Whether yours is an existing business or a startup, you need to know how to get customers online. This is because there are millions of people online daily. Majority of those online are good prospect but you need to reach them. In exploring how to get customers online, you need to know where your niche potential customers can be found. Also, you may want to consider reading about the seven essential business success factors and develop a strategy to attract online customers.

It may appear that startups are the only ones who need to attract customers to buy their product or services. But every business needs clients to stay afloat. In fact big brands spend more money online than small businesses because they know how powerful the online community is. In this post, we will examine the things business owners needs to do to get customers online and grow their brand successfully. But first we will look at internet business statistics so you know you business can skyrocket if you do things right online.

2019 – 2020 Internet Statistics

Just in case you have had bad experience with some digital marketers or you think that online marketing is not worth it, here are some openly verifiable stats to consider.

• Currently, there are 4,208,571, 287 internet users globally. (Internet stats)
• The average searches conducted on Google every second is 40,000, and 1.2 trillion searches yearly. (Wpform)
• There are 3.2 billion internet users on social media.
• 55% of people will search online for reviews and recommendations before making a purchase, with 47% visiting the company website, 26% checking out the physical store, and 23% of people talking with friends and family. (KPMG)
• Up to 50% of people who conduct local search on their mobile phone will visit the physical store within a day, and 34% of those who use computers or tablets to conduct their search will do the same. According to GO-Globe
• By 2040, 95% of purchases will be done through online. (Nasdaq)
• 71% of people believe they’ll get a better deal online, even if the item isn’t technically on sale.
• Small businesses with blogs on their website get 126% more lead growth than those without.
• 85% of all online orders from social media come from Facebook.
• 78% of small businesses attract new customers and engage existing ones using social media.

Where Prospects Are Found Online

The beauty of online world is that you could be knocking on prospects door via cold emails, DM, remarketing ads, search ads, comments, etc without getting a restraining order.

Its a beautiful market place i tell you.

One of the best way to get a target audience online is via social media groups and forums. There is virtually a group or forum on almost all areas. Heck, there are even groups/forums for pets care. Search engines and blogs are good places to get targeted prospects as well.

If you own a store that sells products, one of the best platform to use to boost sales dramatically is social media. For instance, over 80% of Instagram users follow brand and above 70% of users have made purchases from the platform.

But, if your target market is B2B, your best platform is Linkedin. According to Linkedin Stats 89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation. Similarly, 62% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn successfully generates leads—that’s twice as many as other social platform.

On the other hand, Google is a platform you can use to target any kind of prospect because of precise targeting the platform offers.

Once you identify where your potential clients hang by topic, you need to “infiltrate” them subtly. The way you do this is by providing valuable help to them. Establish yourself as an expert in your field. Once you are able to do this, you have won their love. More on this later.

Now lets look at ways to get customers online

1.) A Niche Based Website

If you want to maximize your online marketing potential, you need a well customized website. With a good website and an excellent strategy, you will turn things around for your business faster than you can imagine. If you would want a free consultation on Web Design and online marketing for your business Click here to schedule a call back now.

A business website is at the core of online promotions. If you really want to get customers online as a company, a business website is your starting point. People often research companies online before they do business with them, if you are missing online, you will lose out.

Here are some highlight to setting up a business website:

1. Create a unique and responsive website
2. Optimize your website title with the right keywords
3. Create your website with relevant keywords in your niche
4. Create targeted blog content to promote search traffic
5. Make your website load very fast
6. Setup proper robot.txt for your website
7. Create a sitemap and submit to Google search console
8. Get SSL certificate for your website
9. Place proper call to action on your website for increased conversions
10. Write “killer” titles for your blog posts
11. Write meta description and include your keywords
12. Use short keywords driven post and page url
13. Use good SEO plugin if you are on wordpress
14. Utilize FAQ schema in applicable posts to boost SEO

2.) Run Paid Advertisement

The known fastest way to get customers online is via cost effective paid ads. Online ads is mainly Google ads and social media ads. As Steuart Henderson Britt said, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does” Advertisement is at the core of any business success and its something you have to budget for continually.

In the words of Henry Ford “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” They are both counter productive.

Google Ads

Its now general knowledge that businesses make at least 2 dollar profit for every dollar spent on Google ads. That is some opportunity you don’t want to miss out on. Google ads are highly effective because they are mainly keywords base.

Meaning for the search network ads, you campaign is shown only to those searching for your services. The display network ads are shown across the web and on gmail accounts and youtube as well.

Effective use of Google ads can highly boost your patronage. You are sure to gain a lot by using Google for your promotion.

Factors for successful Google Adwords

1. Capitalize your search network ads first words
2. Create catchy and clickable titles
3. Use long tail keywords
4. Use negative keywords where necessary
5. Create sitelink, call and callout extension for your ads
6. Pay attention to the optimization score
7. Create landing pages that synch with your ads (Let your landing pages carry the message your ads carried)
8. Target the right location and demographics

Read more about how to setup Google Adwords

Social Media Ads

Social media ads is another way to get customers online. Ads in this category includes Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest ads. While social media ads are not keywords based like Google ads, targeting is pretty specific. Social media ads is extremely powerful too and fantastic for e-commerce and product sales.

From experience, i found that social media ads works better for any Niche when you choose the right video or creative for your ads.

Another factor to consider is the various platforms and the kind of prospect there. For instance, Linkedin target market is different from Facebook. The key is first understand your promotion goal, then choose a platform and setup the right targeting.

Factors for a successful social media ads

I believe you want your ads to perform well and make you money. So consider the following factors. They will make your ads perform better and produce desirable results.

1. Use catchy video or image for your ads
2. Capitalize the first words of your ads title or heading
3. Use “Learn More” call to action button if not e-commerce
4. Create different versions of your ad (Split testing on Facebook)
5. Have a custom landing page for your ads
6. Try to collect emails from your landing pages to upscale conversion
7. Mention your price up front to filter many people that may waste your time
8. Promote product discount to a landing page with other lovely products
9. Promote product discount to a landing page with other lovely products
10. Filter out mobile traffic if your website is not responsive
11. Focus on your ads relevance score
12. Social media is a play ground, let your ads not sound too “serious”

3.) Include Customer Testimonials on Landing Pages

According to G.S. Alag, “Satisfied customer is the best source of advertisement”. But David J. Greer is absolutely apt in this context. “A customer talking about their experience with you is worth ten times that which you write or say about yourself.”

Customer testimonials are a great source of driving conversion online. You have created a good ad copy, and prospects have landed on your page (website). Next step is to boost trust beyond doubt with genuine customer testimonials.

There is need to ask your customers for feedback to make this possible. Your customers’ text or video testimonial will work magic in converting prospects to paying customers. In fact, testimonial is one thing you need to work on when it comes to how to get customers online. A display of many satisfied customers shows your brand is trustworthy.

Along this line comes trust signals in the form of professional accreditation. If you have them, displaying them on your website will do you much good.

Factors to consider in listing testimonial on your website

1. Don’t edit them after they are sent
2. Publish those from credible source (Depends on your business)
3. DON’T use stock photos if customer provides no photo (Publish without photos)
4. If customer include a complain he made and how it was resolved in their testimonial, use it.
5. Publish them with all typos and misspellings or grammatical errors.

4.) Social Media Groups And Forums

This is a method you can use to get more customers online even if you don’t have a website. Account setup on forums and social media are free of charge. For instance you can visit naira Land and setup account in minutes. Same thing on Facebook and LinkedIn too.

After creating your account, all you have to do is search for groups that your prospect will be. For forums, look for topics relating to what you do.

Strategy to get customers online via social media groups and forum.

To get clients through social media groups and forums relevant to your niche, you need to build trust. Surely you can post about your services and groups and get clients right away, but its a method that will not produce long term result.

What you need to do is publish quality content that will help your customers. Alternatively, look for questions that prospects ask and answer them sufficiently. Answering question related to your business on groups is providing solution. When you nail it well, you would be regarded as an expert which will lead to more followers and customers.

5.) Send Potential Clients Cold Email

Cold emailing can be implemented to gain lots of clients, but you have to be clever about it. Be that as it may, even direct cold emails yield results. But what is cold email.

What is cold email

Cold email is single or number of unsolicited e-mail sent to an individual or company with whom you don’t have a prior contact. It is the email equivalent of cold calling. Just like you sometime receive calls or SMS from unknown person to woo you to become their customer, so also is cold emailing.

Cold email are effective way of getting customers online if its done right. Though the email are unsolicited, if well written, you can be sure to get customers from them.

Below is a sample of my old cold email i use to send.

Factors for a successful cold email campaign

1. Use catchy non spam email titles
2. Let your content be brief
3. Give them a reason to contact you
4. Have portfolio or catalog ready to send once they demand to see you work.
5. Avoid BCC mailing if you can, unless you have a strong SMTP
6. Setup DKIM and SPF for your mail for good reputable
7. Warm up your email account (Send less than 10 emails by day for days before sending bulk if the email account is new)

Know that you will get bad reply sometime. But your focus is getting new clients and the more rejections you get, the closer you are to your acceptance.

6.) Write Targeted Blog Post

One guaranteed way on how to get customers online consistently is through content publishing. We are not talking about just writing and publishing post to your blog. But, publishing authoritative content on your blog that answer questions that people search for.

Targeted content is a well researched post that answer questions that searchers ask via Google. Thus, there is need to first know what people search for in relation to your niche. Then create quality content around those search queries and get ranked on Google for free.

Did i say this is a long term project? It is a long term project and will yield results after 6 to 12 months. See this video on how long it takes SEO to produce result by Neil Patel.

Highlight of steps to writing posts that rank well on Google

• Research keywords with Google keyword planner and go for long tail keywords that are not too competitive. You can also use Ubersuggest for your keyword research. For Ubersuggest, go for phrases with keyword difficulty (SD) that is less than 25. See photo below.

• Conduct a search with the keyword you want to target on Google
• Go through the 7 of the top 10 post on Google page one.
• Get summary points from them
• Start your own post that will be better than any of those
• Have your main keywords in the introduction, in some headings and conclusion. Let it flow naturally.
• Use Hemingwas’ App to test your readability. If you are on WordPress, use Yoast plugin for your readability score. Let it be green or orange at least.
• Use images in your post where necessary and add alt text
• Let your post content be above 1000 words
• Have 3 to 5 internal linking and external linking in your post.
• Write compelling meta description that captures searchers interest.
• Publish your post, request index on search console and share on social media.

When you follow those steps, your blog content will rank and you will enjoy constant flow of organic traffic and customers.

7.) Setup Google My Business Page

Google my business is one sure way to get free customers fast for free even without a website. Its an awesome free service by Google to help small businesses boost credibility and get more customers online easily.

Proper utilization of Google My Business alone can have great impact on your business. Learn how to create Google My Business page now.

Conclusion

There are other methods on how to get customers online that are not discussed here. They will be added when this content is updated. Be that as it may, if you are into e-commerce or sell products online, you may want to see this post by Wordstream. It will help expand your knowledge and keep you equipped.

These methods are not one off implementation. Meaning they require nurturing to be effective. There is no automatic system to getting customers online. Even when you use ads, you still have to monitor, test and optimize them to see more results. Therefore, commit to this and you will be surprised how fast your brand will grow.

If you need help with your business website design or online promotion, please contact us.

Cheers