Get More Customers. Follow The Clues.

By Susan Oakes • 12 Comments

You may not be aware of it but customers leave a trail of clues. more customers clues

They can lead you to the reasons why you are not getting more customers.

For this article ignore what you can do with existing customers.

Here are two potential reasons why looking at this clue is important and it gives you an opportunity to play detective.

No demand

You may logically think that customers should have demand for your type of product or service. You believe there is a need but for some reason they don’t have the desire to buy.

Today we are lucky that we have tools to help see the level of demand and one is Google Insights. You can see the level of searches over time and you can also see forecast trends.

It will help you see if customers are searching for your type of products or services.

If there is no demand, all is not lost as the analysis may show you another market segment that does have demand.

It may mean tweaking your products or services to suit. But at least you will know that people are searching to buy your type of products or services.

Consistent demand

A regular purchase of your type of products or services does make life easier and helps the cash flow. Of course, it does depend on what you sell.

However unless it has a very high price and you only need a few sales a year you need consistent demand.

Again, the cause could be the customers you want to buy your products or services. They may only be looking to buy once or at the most twice a year for your type of product or service.

Or it could be that seasonality plays a factor.

Even if your customers will not buy on a regular basis if there are sufficient customers demand then this barrier may not be a big issue.

Following the clues can lead you to the reasons and use simplicity in your marketing strategies to get more customers.

Over to you

Share your tips or any tools that you use to see if there is demand for your type of products or services. 

photo credit: Rantz via photopin cc

See how I can help your business use simplicity to get more customers.

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12 Responses to Get More Customers. Follow The Clues.

  1. Susan Cooper says:
    February 1, 2013 at 4:49 am

    Gosh. I could talk about my past life or now. I think I’ll talk about now. I work hard to build traffic and subscribers to my site. The best way I can identify what they like is through comments and analytics as to what the highest visits and page views per subject. From what I can tell the highest is my iDraw demos. When I look at comments, it would be my stories especially when there are allot of illustrations. That tells me to do more of them demos and stories with illustrations. :-) ))

    However, when it comes to my recipes the traffic zooms. They start with the recipe then migrate over to my drawing and stories. Then it says something else. I can draw them with food and keep them with the stories and some wine. :-)
    Susan Cooper recently posted..Easy & Healthy Verdure With Homemade Marinara Sauce: RecipeMy Profile

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  2. Jeannette Paladino says:
    February 1, 2013 at 10:10 am

    Susan — you can’t sell if there is no demand for your service. It’s like the artist who never sells a painting. Does he exist? It’s important to understand what you want to sell and what people want to buy. It isn’t always easy.
    Jeannette Paladino recently posted..Do Community Managers and Social Media Managers Have Different Roles?My Profile

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    • Susan Oakes says:
      February 1, 2013 at 10:27 am

      Yes I think there are a number that exist until they realise it isn’t working. Unfortunately I see many businesses offer a product or service and for a number of reasons there just isn’t enough demand to have a sustainable business. The good news is there is always a solution.

      Reply
  3. A.K.Andrew says:
    February 2, 2013 at 12:54 am

    Good post Susan – though I don’t sell anything per se on my web site at the moment, I am definitely keeping in mind the marketing potential as the site grows. Thank you for the heads up on Google Insights. It’s something I’ve not been paying attention to. You can create items that people don’t even know they want , as Apple did, but you need to look at the traffic you do have to see not only what they want but indeed if you’re targeting the wrong clientele. Thank you for the post.
    A.K.Andrew recently posted..Can Your Computer Drain Your Creativity?My Profile

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  4. Christian says:
    February 2, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    You need to sell a good, nice looking package, you need to make it pretty, like a cute present, the customer must have the sensation he is the one profiting for that deal.
    I know some of you may not agree with this kind of marketing but I always find it to work, always. Make sure what you are selling actually haves people that are willing to buy it and then make them believe they are really lucky to buy from you.
    Christian recently posted..Old PicturesMy Profile

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  5. Catarina says:
    February 3, 2013 at 11:07 pm

    Good article Susan. Google insight is a great tool that can stop people from making the wrong assumptions of what the market wants.

    However, as A.K. points out you can sometimes create products customers do not yet know they want.
    Catarina recently posted..Can you do better PR than this?My Profile

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