and having a theory about their pain points. So, to let your online marketing and cold calls hit the right nerves you have to have the ideal customer profile (ICP).

The next step is defining your goals. It can include the number of new customers within a set period, the period they stayed with you for, etc.

Now, choose your acquisition method. It can be paid, free, inbound or outbound. But which methods to use? That’s a topic for another day.

Now you are ready to get your first customer. You have your business plan and ideal customer profile, all you need to do is skim through your social profiles to find the ideal client profile.

Create a list of prospects (you probably have already interacted with them) and reach out to them. Explain to them what you are offering and ask for feedback. With these warm connections you can set meetings easily, grow interest, and get to conversion faster.

However, reaching out to your network is only the beginning. You have to explore various other places for new customers.

You can ask for referrals from your immediate network and even your friends and family (effective only if they are in the relevant industries).

Your immediate network may only be interested in your offerings but not customers yet, however, they may know someone who is in much more need of your services.

The fun thing is that you can also ask people for referrals who didn’t respond to your initial outreach. In fact, we consider it important to ask for a referral because if they cannot respond to your pitch, they may find it better to forward you to someone that would be happy to.

Attending seminars or meetings that your prospects are interested in, is one of the best ways to find new customers. It will allow you to make contacts that could eventually lead to sales.

If you are doing that but having no luck you should try different networking groups. Use various media outlets to gather information about the upcoming events where your target market might attend.

This is what you have to do while you are reaching out. It is going to help you reach people who may get interested in your offerings.

Here’s how you can start:

Post regularly on social channels, threads, forums, and other relevant platforms. Your primary aim is to become visible to as many people as possible. This will allow you to interact with people who might be potential customers.

Seeking beta testers is also an option. Maybe not from the beginning, but they can become customers after they have experienced benefits from your offering.

With this non-intrusive method you get to learn about the prospects and the pain points your product can address.

Having good online presence is always a plus and it considerably helps you with the previous method.

The first step of building a solid presence online is creating a website that looks professionally appropriate for your industry. And the second step is starting a blog that aims at helping your target audience.

Once you’ve ensured a regular upload, you should use SEO best practices to make sure that it reaches the highest number of relevant readers possible. Continue reading to take your reach to the next level.

If you are new to marketing, you should start by creating a marketing plan, starting a blog, and creating a lead generation form on your website. Then you should launch a Google PPC and paid social media campaign.

During your paid and organic campaigns you are targeting the people from your ICP. You will shortly notice sign-ups rack up some decent numbers. If that does not happen, you can retarget your campaigns or do adjustments in your ad copy.

Create an outreach strategy and start using multiple outbound prospecting tactics targeting your ideal market.

You can use cold outreach on linkedIn, cold emailing, and cold calling.

You will send InMail messages to prospects in LinkedIn with whom you have never connected before when you are doing a cold outreach on LinkedIn.

You can use Email Finder to get the business email of people from your ICP and send outreach emails that address their pain points with solutions you provide.

If none of this works, you have to use cold calling. But, people try to avoid it as it is unwelcome by many prospects.

Posters, flyers, free appraisals and coupons are some of the best ways businesses get their first clients.

Follow-up questionnaires, although not directly a marketing tactic, is a fantastic tool that can bring you closer to your goal.

You can also consider traditional marketing methods like billboards, print advertising, and radio.

Teaming up with businesses whose products compliment yours but do not compete is great for two main reasons.

One, the related service or product allows you to connect with a client base that has higher chances of needing your services or products.

Two, teaming up with a reliable business means you immediately gain some of that reliability, which is a big plus you should not miss.

This is not an exhaustive list, there are still numerous ways to approach this one problem: how to find my first customer? But, once you start with these you will surely learn more about your prospective customers and their diverse needs.

Getting your first customers will be difficult, but it will all be worth the effort when you finally get it. So, try using the methods we discussed above and you will be closer to the first step of building your clientele.