There are more ways to attract new customers as there are fingers and toes on a human body. These techniques vary in the cost to your time and wallet and will deliver different results as you work to gain new business.
Hiring a marketing firm costs big bucks, and you may be too busy to devote yourself to a full-fledged social or content campaign. The question becomes how to select the best ways to find and convert prospects without going over-budget.
This blog offers the five simplest, time- and cost-effective ways for you or your staff to get the attention of people in your area who are searching for services like yours.
1. Get to Know Your “Neighbors”
T-shirts and caps decorated with your ISP’s logo are perfect to wear around the towns you serve. Make sure you and your team wear the ISP uniform to community meetings, carnivals and other local events. You are visible and future subscribers can connect a face to your company name.
2. Comment on Community Blogs and Facebook Pages
If there are Facebook pages for your community, school or social organizations, comment on posts that are related to your ISP, as a local business or community member. Use a hashtag to identify your ISP in the post: #ISPName. If community rules allow it, add your URL to your comment.
3. Be “Live” on Facebook
Videos are attention grabbers and today’s phones and social media platforms make it easy to create videos and live-action streams. Post them to your Facebook page or website, promote them and accept comments.
4. Respond to Online Reviews
Subscriber reviews can persuade or dissuade prospects from trying your services. Whether good or bad, reply to reviews about your ISP to demonstrate that you’re responsive.
Perform periodic Google searches on your ISP to find comments and reviews. No matter how negative the post, do not be nasty or hurtful in your response — don’t let this be the first impression some readers will have of you.
5. Create a Referral Program
Reward your best promoters with dollars-off a monthly fee for each new subscriber that they refer. Layout the process to ensure your promoters understand how to collect the reward, such as how long the new subscriber has to be a subscriber.
Tell your technicians and office employees to ask all new subscribers if they were referred so you can give credit where it’s due. Well-executed referral programs can pay off big-time — for a one-time reward, your ISP will collect months of recurring income.
Get new business by being visible in the communities you serve.
These easy ways to keep your name in front of your community don’t add up to a lot of time or money — but, they can pay big in benefits. Schedule 15 – 20 minutes daily to look at local blogs, Facebook pages and newspapers to find opportunities to get your name in front of future subscribers.
Thank you to Nina Strehl for providing the image for this article; see more of Nina’s work at Unsplash.com.
