14.10.2023

The principle of creating an incoming flow of customers. How to increase the flow of clients without resorting to advertising How to choose a group of clients for your promotion

We talked about what a store's gravitational force is, what factors influence it, and how to objectively assess the attractiveness of a store in the eyes of a buyer. Today we will tell you how to increase the flow of customers to your store.

There are not many main criteria for a buyer to choose a store - there are only seven of them. To form a constant flow of buyers, you need to match at least one. And if your store meets all seven, then sales will definitely go up.

Keep your prices down

The main factor that influences the purchasing decision has always been and remains price. Shop with cheap goods more attractive to customers than an expensive store. This rule applies to all categories of people - small, medium, and high incomes. Read more about proper in-store pricing in this article.

If low-income people simply cannot afford large expenses, then for people with average incomes, purchasing goods at low prices is a kind of sport and psychotherapy: the opportunity to save money gives the buyer a feeling of joy and satisfaction (“committed bargain purchase", "I run my household correctly").

Wealthy shoppers also buy some of their everyday goods from inexpensive stores. Firstly, because they know how to count money (“why overpay if you can buy the same thing cheaper”). Secondly, because in very wealthy families the housekeeper often does the shopping. Thirdly, just because people can afford delicacies does not mean that they eat only them.

For the population from the low-income category, inexpensive stores with a large assortment are the most attractive. In order to save money, people will come to your store from afar and buy in full.

Expand your range

If finances and space do not allow you to expand your assortment to the desired scale, you can cooperate with other merchants who offer something that you do not have on sale. For example, move a store from a separate building to a large shopping center or rent space on a shopping street. The flow of customers from two closely located stores, which successfully complement each other, more than doubles (this is what tenants of space in shopping centers pay for). By the way, about how to choose and rent a place in mall read this article.

Deepen your assortment

Deepening is the expansion of the range of one product category. The buyer is more willing to go to a store where, instead of three varieties of sausage, there are 30 in different price groups. The more diverse the choice, the higher the likelihood of purchase.

The simultaneous expansion and deepening of the assortment leads to the need to increase the retail space. Super- and hypermarkets with a huge and deep assortment create the largest possible flow of customers. We wrote earlier about how a small store can survive in the age of hypermarkets.

Remember any of the networks household appliances, which has thousands of product names and hundreds of models in each group. In those cities where their branches are open, smaller equipment dealers are forced to close or change their profile due to the outflow of customers.

The picture is the same in the trade of building materials: large stores, where everything for construction, finishing and repair is sold in one place, small ones are being squeezed out of the market.

To create a flow of customers in competition with the giant, you can take a closer look at one of the following solutions:

Open a highly specialized store of one product group and provide the most complete and deep assortment, including rare and unique types of goods. To increase the financial return from the thinning flow of customers, you should move to a higher price segment and attract customers with what the hypermarket cannot offer;
Develop the “Everything for the Home” or “A Thousand Little Things” direction, offering residents of the microdistrict various household items: light bulbs, clothespins, soap and other inexpensive small-sized goods;
Sell products through catalogs and online stores. In this case, you can save a large assortment and save on trading space. For example, equip a sample showroom in the former store premises, and deliver goods to customers directly from the warehouse. Enterprises of this format successfully sell furniture, books, fashionable clothes, children's items, electronics and much more. How to properly organize and design shopping room in the store you will find out in this article.

Offer something special

Most Russian shopping centers have the same assortment, so other than that equal conditions their customer flows are divided equally. As it turned out, there is only one way to stand out from the mass of monotony - to put up for sale something that is not available anywhere else.

Unique products create a special flow of buyers who are willing to travel many kilometers for them, sometimes from another district or even city. And it is these products that make the shopping center a sales leader in its territory.

Owners of large retail space in the United States they are hunting for sellers of rarities, attracting them in every possible way with preferential conditions, because special offer Even one tenant brings profit to the entire store. Uniqueness is a powerful attractive factor and lack of competition.

Make your visit fun

A shopping trip can be a routine activity, or it can be a family holiday. The whole family often comes to stores that offer entertainment and spends more time there.

The tools for creating customer flow in the shopping center will be theatrical performances on weekends, games and competitions with the participation of visitors, attractions, cinemas, cafes, restaurants, children's complexes, etc.

Entertainment and interesting things can be organized in a small store. For example, in a fish store you can put an aquarium with live fish, in a pet store you can create a living corner, in a store children's creativity or computer technology - organize a technology corner for children.

This approach will increase the attractive power of the store even in the absence of unique products. Your assortment may be no different from the assortment of your neighboring point of sale, but your sales will be better.

Increase your comfort and safety

The store where the buyer feels comfortable and safe has greater attractiveness. This applies to both the internal environment (friendly staff, cozy interior, wide aisles, no queues, reliable luggage storage) and external details (large parking, comfortable porch, clean and well-groomed area near the entrance).

Not having a ramp to take out carts or having to wait until a storage locker is free to drop off a bag will redirect some of your customer traffic to your competitors.

Be an expert in your field

Buyers trust a seller who knows the product well and can give qualified advice on it more. So to increase your store's appeal, be an expert in your field.

Many people like to ask questions about a product that has caught their attention, and their purchase decision often depends on their satisfaction with the answer. Therefore, work to improve the competence of your staff - conduct training seminars or hire those who have professional specialization in your field.

In addition to oral consultations, it is useful to provide customers with audiovisual information about the product - from text signs on the shelves to videos on large screens in the sales area.

Doing business is aimed at increasing the income of the entrepreneur. No matter what your current sales numbers are, there is always room for improvement. In addition, representatives of even the most successful business Every day they take care of retaining and attracting customers, since capitalism has provided the market with high competition. Even if you offer a very high-quality product or service, the business will not bring the desired income and success if no one knows about it.

There are three main areas of work to increase business income:

Increased customer flow;
Increase in average bill;
Increase in conversion percentage.

With a competent approach and use of these three methods, profits can even be doubled. But sometimes a simple emphasis on increasing sales, which directly depend on the number of buyers, is enough. Sales volume is, in fact, the main indicator of business success, which many focus on. To increase it, it is worth systematically approaching the issue and using effective ways solutions. The most understandable one is advertising. Next come the literate ones. marketing moves and PR campaigns, which are a little more difficult to deal with, but they are the ones that guarantee a long-term effect. Marketing and PR are focused on the brand name and product quality, therefore they provide the business with a constant customer turnover.

Ways to attract new clients

First of all, any brand must declare itself: when entering the market, the company occupies a certain niche, and the primary task is to attract new customers. When making your first sales and receiving feedback, it is advisable to think about improving your work to increase sales in the future.

The best and probably the only way here is advertising. Any interaction with a buyer can and should be regarded as advertising, because the effectiveness of such interactions is later analyzed by marketers to build a more competent promotion campaign. And it is not necessary to be a marketer here, because not everyone has the opportunity to contact such specialists, especially if it is a small business. But having certain knowledge in this area, you can analyze methods for increasing sales yourself.

If you tell your neighbor about your auto repair shop, this is also advertising. And in some cases, it may be a better tool for entry than handing out flyers on the street or banners on websites. It all depends on the audience: it is better to provide information about agricultural machinery in newspapers, or by word of mouth, and sell fashionable youth clothing in in social networks like Instagram.

There are several ways to increase the flow of customers through promotion. Most of these methods are implemented on the Internet, because it is still the best platform for marketing.

Contextual advertising is the most popular and widespread way to increase user traffic. It works in search engines and brings you to target audience. Such advertising leads to the company’s website. But if you don’t have a full-fledged website, you can use a business card website or landing page (selling page). The most popular and working services: Google Adwords and Yandex.Direct.
Targeted and teaser advertising. Similar to contextual advertising, targeted advertising works on social networks by attracting people with embedded ads. Teaser banners are banners that are used on partner sites and carry information about your product and a link to it.
Placing advertisements on online platforms like OLX, Bigl.ua, Prom.ua, etc. Such portals usually have paid services placements for companies, which include promotion and a guarantee of increased sales. Especially if your website does not have good SEO optimization, such sites will help shorten the path from client to product.
Newsletter. It is best to inform about company promotions and new offers in mailings. There are many programs that are responsible for high-quality automatic mailing. But here it is important to maintain a balance - too aggressive mailing scares and irritates users.
Media placement and blogger services. Using information portals, it is easier for the brand to express itself, and its visible authority grows in the eyes of readers. The same goes for blogs. These two types of PR are on the same level, because bloggers are now very popular and have become an alternative option for information flow. And although such services are paid, neither the media nor the blogger will review something that could frankly spoil their reputation, so the products reviewed inspire trust in the audience.
SMM - social media marketing. SMM is a whole system of thoughtful actions to promote a brand and increase sales. This type of marketing fits the description of PR more than advertising as such. Working with the base active clients and increasing the level of expertise with good content, the desired result will not keep you waiting. But before you start, it’s worth studying the target audience of different social networks.
Promotions, discounts, sales. You can read more about them in the section on increasing the conversion percentage, but for new buyers this can be a very effective way. This method works especially well if the product is really high-quality, and the client, having become acquainted with it during the promotion period, comes back to you again, and is now ready to pay the full price.
Calling a “cold” customer base, that is, those with whom the company has never worked before. This method can be called outdated; today it is not so effective and is rarely used, because in modern society They even prefer to resolve business issues via correspondence, and unwanted distracting calls completely drive them crazy. But with some groups of clients, for example, older people, this method still works.

How to motivate a client to return

Increasing the flow of customers is not such a big problem as retaining them. At a minimum, the mechanism for attracting attention is clear; with a more or less competent entry into the market, the desire to try new things will attract new buyers, but this is far from helping to hurt sales. Constant customer turnover and the size of the average check ensure the success of the business. And in the first case, simple advertising is not enough, and in the second, it is not necessary to raise prices. There are several components that guarantee success:

Quality product;
Ease of use;
Attitude towards the client;
Loyalty program;

In Internet marketing there is a convenient term “conversion”, which refers to the ratio of the number of site visitors and those who performed targeted actions on it (read the content, followed links, purchased goods, etc.). This is a very important indicator that helps you know which methods are working and what needs to be improved. In general, you can focus on it in the case of other types of business.

Developing a permanent customer base and high customer turnover requires a competent marketing approach, working with buyer psychology and constant product support. An increase in the average bill should be achieved by a large number of purchased goods per person, and not by increasing prices - this is an indicator of a successful approach to marketing work.

Subtle marketing tricks available to everyone

Marketers use a lot of techniques to increase sales, and it’s not possible to learn all of them at once. But it’s worth understanding the most interesting and effective ones.

Good design and positive user experience - focus on presentation and strive for excellence in design - this is how you care about the client, and they will feel it. In a world of high competition, a good website, beautiful room design and pleasant staff can become almost the only and decisive factor. distinctive feature product.
Loyalty program and gifts. This is still a win-win way to win the hearts of regular customers and increase sales. The desire to accumulate bonuses, participate in closed seasonal sales and receive pleasant surprises from time to time makes the store a part of customers’ lives. This is not only a great way to retain customers, but also a good PR campaign to establish your brand.
Expand your product range. At the beginning of a business journey, the range of goods can be quite small, but with proper quality it will win the interest of buyers. But in order to maintain this interest, you need to constantly offer new products.
Be unique. Yes, this may seem banal, but at the same time, many neglect this point, considering it frivolous. But, as mentioned earlier, it is uniqueness that helps win your audience from competitors.

And these are not the usual words “we are unique in that we have high quality and inexpensive.” This is probably the least unique phrase in business. It’s better to think about what unusual things you can offer the buyer: perhaps these are small elements of the last century in clothing design; Only pottery in the coffee shop; an origami collection that can be collected by buying an issue of the magazine every month, etc.

Check out your competitors. Some may consider this method incorrect or dishonest. But that's not true. This is not about plagiarism or copyright infringement, which are punishable by law, but about inspiration and tracking trends. Often it is competitors or even their failures that inspire brilliant ideas. You can notice what problem a competitor is facing and solve this problem for yourself.
Contact competent managers. Whenever possible, always contact a specialist. If you run a small business and cannot hire a marketer or sales manager for permanent job, attend all kinds of trainings, one-time consultations with specialists and follow trends. But as soon as possible, expand your sales department. Good specialist can sell anything, but if you focus on quality, it will be a fourfold success.

Distinguish PR from advertising and use it

Advertising is a clear and precise message, a call to action. It's obvious. While PR is a subtle interaction tool aimed at the long term. PR (Public Relations) is public relations, influence on consumer consciousness and brand strengthening activities. This is information about the brand that entails fame, and recognition is associated with trust, which is main goal PR

Participation in thematic events introduces the client to the company and gives it weight in his eyes. At such events, it is useful to arrange presentations and product testing.

Publications in various media, when presented correctly, are very productive PR. But such materials are much more expensive than ordinary “custom” articles. The same can be said about expert recommendations on personal blogs - they inspire trust due to the fact that the product is recommended by a real, authoritative person, and not an advertising sheet.

PR means for increasing sales include acting as a partner at various events, or, for example, in charity campaigns. Competitions with prizes also include this. You can participate in competitions organized by other companies, or you can create your own, with real prizes - this is very effective for expanding your customer base.

This approach reminds me of the situation when you buy a technically complex household appliance, plug it into a power outlet, start pushing all the buttons, and try to start it. It won't start. Only then do you remember the instruction manual and start studying it. So, marketing and attracting clients have their own instructions, laws and rules. If you study them and then regularly put them into practice, you will become a successful marketer in your business.

Where does attracting clients begin?

The first question I ask entrepreneurs when they ask for help in promoting their business is: “Who are your customers?” And the majority answers differently, but all their answers boil down to one phrase: “That’s it! Everyone who can use our services." They can be understood because they strive to serve all customers in the market who are willing to pay. And at the same time they are afraid to refuse clients. This is the main mistake of small businesses. The first step to attracting clients is to focus on one group of clients, rather than all of them.

Conclusion: Due to money and time constraints, it is important for small businesses to focus their resources on one area in order to get maximum results at minimum costs.

Did you know that it takes 100 watts of energy to light a room with a light bulb? And the same 100 watts are needed for a laser to cut metal. Same energy, different results. The difference is how this energy is focused. The same difference in your marketing - either you focus or you spread out.

Focusing on attracting clients does not mean that you do not need to work with other types of clients or that you do not need to promote other services. But keep in mind the rule: for each group of clients/services there is a separate marketing campaign for their promotion.

How to choose a group of clients for your promotion?

To do this, you need to divide your entire market - all real and potential customers into groups or segments based on certain criteria. And then choose the most preferable one for promotion on it. This process is called segmentation. If you have several services, then for each of them you need to do separate segmentation.

I will share my algorithm for segmenting clients for small business services.

Step 1. Selecting segmentation criteria

At this step, it is important to understand on the basis of what parameters clients should be divided.

Each specific business has its own set of criteria. Therefore, I’ll tell you about the criteria that I use in my practice of segmenting clients for small business services:

Profitability;
Stage of demand formation;
Experience of use;
Reason for ordering;

Profitability

The simplest and most understandable criterion. Take a list of all your clients and rank it by profitability.

Example. Service - heating of cottages. We break down all completed projects by profitability. As a result, it turns out that the most profitable clients are those who build a cottage with an area of 200 sq.m. and order heating of the house on a turnkey basis, i.e. pay for all work: design, supply of equipment and related materials, installation, commissioning and maintenance.

Experience using the service

But one parameter for segmentation is not enough because within a segment, clients can be very different from each other. Often in services, customers who order for the first time differ from those who have already dealt with a similar type of service. Therefore, customers are often segmented according to their experience in using the service, for example, into “newbies” and “experienced”.

Example. Service - cottage heating.

Some of the most profitable clients quickly agree to cooperate because this is not their first home and they immediately see from you that you are a professional and a reliable company.

And someone demands that each stage be explained to him in a long and tedious manner, convinced, and agreed upon. The reason is that he is building a house for the first time and installing heating.

Motive for purchase

Example. Service - installation of suspended ceilings.

A woman is renovating her apartment and wants an unusual ceiling that will look beautiful and she can show off to her friends.

The daughter helps her parents make repairs. Therefore, it is important for her that they do it reliably, so that it lasts a long time and does not cause trouble for her parents.

A married couple is renovating an apartment that will be rented out. Therefore, it is important for them to have ceilings that are cheap but look expensive. It is also important for them to have official documents for reimbursement of costs in case the tenants ruin the repairs.

To a woman - that you have ceilings with which you can surprise your friends.
To my daughter, your ceilings are reliable and do not require any hassle.
Landlords - you have ceilings for rental apartments with official documents.

Frequency of use

Based on this criterion, I recommend segmenting services that are consumed on a regular basis. Typically this includes areas related to beauty, health, and nutrition: beauty salons, fitness, cafes and restaurants. This is because customers who use the service regularly are often different from those who use it infrequently.

Choose 2-3 criteria for segmentation. I recommend the following options:

User experience and profitability.
Order motive and profitability.
Frequency of use and profitability.

Step 2. Segmentation

Example. Service - heating of cottages.

We take criteria for segmentation:

Profitability.
Experience of use.

As a result, we get the following segments:

Step 3. Selecting a target segment

Market volume;
Competition and uniqueness;
Potential for growth;
Pleasure;
Value;
Convergence;
Experience.

And now about each parameter in more detail using the example of a company that provides “turnkey heating of cottages” services.

Market volume

How many clients of this type are there in the market? Are they enough for you? The more clients, the higher the score.

There are more clients in the cottage heating market who want to save money. Such clients want to buy a boiler and heating pipes on their own, and are willing to pay only for design, installation and commissioning services. Also, there are more people in the market who are building a small house than those who are building a house over 200 sq.m. As a result, for this parameter in our example we can obtain the following estimates:

Competition and uniqueness

How many companies are there on the market that specialize in working with this segment? How easy will it be for you to stand out from them, make yourself known and start attracting clients? The smaller the number of competitors, the easier it is for you to stand out, the higher the score.

There are different types of competitors in the cottage heating market:

single plumbers - they are the most numerous in quantitative terms;
teams of two to four people are in second place after plumbers;
specialized companies with their own office and warehouse.

Each type of competitor has its own type of customer. For example, plumbers primarily work in the Low Profit Beginners segment. Such clients are building a small house for the first time and it is important for them to save a lot on heating services and, due to inexperience, they are ready to turn to single plumbers. The company in our example has experienced heating system design engineers with higher education in this domain, great experience work on creating reliable heating systems.

We receive the following estimates for the segments of the Turnkey Cottage Heating company:

Growth potential

What is the likelihood that the number of this type of customer will increase? The greater the probability, the higher the score.

The economy in the region is going through difficult times. The number of clients who build large turnkey houses is decreasing. The number of clients who want to improve their living conditions by building their own home is growing. They are doing this for the first time and with their last money, i.e. They strive to save on everything.

As a result, we obtain the following estimates:

Pleasure

How enjoyable are you to work with this group of clients? The more fun, the higher the score.

The company from our example most likes to work with clients who are not building for the first time and already know that they need to turn to professionals and listen to their advice. Plus, the company loves customers who are willing to pay a lot to get a modern and reliable heating system.

They say that a good doctor does not need advertising, the “folk path” to him will not be overgrown, as to the miraculous monument of a brilliant poet. That's right. This statement applies fully to dentists. But it usually takes years before such a trail is formed. In addition, here we are talking about an individual, one person, and not about a clinic or a team. How to ensure a constant flow of patients for novice dentists and relatively “impersonal” clinics? Let's find some answers to this question.

Control

“Control” here means “control appointment,” that is, a visit during which you study the result of the work done previously after some time has passed.

Monitoring appointments usually do not involve payment, but this does not mean that they are completely useless in terms of filling the schedule with paying patients. During the control appointment, you can:

offer professional teeth cleaning;
offer whitening;
outline next steps for more comprehensive rehabilitation;
detect new dental problems and suggest treatment if control is very distant from treatment in time.

A follow-up appointment is contact with the patient, and it should be perceived as an opportunity to develop a relationship with him, and not as an inevitable routine.

Hygiene

The professional teeth cleaning mentioned above can generally become one of the drivers of income growth for your practice, be it a private dental office, a small clinic or a chain of dental clinics.

The bottom line is that professional teeth cleaning is a procedure that is recommended to be done every six months. Simple calculations show that 125 disciplined and motivated patients can fill one slot of each with professional hygiene for a whole year:

on average 250 working days per year;
two cleanings per year;
125 patients – one cleaning every day for a year.

Of course, this is an ideal picture; reality always makes its own adjustments. Minimizing the impact of such adjustments depends on your ability to convince the patient of the need for professional teeth cleaning.

Scheduled inspection

Another reason to meet with a patient in a professional setting is a routine examination.

Like professional teeth cleaning, a routine examination is a reason to meet with the patient every six months. Again, as with professional hygiene, the reality is far from ideal, and most patients do not want to come to the dentist when their teeth do not seem to hurt. How can you convey to them the importance of routine checkups?

Free. Make routine check-ups free and remind patients about them well in advance (a week, a day before the scheduled date of the visit).
Usefulness. Treat diseases with early stages easier than in later years, dental diseases are no exception. Convey this fact to the patient who doubts the need for routine examinations. And point out that “easier” here almost always equals “cheaper.”
Simplicity. The patient must understand that a routine examination is a simple and quick procedure that does not involve sitting in a chair for a long time with your mouth open, constantly waiting for a painful “shot”.

Again, with 125 patients and under ideal conditions, you can see one "scheduler" per day. Some of these appointments will turn into new treatment plans that will likely cover the cost of your free routine checkups.

Referral program

Referral program is a term from the world of marketing, in the Russian version dating back to English word referral, “recommendation, direction [to someone].”

In dentistry, a referral program can work in the same way as in many other industries: refer a patient and receive a bonus. Or even better: brought a patient - both received bonuses.

What kind of bonuses to offer to existing patients for recommendations is up to you to decide. It's probably best to keep things simple and avoid introducing a complex system of points, interest, etc. The faster you can explain to your patient the benefits of your referral program, the better it is. Free cleaning, a discount on this or that type of treatment, whitening, professional pastes and brushes are understandable incentives.

Real people, real jobs

The dentist works with the patient face to face. The trust factor in dentistry plays a very important role. Accordingly, the more you do to increase trust, the better for your practice.

Colleagues

It is probably fair to note that the word “competition” now has a completely unambiguous meaning in dental circles. However, can we only talk about rivalry between colleagues?

For example, you specialize in implantation, but do not take on complex cases that require root canal treatment (preferably under a microscope). Or your clinic has dentists for all cases except orthodontics. And the patient needs exactly what you don’t provide: a thorough endo or individual braces. In such situations, it is common sense to refer him to friendly colleagues who, in turn, refer people to you for, for example, beautiful direct restorations and aesthetics.

Charity

Free examination/treatment in kindergartens, schools, boarding schools, and nursing homes will most likely not be easy to carry out; today, pupils are usually sent to the state. clinics for routine examinations, and there they already issue referrals, often for free treatment.

But this does not mean that you cannot realize your intentions. It’s unlikely that anyone will mind if you decide to hold a small master class, say, for preschoolers, and show how to brush your teeth properly, explain why this should be done twice a day, and give away/raffle off good toothbrushes and toothpastes.

If you are actually participating in charity programs, donate a portion of your profits to a foundation doing a good cause, and let your patients know about it. Unobtrusively, without “screaming”, with a small banner on the website or a thank you from this foundation in a frame on the wall of the reception area.