New Leads or Existing Customers?

Deciding whether to stick or twist isn’t just a problem for card players. It’s also a common dilemma for small and medium-sized businesses.

On one hand, you need to expand your sales efforts to attract more leads and open up new customer groups. On the other hand, you don’t want to neglect your loyal customer base and end up causing them to go elsewhere next time they need something.

So what should you do? Stick with your client base and focus on repeat purchases, or throw caution to the wind and constantly appeal to new customers? The right strategy is to balance the two.

Perfect Your Sales Funnel to Generate a Stream of Incoming Leads

Every business needs to have a lead generation and conversion strategy. You can’t survive forever by cultivating a few high-value customers and hoping that they will remain loyal.

In a competitive business environment, customers are constantly shopping around. With this in mind, you need to position your business to appear on the radar of potential customers.

This means building an online sales funnel that attracts attention to your products, draws people to your website, entices them to connect with you, and converts that interest into concrete sales. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into treating your customers well if you don’t have any customers in the first place. Put some effort into attracting leads and it will really pay off.

Make the First Impression a Lasting One

We’ve just covered how crucial new customers are. However, let’s now focus on your existing customers. A stream of new clients is great, but only if they are treated well when they interact with your company.

A business that attracts a lot of attention and then fails to satisfy its customers soon develops a notorious reputation. Treating your customers like cattle is not the route to sustainable revenues, and it never will be.

Instead, when customers connect with your company, they want to be provided with useful information. They want your service to exceed their expectations.

Think about it. As people, we often develop opinions about others based on how friendly they are when we meet them; customers’ initial interactions with your business are no different.

Link Lead Capture to Customer Management

Let’s assume you have collected a large pool of leads and many of them have already made a purchase. What now? Here’s where you need to do to balance long-term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with an agile sales funnel.

Not unlike newly sprouted seeds, your converted leads have to be nurtured and protected. They require regular updates via e-mails, social media and newsletters, and they want to be listened to when they have a complaint or suggestion. All of these things go a long way towards creating a community of regular purchasers, and many of these tactics can be automated via CRM software.

The truth is, you can’t base sustainable business success on fresh leads or loyal customers alone. Both of them should be priorities for a thriving business, rather than marginal concerns.

The challenge is to find a solution that chases new customers and retains them when they make a purchase, which is exactly where Flowbird can assist. If you are looking for CRM and lead capture expertise, we will provide the advice and solutions you need.