How You Can Generate New Clients From Your Current Customer List
If you run a Lawn Care, Landscape, or Tree Service business, it may be hard for you to generate new clients. Here's a secret. It’s easy to get repeat business with existing clients. But how do you succeed without spending a fortune on advertising?
You may have heard about social media marketing as one way of getting new clients. In fact, social media HAS been used profitably by thousands of businesses to generate new clientele. But as a landscaping business, you don’t have the natural ‘panache’ that makes it easy for hot, over-hyped tech startups to generate new leads.
And it’s just here that your current customer list will help you out.
While you may never build the million-strong following that some companies have, with a little effort, you can use your customer base to generate word-of-mouth marketing for you easily. In this article we’ll explore how this can happen; primarily with a focus on social media.
1. Generate New Clients Through ‘Natural’ Referrals Through Social Media
‘Social media marketing’ refers to the process of using organic social media to promote your products and services. One of the best and most natural forms of social media marketing is encouraging your clients to give you referrals.
Social media naturally lends itself to this. Simply send your clients a message over Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, ask for a referral, and a certain percentage of them will give one. You can then use the platform to make a ‘warm’ introduction to the new lead; they will see your social media profile including any endorsements or testimonials you may have.
2. Social Media Testimonials.
Related to point #1, you can use social media to get testimonials on your FB page, LinkedIn Profile or Twitter account. In many cases, if you deliver excellent work, you don’t even need to ask clients for a testimonials; they’ll just leave one for you automatically!
But if testimonials aren’t piling up on your doorstep, don’t fret. Simply asking your clients to leave a testimonial on your page is a great way to get some. Not all clients will agree, but a good percentage will.
The more positive testimonials or “social proof” you have, the easier it will be to generate new clients.
3. Actively Seek out New Connections.
One of the big mistakes most businesses make with social media marketing is sticking to their ‘real-life’ social circle. While you can building a following by asking your existing clients to ‘like’ your FB page, it won’t likely be a huge one. What you want to do is actively seek out new connections.
LinkedIn is the ideal platform for this. When you have a connection in common with someone else, you can automatically message them to connect. Make sure to mention your mutual connection, along with the work you did for them. A certain percentage of the connections you reach out to this way will go on to become new clients.
4. Working The Facebook Page.
As a business, your Facebook page is an important asset. It may be your second most important presence on the internet after your website. But for a Facebook Page to really work, you need to grow it--that is, increase your number of likes.
Here again, your existing client list will help you out. Simply ask your clients to like your Facebook page. When they do, some of their connections will see that they liked you. If a lot of people in a certain social network like your page, Facebook will invite their friends to like your page as well. Gradually, this will add up to a bigger list of potential leads. New leads means you're going to generate new clients.
5. Master Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Last but not least, when it comes to building a clientele, CRM is absolutely crucial.
CRM is the whole constellation of activities that pertains to managing your company’s interaction with current and potential customers. Effective CRM means keeping your information on each customer organized, so that you can respond to requests proactively.
One of the keys to CRM is consistent, automated communication. You may not know this but, studies show that generating new customers costs 90% more than re-activating old ones… Unless you are actively communicating with your existing customer base to generate new relationships.
Arborgold provides a feature-rich landscape CRM platform to manage your customer relationships. Instead of having to communicate with clients manually, you can automate renewals, referral requests, and customized letters.
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