How to Find Customers for Your Online Business
Is finding customers for your online business proving to be a challenge?
Relax, you're not the only one going through this. Lead generation and the whole process of turning leads into customers are, in fact, delicate stages in a digital entrepreneur's journey. But finding customers isn't impossible. You just need the right strategies to make it work.
Cademí's Customer Success team (Cademí is Brazil's first Member Hub) has already shared five tips here on how to sell online courses that they teach every day to customers who need help at this stage. The thing is, before you can sell, your potential customer needs to know you exist. So this time, we'll help you with a few simple ways to find them.
So keep reading to discover:
- How to find customers for an online business
- How to make your online business easy to find
- The right way to work with paid traffic
- How to use a lead magnet in your strategy
- Key metrics when looking for customers
How to find customers for an online business
In digital marketing, we call this stage of finding customers lead generation.
In short, in English "lead" is a term for persuading. In marketing, the word is used to name the contacts you win through your marketing efforts. So a lead is anyone who comes across one of your campaigns (organic or not) and is interested enough to fill out a form with their information.
Whether it's a waitlist, a form to access a piece of content, and so on.
This is one of the most important stages for your online business. After all, lead generation is where you start warmer communication with your potential customers. To succeed at this stage, Cademí's team of specialists highlights three main points:
1. Be easy to find
If you're building an online business, rule number one is to be online.
It may sound obvious, but it's an important point that needs attention. Your online presence can't only show up during your product launch. You need to be consistent. So build a website with clear, accurate information about your business and a schedule for your social media.
Also, invest in long-tail content, that is, content with a longer shelf life that can be found on search engines. You can do this with a blog or a YouTube channel, for example, as long as the content is optimized for SEO. Here, choose the keywords for your articles and videos carefully and strategically. At this stage, it can help to:
- Think about the term your persona would search for to find your content;
- Use Google Trends to find variations you can also use;
- Use Semrush and other tools to understand how competitive each term is.
In short, the idea is that when customers search for their question, they find in you the solution they need. That way, they arrive much more decided and ready to buy.
2. Work with paid traffic
Your business isn't one of a kind. The digital product market keeps growing, and you're very likely to find someone else who's an expert on the same subject as you.
So it's important to stand out and be seen first.
At this point, one option is to invest in paid traffic. Platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads help your content stand out and reach more people (a lot). But before you create a campaign, make sure you understand who your target audience is and what stage of the sales funnel they're in. Those two pieces of information are crucial for knowing what content to produce and what tone to use.
Also study the sales funnel. That way, you can split your content up better.
3. Use a lead magnet
Give value to get value.
In a nutshell, that's the idea behind a lead magnet. You create a piece of content (an ebook, masterclass, checklist, etc.) that solves a pain point for your customer and offer it for free. In exchange, the person gives you their email and phone number.
With that information in hand, you can add the contact to your email marketing flow or target more specific traffic campaigns at those people. You can also bring them straight into your member area and sell other products faster. We explain the Diamond Funnel strategy here, click to learn more.
Key metrics when looking for customers
The work doesn't end once you've captured the leads. In fact, this is where two important stages begin:
- Converting leads into customers
- Analyzing the data
One is closely tied to the other, because analyzing the data makes it easier to understand where your lead is and the best way to convert them.
So the first lesson is: you shouldn't rely on numbers alone. The number of leads matters, but it's their quality that determines how fast they'll convert. In short, there are four possible types of leads and ways to move forward with them.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
These are leads who aren't ready to buy yet and should therefore be nurtured by your marketing team. Maybe by entering an email marketing sequence or more targeted traffic campaigns.
In short, the goal is to move them down the funnel until they reach the sales stage.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
Here, on the other hand, we're talking about people who are ready to buy. Either because they arrived ready or because they've already gone through marketing.
Product Qualified Lead (PQL)
If you offer a free trial, a lead who has already been through it is a PQL. In other words, they're ready to be approached by the sales team but haven't gone through marketing.
They probably have impressions of your product, and you can use that in your sales approach.
Service Qualified Lead (SQL)
Finally, SQLs are leads who have already been your customers. Maybe they've bought a course or ebook, for example, and so they know the quality of your service. In this case, these are people who want to continue their learning journey with you or upgrade.
Unlike PQLs, which are lead magnet or trial leads, here we're talking about people who already have a real relationship with your online business and have already spent money on your products. That's a detail that will change how you handle the sales approach.
