How do I get more great customers for my business?
This is part 1 of our Salesforce Marketing series. We’re talking about what great Marketing looks like in 2021, and how you can use Salesforce products like Marketing Cloud and Pardot to grow your business.
I’ve been helping people with marketing for over a decade now. 10 years in, the feeling of seeing a client smile because of how I’ve helped them is why I do what I do.
I wish every client I worked with got this kind of reaction, but that is simply not the case.
Not all customers can be great customers.
Some customers are just the best. They get it. They rave about their experience with your business to their friends. They pay on time, and never bat an eye at the price. They follow through and complete their tasks on time. They communicate well. They seek your advice and trust you implicitly to meet their needs. Your team loves them and wishes that they had more customers like this.
Some customers, however, are the worst. They don’t get it. They are the squeaky wheel that needs the grease. They are always asking for more and don’t want to pay for it. Their invoices sit in A/R months past their payment terms. They question your expertise and micromanage your process. They complain about you to other people. They don’t hold up their end of the bargain and never follow through with their commitments. They drain the energy and passion right out of your team.
Many businesses make this mistake and it crushes their companies.
Many businesses think they can help everyone. This is a beautifully optimistic idea, but it just doesn’t work.
Because of your company’s unique purpose, personality, experience, and people, you are wired to help your great customers better than anyone else.
And just like it is significantly more profitable to sell to your existing client base, growing your business by seeking to help the type of people and companies who align with your great clients is the best way to do it.
How do I identify my ideal customer?
Make buyer personas to outline exactly who your best clients are, and base it off of who your best clients are. If Jody from Imaginary Corporation is one of your best clients, fill out the persona based on who Jody is.
You might have more than 1 type – good! Businesses can be complex, with many different divisions, business units, products and services and you may find that you have 2 or 3 ideal customer types for each one of these.
Build your CRM data model so it reveals your ideal customers.
Once you know who your ideal customers are, structure your Salesforce data to help your ideal customers stand out. These fields are called Success Attributes.
Here are a few examples:
- If you find that all your best clients have been in business for over 20 years, make a custom field called Year Founded and place it in a prominent location on Leads and Accounts.
- If you find that Controllers and COOs are best suited to make purchasing decisions, ensure that Title is near the top of the Lead and Contact records.
- Do you excel at helping businesses in the manufacturing industry? Make sure that Industry is required on your Web-to-lead forms and make it a required field on Leads and Accounts.
- Are you situated to help companies that have 10M-20M in annual revenue? Add a picklist field for Annual Revenue to your Leads and Accounts with ranges of revenue.
Sometimes it isn’t possible for your salespeople to be able to fill out all the success attributes when creating a record in Salesforce. No problem! Instead of making all Success Attribute fields required, use validation rules to ensure that your Success Attributes get filled out at crucial points later on in your sales process to give you a great foundation of customer data.
Niche your marketing to only focus on your ideal customers.
We live in the era of the niche. You only have click a few times to find something ultra specific on sites like Etsy and Instagram.
The more your niche your marketing to focus on how you meet the needs of your ideal customers, the more they will gravitate to you.
Here are some questions to help you find your niche:
- What do my ideal customers really love about my business? (Share stories that showcase this)
- What do my ideal customers love to get from my company that they can’t get from my competitors?
- Where do my ideal customers hang out online? (Facebook Pages, LinkedIn Groups, Subreddits, etc.)
- What conversations do they take part in? (#hashtags)
- Where do my ideal customers go in real life? (restaurants, stores, networking groups, memberships, etc.)
- What kind of marketing messages do my customers want to receive? (weekly email, blog/YouTube subscriptions, promotional push notifications)
Ask for referrals (systematically)!
Birds of a feather flock together, and your awesome customers hang out with people just like them too!
One of the simplest ways to find more great customers is to ask your great customers if they know anyone else you could help.
It might feel a little awkward to ask for a referral, so let’s stop and address this.
Ask yourself- what am I afraid of? The person you’re asking is one of your ideal customers, so there is a high level of trust built. They love what you do. They most certainly won’t be put off by the question.
What is the worst case scenario then? That they can’t think of anyone right now, but you’ve planted the seed in their mind and they may refer someone in the future.
And the best case scenario? That you find another great client who you can help succeed! Remember, if you help their friend succeed, it’s a win for all of you.
You don’t want to ask for referrals too often, but it is important to ensure you ask consistently. Build this question into your satisfaction surveys and meeting agendas with your clients.
Next Steps
We’ll be continuing to talk about how to grow your company with Salesforce’s marketing suite. If you found this valuable, subscribe to email updates to ensure that you don’t miss a post.
If you have Pardot or Marketing Cloud and need help, fill out this form to start the conversation.
