Whatever business you may have, growing your customer/user base is arguably the single most important thing you can do. And it makes sense. I mean, without a strong customer base, there’s little to no income for the business. This makes it extremely hard to take steps forward in the business, or even stand ground where you are now. It also makes it nearly impossible to get any sort of salary for yourself as well. Much less a decent one. Essential oils have a fairly unique customer base, and marketing techniques that come with that, so we’ll be discussing building users in that area, however many of these tips can be used for other business types as well.
Interpersonal Connections
Talking to neighbors, family, and friends is one of the best ways to get a small customer base of loyal users. These are people that will likely choose you over competitors purely because they know and want to support you. This is a great way to get a steady, though small income to support through the early stages. It could be a good idea to hand out flyers in your neighborhood!
Online Marketing
Marketing online is one of the most effective ways of getting the word out, regardless of business type or size. This will get a consistent and a generally large number of people looking at your business, increasing potential clients, and potential for actual customers, in turn increasing sales. This is, however, a more expensive form of marketing, and will most likely be saved for when your business is strong enough to hold its own with the investment.
Collaborating With Local Businesses
Making deals with other local businesses is another great way to build a loyal customer base. By agreeing to advertise them in your venue or product, many companies will also agree to do the same for you. This will allow you to reach far more people, without having to commit a lot of money towards marketing. In a local area, the residents will also feel a sense of belonging and pride and want to support a local business, especially in smaller towns.
But What If You Get Bigger?
But what happens when your essential oil company grows from a home-based, small revenue business, to a larger, more substantial operation? At this point, you may have an office space, or a venue, a business accountant, or maybe even have a whole slew of employees. At this point, growing your customer base is a whole new game… Kind of.
One of the first things you can do is alter the previous techniques just a little bit. By mixing together business collaborations and interpersonal connections, you gain a great tool for larger businesses. Instead of going to your neighbors, go to nearby businesses, and talk to them about working out dual advertising, get to know your local CEO’s, and sometimes you may be able to call in a favor or two.
Of course, online marketing will always be effective. But becoming larger allows for a couple of different options. With a bigger marketing budget, comes more diversity. You can invest in more expensive platforms, such as radio and television, instead of containing yourself to small website ads or pop-ups. Mainstream media is much more effective, but in turn, it is a lot more expensive. Make sure you weigh your options well and focus on making the right choice for your company and your target audience.
Increasing Customer Base in Other Small Businesses
One of the great parts about essential oil businesses is that many of them are family or home-based. A lot of people will start these companies by making essential oils in their kitchen, or by using essential oils to make other products. Products could be soaps, lotions, lip balms, shake mixes, or perfumes among many other items. That makes it easy to relate the different techniques used by essential oil companies to your own small business, especially homegrown ones, or businesses based out of the garage.
It’s also essential to keep in mind the kind of people you’re trying to reach. If you have a company that sells a product or service to other businesses, it might not work so well to try and sell it to your family or friends, since chances are, they won’t have much of a use for it. Despite wanting to support you, most people won’t buy something they don’t have a use. But one of the other techniques, such as online marketing, might work wonders! Being able to reach a broad target audience is beneficial for any product or service you might be offering.
Increasing Customer Base in Other Large Businesses
When it comes to larger businesses, tactics change a lot. It’s the same approach for other large businesses as well, though. Once a business becomes large enough, marketing techniques become fairly similar, with a few distinct differences.
The first and most significant difference is the target audience. The audience affects the way you market since you need to reach a particular demographic. Making an ad for younger people is drastically different from making an ad for older people. You’ll also put it in a different location or platform. For example, an advertisement for kids would go on the kid’s channel, whereas an ad for older individuals would go on a news channel or more adult channel.
Nevertheless, the ways you market are generally the same. Putting ads on websites, television, radio, will still be useful. So will billboards, cross-marketing, or collaborations with other businesses. Going to conventions is another great way to get the word out about your business, but depending on what product or service you offer, the conventions you go to will be of great importance. More than likely, you won’t even make it into an electronics convention with an essential oil company. So there are things to keep in mind.
