One of the major pillars of business growth and prosperity is your consumer base. It is their purchases or patronage of your services that bring in profits and keeps you afloat. For this reason, it is essential that you nurture and continuously expand your market reach.
There are many factors that can hold you back from succeeding in certain markets and population segments. To address these challenges you will need to identify them and come up with effective strategies to overcome them.
Here are a few factors that you can adjust to help you attract and maintain a wider clientele.
Product Diversity
Customers’ needs and preferences are vast and keep evolving with each passing day. When you have a limited product offering, it means that you only attend to a limited number of tastes. Whereas if you had more to offer, many people would be seeking your product or services. Consider adding diversity to your product line with regard to:
Customer Needs
It would be difficult to address all fathomable consumer needs. However, it makes good business sense to invest in areas that attract high demand that you may have neglected. The goal here is to offer the customer more variety such that they do not have to take their business elsewhere.
Supermarkets are a good example of such diversification. Shoppers would buy non-perishable goods from them and go on to a grocery store to purchase fruits and vegetables. When they came alive to this fact, most supermarkets added grocery sections in their premises.
Culture and Religion
Consumers come from different cultures, religions, and are of different ages. All of these factors play a role in their buying habits and create exclusive segments in a market. In order to make headway into those segments, you would have to adhere to their stipulations. It is for this reason that most butchers now offer Halal meat and some ordinary banks also have Sharia banking departments.
Consider how cultural preferences may be barring customers from choosing your brand and try to accommodate them better.
Marketing
It is possible that you have a smaller customer base than you would like because your brand is unknown. The marketing medium you choose needs to be one that can reach the consumers you are targeting. It may be time to evaluate whether your marketing is effective and how you can improve on it. You could explore options such as:
Digital Marketing
Age and similar demographic factors play a role in the information mediums people choose. Today, even older generations are considerably tech-savvy. Still, they tend to gravitate to some social applications more than others. Facebook, for example, draws a wider age range than Instagram or Twitter.
Evaluate your target demographic and use a media platform that they interact with often in order to teach them. It is also advisable to center your messaging and campaigns around subjects they can relate to.
Packaging
Think of packaging as the way in which your product introduces itself to customers. With this in mind, aim for packaging that will attract them and make them curious about what you have to offer.
Further, health safety is something that customers are increasingly considering when making purchases. Plastics, for instance, have been linked with toxic components like BPA’s, and some consumers are wary of them. Safer packaging alternatives such as glass bottles and jars may be more preferable. If you are to use glass containers for instance, consider working with an experienced glass packaging manufacturer that can design the products that suit your packaging needs.
Logistics
The more the number of people that have access to your business, the larger your client base. Expanding your operations gives more people a chance to buy what you are offering. You can achieve this through:
Multiple Outlets
There is a reason there is a Starbucks just about everywhere you look. While most people need their early bird coffee fix to start the day, no one wants to drive ten blocks to get it.
The same can be applied to your business. A few strategic branches will bring in all the customers that had to find an alternative because you had no stores in their locality. If this is beyond your current business capabilities, retail partnerships would be an ideal solution.
An Online Store and Shipping
An online store is basically a key to the international market. There are very few restrictions that can hinder you from selling to anyone anywhere in the world. What larger market base could you possibly ask for?
That said, your website should be accessible in terms of language and user experience. Further, given as customers will not have physical access to choose items, informative product catalogs would be helpful. Customer support for any concerns and inquiries on the products is also something that most buyers value and appreciate.
A comprehensive shipping network that your clients can rely on is key. It needs to be able to deliver to a variety of destinations and in a timely manner. Additionally, endeavor to offer buyers the lowest shipping costs possible as exorbitant rates can be prohibitive.
Pricing
In economics, the demand for a product or service is always predicated on the price. It thus begs the questions, how competitive is your pricing? Consumers compare the prices of different brands of the same product before making a purchase. In the event that your product is more expensive, they will likely go for the cheaper option.
In order to remain competitive, you can choose to either adjust your prices or offer buyers premium value. When consumers feel that they are getting their money’s worth, they are more forgiving of higher prices.
Alternatively, you could diversify your product into premium cost and budget varieties. It has worked for the fuel industry and many others.
Conclusion
The way customers relate to businesses is not too different from the way they interact with people. Attention, responsiveness, and care are all appreciated. People prefer brands they can identify with and those that make them feel that their business is valued. If you are able to establish that dynamic, the gains will be immeasurable.
There are many lucrative markets just waiting for you to conquer them, do not hold back.
