How do you get customers for your services? Valuable advertising tips and tricks

Acquiring customers is a difficult task, especially for new businesses. How do you do it? Use the power of recommendations, industry events and the internet to effectively differentiate yourself from the competition. How do you use advertising to get customers for your services? Read on!

Challenges of acquiring customers for services

Starting your own business involves the need to to face numerous competitors . Nowadays, it is difficult to find a niche, and on top of that, not every person setting up a business wants to look for a way to make money from this angle alone. Worse still, among those with similar activities, many are businesses with large budgets for promotion. So how do you get customers for your services?

The problem that start-up business owners face is the range of customer requirements. Their expectations of products and services are the result of two interrelated factors.

Consumers now have access to a range of similar goods, and these are already provided by the competitors present on the market . How do you reach customers in such a situation? Fortunately, there are several methods. However, we would like to point out in advance that reaching out to individuals and companies requires a commitment of time. This is another challenge in finding customers for one's products or services. Unfortunately, no one will pay for the time spent on customer acquisition.

Where do you start with customer acquisition for a service company?

Marketing around your business is best started with the simplest thing - referrals. For a start, it is worth telling family and friends about your new business. It is very likely that some of these people will remember someone who would potentially be willing to use a particular type of service.

Using networks of relationships between people is invariably (and irrespective of technological developments) one of the best strategies for acquiring customers. In this case, an old as the world mechanism is at work. Building relationships with other people allows you to gain their trust, and this is likely to translate into a recommendation.

However, not everyone has people in their circle who are interested in their services or who know someone who could benefit from them. And even if they do, it is worth widening the circle of potential clients.

How do you attract new consumers? Best exploit the potential that industry events have . Tickets to many such events are within financial reach even for budding entrepreneurs. There is a good chance that such expenditure will pay off in the form of first orders .

Where else to look for clients for services?

Acquiring customers for one's services at industry events proves the thesis of the need for time, for which no one pays the entrepreneur. As you can see, you will still have to pay extra at the start of your business. The same rules apply to online advertising. How to find customers online ? For this task it is best to use:

• services for freelancers and others offering their services;
• thematic groups on social media;
• profile personal and corporate social media.

Services for freelancers and others offering their services

Individuals and companies looking for a service provider only need to come forward. This task is facilitated by portals where various advertisers publish their offers.

They have the added advantage of being able to check competitors' rates and adjust the price list for their services so that it is as favourable as possible.

Thematic groups on social networks

Social media has millions of users and, as such, cannot be ignored. However, it is important to remember that time is money and it is not worth going literally everywhere with your offer. A post that does not match the group's profile will irritate users and, worse still, may be deleted by the group's administrator.

Personal and company profiles on social media

Posting information about your offer on various groups is not enough. In the meantime, you need to systematically maintain a company profile . Otherwise, a person who is interested in a post published in a topic group will start to suspect the company of a lack of professionalism.

Personal profiles are also useful in finding customers for services. However, the scope of their use is different from that of company profiles. In social media, such as Facebook or Instagram, it is best to separate the personal account from the company account, which is used to advertise your business. However, profiles on LinkedIn can be used differently. On this site, it makes sense to use both accounts to promote your services.

Other ways to attract customers and convince them of your services

Ad hoc social media activities are not enough, nor are regularly maintained profiles. Customer acquisition still requires the application of techniques from the field of commerce, as well as SEO. The actions to be taken are:

• cold mailing i cold calling;
• increase the position of the company website in the organic search results.

Cold mailing i cold calling

Under these terms are two activities whose purpose is to obtain information about the needs of possible customers. This activity is not strictly advertising, but rather a way of establishing yourself in the minds of future recipients of your services. New entrepreneurs should expect that only a few callers will immediately decide to take up the offer. Showing up and leaving a contact for yourself however, increases the chance of a response after a certain period of time.

It is a good idea to use both methods, although their effectiveness differs greatly. Unfortunately, emails often go unanswered. In the inbox of the customer contact person, the message may go unnoticed. In the case of calling, no such risk exists. What's more, in the course of a conversation, there is a direct and more spontaneous the relationship between the provider and the potential recipient of the service .

Increase the position of the company website in the organic search results

The feature that all the previous methods of customer acquisition have in common is a proactive approach to the task. A wait-and-see attitude is also highly effective. Importantly, this should not be confused with a passive approach. The positioning of the company's website in search engines and the acquisition of users through thematically related texts require continuous action.

Implementing SEO principles, such as technical optimisation of the site and saturation of content with keywords, allows the increase your website's position in the organic search results (primarily on Google). In this way, you will succeed in attracting users who are looking for a service provider, but may never have heard of the company in question otherwise.

Filling the page with keywords, i.e. those that internet users type into search engines (e.g. 'parcel shipping') is essential. Articles also help to attract customers. However, things such as having them written and published on external sites cost money. At the start of your business, you can therefore limit yourself to a blog. Useful texts on industry-related topics have a chance of indirectly lead readers to the company's offer .

What should a service company's advertising message include?

Good advertisement services is a message that is short and as informative as possible. After all, it is no coincidence that professional spots last a few minutes at most and billboards contain so little information. Only after a positive first impression has been made increases the chance of on the recipient's interest in the full range.

What then needs to be done? As an example, consider an entrepreneur who is wondering how to acquire a customer for transport services. Such a person should:

• brief description of activities , e.g. 'we operate in Warsaw and transport employees to production plants and logistics centres';
• replace the benefits to the company of cooperation that decides to use the shuttle service, e.g. "we have a large and modern fleet of vehicles with which we transport employees from various points in the city around the clock";
• write company information which can further encourage people to choose this offer rather than a competitor's proposal, e.g. "our offer is distinguished by its competitive price";
• CTA, or call to action, which means call to action Such as 'you are welcome to contact us throughout the week between 8 am and 6 pm'.

InPost advertising - reach customers who are interested in your services

Whether you intend to set up a one-person business or want to promote your new business , we have an offer for you.

The Paczkomat® machine is used by thousands of people throughout Poland on a daily basis. The number of our machines you choose we are able to to display your company's promotional material . The information can also appear on the screens of our vending machines in the form of static graphics.

What else can we do for you? If consignment plays an important role in your business, the following can help you retain recently acquired customers sampling . We do not exclude the possibility that you will also be interested in the service of sending newsletters or notifications to the InPost Mobile app.

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