How to Increase Your Home-Based Business Customer Base

Sooner or later, at some point in the business development cycle, every home business owner asks themselves the following question:

How can I attract more customers who will spend more money and bring me more profits?

A perfectly reasonable question unless you are ina home-based business only to give away your product or service. Most business owners are not in business just to provide charity and they need some way to attract more customers who will spend more money.

The official name for getting customers is - customer acquisition - and it is the first system any business owner should put into place. Buying office furniture, designing business cards, applying for licenses, purchasing computer systems -- none of these counts more in a business than customer acquisition. To make a profit and stay in business, every business owner needs a reliable way to get more customers.

Hands down, the very best way to acquire more customers is through a direct response marketing system. This simply means that whatever method a business owner chooses to prospect for new customers should have a built-in way of tracking response so the owner knows where the customer came from. And here is the secret to attracting more customers to your business.

You must tell your potential customers where they can find you AND give them a compelling reason for doing business with you.

This actually is the secret behind all marketing. All marketing practices can be boiled down to this one thought. Tell your potential customers where they can find you and why they should do business with you. It sounds so simple when you think about it, but this is one of the major stumbling blocks to a successful business. The owner thinks potential customers will spend time and energy searching out a company to do business with.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Most potential customers will shop only at places they already know. Stop and really think about this for a minute. Most potential customers will only shop at places they already know -- AND they need a good reason to do business with you. If they do not know how to find you, they will not be coming to buy from you. You must find a way to tell potential customers where your business can be found.

Here are 5 simple ways to do just that:

1. Send everyone in your zip code a postcard announcing a sale at your place of business or website. AND have them bring in the postcard to receive the discounted price.

2. Distribute a press release detailing the latest breakthrough in your home business field, available only at your place of business. AND include a special telephone number for customers to call for more information.

3. Give a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. AND hand out problem solving brochures with your address, phone number and a special code number for customers to use to get a discount.

4. Take out a yellow pages ad. AND include a discount offer in the ad.

5. Become the local expert in your home business field by being interviewed on the radio. AND include a special phone number for customers to call during the broadcast to get more information.

Many business owners regard marketing only as a necessary evil. They would rather concentrate on their core business activities. But when they use these simple methods to harness the powerful secret to getting more customers, they can eliminate the pain of marketing. Then their businesses will be truly successful in bringing in more customers, more money and more profits.