Starting a new business is not easy. We all know that, and you can pick from a wide choice of doom-mongering statistics on how many startups crash and burn in the first year or two years or five years. When your business operates completely or entirely online, it can be even more stressful. At least if you are standing in a physical store thinking “what if nobody comes?” you have your worst fears either confirmed or dispelled in short order.
Getting customer footfalls is a vital part of getting your business off to a flying start. It’s not the be-all and end-all, unfortunately, and there are businesses that have been busy and successful with full order books and have still failed. But get footfalls through the door, physical or virtual, and you certainly boost your business’s survival odds. Here are some strategies you can adopt to make it happen.
Give something away
Everyone likes something for nothing, and if you are entering a market that is already crowded, this is a good way to get noticed. The challenge here is minimizing the risk of people turning up for their giveaway and then leaving without buying anything.
It’s a strategy that is often adopted by the online casino platforms, even by quite well known brands when they are entering new markets, and there are clever methods they adopt. For example, this PA online casino sign up bonus has two parts to it. The first is $10 to spend as you wish in the casino. It’s free money and means you have 100 $1 spins plus whatever those win you. By the time you’ve burned through those, you’ll have worked out which game you prefer and will be more inclined towards the second part, which is a 100% bonus to match your opening deposit.
Run a contest
Contests are effective in getting customers to engage with your brand. They are also effective means of growing your contact list – people don’t think twice about providing their details “for marketing purposes” if there’s the promise, or even the possibility, of something in it for them!
Keep in mind that by itself, a competition is unlikely to win you customers. What it does is provide you with warm leads, so you must have a follow-up strategy in place to reach out to them, perhaps offering a tempting discount, free shipping or some other incentive to get them into the sales funnel.
Use influencers
Influencer marketing is a massively trending topic, but there’s more to it than hype. Marketers have found it is 11 times more effective at driving ROI than conventional digital marketing channels. However, it takes work.
Finding the right influencers and developing relationships with them is a topic in its own right that can be explored another day. But it will yield better results in the long term than simply paying an influencer for a one off shout out or plug on his or her YouTube channel and social media feeds.
