Customers | 3 MIN READ TIME

How to attract new customers on the road out of lockdown

by

The mid-April period is going to be an exciting time for the public, and a time of opportunity for business.

With shops opening, we’re expecting a lot of competition for the UK’s disposable income, and for the public to be excited to go out and do the things they’ve missed out on since 2020. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar location re-opening, or an online retailer, you have a dog in the fight.

Physical locations will be looking to make a strong comeback and online retailers, whether they were digital-first before lockdown or not, will be looking to protect their gains over the last 12 months. It’s a challenge, but it’s one very few companies in the UK can afford to shirk away from.

Lots of experts in the loyalty and acquisition world will tell you that you’re better off looking for long-term changes. And to an extent they’re right, but long-term changes take time to kick in.

If you’re just focused on making the most of the next few weeks and months, here’s what you can do.

Run a promotion

You can offer discounts, 2-for-1 deals, or attach a reward like a digital or plastic gift card to certain purchases – whatever works for your business. It’s simple, but as our clients will tell you, it works.

Hundreds of our customers use Love2shop rewards to promote their products and services, and we often recommend that they focus not on the gift card itself, but all the possibilities the gift card opens up.

With the one multi-retailer gift card, you can offer your customers gifts from Argos, Currys PC World, and even holidays. Focusing on the outcome, and the experience that your customers will have with their reward, does more to motivate individuals than focusing on the gift or its monetary value.

Even better, a promotion is also the starting point of launching into a loyalty scheme to keep your customers once you’ve won them. We’ll talk more about that in another blog soon.

Be shareable

Aside from their fitness goals updates and park walks, it’s been months since anyone had anything decent to share on social media. Across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, the content well has been pumped dry. That gives your company an opportunity – be shareable.

What looks good on social media affects consumer behaviour, to the extent that almost one in ten people surveyed have admitted to making purchases with their social media presence in mind.

Not only will offering something shareable get customers to think about coming to your company over your competitors, they’ll do a bit of your marketing work for you by putting your products in front of their friends. And as we’ll point out below, word of mouth matters.

Team up with your peers

As restrictions ease one at a time there will, temporarily, be a slightly unequal situation. Depending on what kind of physical space is available, and which restrictions are affecting their business, some companies will have an advantage over others.

For instance, a pub with a beer garden is at an advantage over a pub without one, in the near term. Working with your peers could be a short-term solution to this imbalance.

Take stock of what’s around you, whether that’s digitally or physically, assess who could complement your business (and vice versa), and reach out to talk about some cross-promotions for the next few weeks and months.

Get a grip on your reputation

We talked recently about how important online reputation is. Consumers are in the habit of checking sites before spending their cash, and they trust what they see on review sites as if it came from their friends.

That means the state of your Trustpilot page, or another review site of your choice, will have a direct impact on whether customers spend money with you while we’re easing restrictions around the country.

You can use our guide here to clean up your Trustpilot page for any recent negative reviews, but it’s also worth asking any current customers for their reviews to make sure there’s recent, positive feedback for your next customer.

Over to you

Attracting customers is about more than just making the most of the next few weeks and months. There are long-term improvements that every company needs to invest in to find new business, but right now we’re focused on how the maximise the benefits of the immediate future.

Redesigning your website, renovating your shopfront, working on your SEO presence, upgrading your services and products – if you haven’t done them by now, there’s no time to get them up and running by mid-April. That doesn’t mean you can’t maximise what’s possible to do now, though.

If you have any questions about setting up a sales promotion to bring some more customers into your business, just get in touch. We’re always up for a chat.