 In the age in which we are living today, your website is one of your most powerful tools for attracting and converting new clients and customers. Whether you’re looking for help to raise finance; such as a business loan for business start-up plans or for an already existing business for business growth plans, to improve business performance, or getting more customers. Whatever, the case may be, optimising your website with the right strategies, including growth strategies and keywords is essential. Here’s a brief guide on succeeding in getting more customers and clients using your website.
1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) To attract more clients, your website needs to rank well on search engines like Google which is the most widely used. This means using the right keywords to help potential customers find you. 2. Valuable Content Creation
3. Optimise On-Site SEO
4.Utilise Off-Site SEO and Marketing
5. Leverage Local SEO in your Local Area and Community
Conclusion By optimising your website with these strategies and the right keywords, you can attract more clients and customers, improve your online presence, and grow your business. Remember to continuously monitor your website’s performance and make adjustments as needed to stay ahead of the competition, bearing in mind your website is also your gateway to success. If you require further in getting your business visible online or on optimisation or any other business area, give us a call today on 0333 355 1696 or send us a message.  If you want to find out how people really feel about your business, it's time to ask! Whether you want to find out how people rate your products/services, how employees feel about working for you or how people perceive your competitors over you, the only way to truley find out is by asking. Here we explore '5 Ways to get Important Customer Feedback'.
 One of the first steps on how to start and grow your business, is being able to work out what applies to your own business and the relevant Business Performance Strategies. During the pandemic, we have seen the fastest growth of online businesses, including clothing. Launching and just recently one of the darlings of the online platform and money makers of the pandemic period - Made.Com go into administration. Though not a clothing business, it tells you how you can be here today and gone tomorrow in business.
 We get this question often from accountants who are looking to expand their client base and business advisory and brokerage service. Approximately 400 accountants turned to us in 2020 hoping that diversifying into business advisory and brokerage service will enable them to give additional advice to prospects and clients, thereby making them stand out from the crowd and providing opportunities for strategies to improve business performance. And they are right to perceive that marketing is the key to securing new clients. Whatever one is selling, the principles are always the same. So, we start a discussion, NOT by making an RBSS Consulting Ltd sales pitch, because it may not work for them, but by asking them what marketing strategies they have carried so far to help in getting more customers. All had tried some of the following, and one had tried them all, (spending 3 years of profits in doing so). Here’s what they told us, including the outcome for them: · Emailing Easy and free of charge. However, where do I get my contact base from to succeed in my business expansion strategies? The list brokers sold me databases reduced to a small number due to the GDPR compliance. They therefore became worthless and the overseas providers sold me junk. If we try Companies House, we can get the contact information of all businesses in our area, such as Romford, Hornchurch, Upminster, Brentwood, Havering, Barking, Dagenham, Ilford, Stratford, London etc. However, only approximately 25% of such businesses have phone numbers or emails and these are usually ‘info@’ which will probably go into the prospect’s junk email box. Hence, too time consuming to clean them manually. Networking meetings ‘Spot the real business’. Everyone attending is an accountant, business consultant/advisor, venture capitalist, web designer, social media marketer, Independent financial adviser (IFA) etc. Often, we are all after each other’s client bases which often becomes a waste of time. A specialist built me a contact base with a lot of new connections but no business enquiries so far. I send the odd post that gets a handful of likes but no further leads that will help grow my business. A specialist created and placed some ads regarding my business ideas etc which resulted in several enquiries, all of which just wanted to know about compliance work pricing. A specialist created and placed some ads and news for my business. Several enquiries were made, all of which just wanted to know about compliance work pricing. Articles and blogs o A business writer had some success in getting these placed. This proved good for profile but didn’t produce any business enquiries. SEO A web developer built a smart site on my behalf and highlighted my abilities to grow other businesses with their business growth plans and strategies and lined up search terms she thought businesses would use when searching for an accountant. We are now on Google Page 1 for ‘Accountants in Toytown’ and it results in enquiries. However, the first question asked is, “how much do I charge for compliance work, I’m just shopping around?” Then nothing. Sponsorship I’ve supplied shirts with my logo to a junior football team and bought a sign on a busy roundabout which was expensive. It did get a few good clients initially – mostly school parents. Testimonials The business writer did some client write ups, which does impress the prospects. Yet, I can’t say it closed any sales in itself. Trade shows Very costly and a lot of business talk. It has brought the odd new client, but not worth the trouble. Client surveys Not enough of them respond to make it worthwhile. Referral programme I offered an Amazon discount voucher for introductions - very few have taken up the offer. Newsletter Loads of work and abandoned after a few months. Videos I don’t believe I would come across well enough. I’m no good at presenting. Door drops Tried the above. I believe they ended up in the bin along with all the pizza, cabs, restaurants, window cleaners’ flyers as I didn’t observe any results from it. Seminars and Webinars Tried once and only 2 people showed up. Brand management Talking to marketing consultants who want to change their practice name, design a new logo, and start again with a new website. This appears overwhelming, very expensive and with no guarantees of new revenue.  The bottom line
The results ranged from absolutely nothing (“because we used to get referrals”) to all of the above (“and now we’re broke, because nothing worked”). These accountants have spent a lot of money, mostly wasted, and therefore want to know what guarantees RBSS Consulting Ltd can help them in getting more customers! The truth is that its not that the marketing techniques above don’t work, its your offer that needs to be looked at. What are you the accountant actually offering the client. Well…with almost 20 years’ experience of small business consultancies …the overwhelming demand we encountered was “I need help to grow my business to get more customers and it’s urgent”. Before accepting the job, we learnt the importance of giving a FREE brief consultancy first to review their strategies to improve business performance. You can therefore book a free 30-minute discovery call. We would then look at the rest of the business, reviewing their Business performance strategies, specifically customer retention (that is; product/service quality); operating efficiency; people productivity; profitability and cashflow. Why look at everything? This is because a lack of sales was often the tip of the iceberg. There would be little point in getting more orders if the product was troublesome, systems inefficient, people incompetent, customers not paying, bank calling in loans etc. After reviewing all of the above including their ways to improve business performance, we would often be left with the only choice of saying “we can help you, but only if you give us a year. If you don’t have a year, we’ll have to start with an overall survival strategy to buy the time to implement the right marketing and be able to properly service your customers”. Why a year? This is because that’s how long it takes a new business that does all the right things to get a flow of new customers. And in that regard, any business without new customers might as well be a new business with new business start-up plans, although it does have some advantages to help things to happen quicker. The average buyer of a new service or product looks at it ten times over the course of six months before deciding, unless they are desperate (and does one really want desperate customers?). The finding of good new customers does not happen quickly. You need a business that is operating effectively to take advantage of the orders when they do arrive and then please customers enough to order more, and tell their friends. If you want to see this working and have 30 minutes to spare, RBSS Consulting Ltd will assess your practice for FREE as a demo. Book it here Meanwhile, why did all those accountants fail with all their marketing? The recurring themes were: 1. No research into where/who their ideal client/customer is 2. Assumed knowledge of what they want 3. No pre-developed solutions that clients would be willing to pay for 4. Lack of a clear plan of how to reach, analyse, and help clients 5. Too many random marketing tactics (no clear business development plans ) 6. 6. Short-lived initiatives that were never embedded (the average trial period was 4 months) 7. Not focusing on and sustaining the few key things that really work 8. Not understanding the 12-month (marketing) rule and giving up too soon 9. No clear selling processes - it’s very different to marketing RBSS Consulting Ltd has real-time proven solutions that has helped many businesses back on their feet before and during this coronavirus pandemic by helping them understand their business better with a Business Valuation, Performance and Health Check. You can read about a few of many of our clients testimonies in our real-life case studies. Once an accountancy practice has mastered its own marketing in this way, it will be ready to sell this very same service to hundreds of new clients as a profitable diversification. To discuss any of this with us, feel free to book it here  Unless your business is located on a public premises, such as a shop which advertises itself just by being there, it all starts with a database of purchasers; be them past, present, future, or all three. In spite of this, whether the customers are from walk-ins or clients from businesses, their personal and business details should be gathered into a database for ongoing contact, marketing and reminders. This will in the long run aid in getting more customers and business expansion and growth strategies. However, are consumers nowadays now so immune from the bombardment of online banners and messaging, in whatever form it is delivered? And have they shifted from responding to offers to do business, to working out what they want for themselves and then searching for it? If they have, what’s the point of trying to approach them? Why not just create a nice website with ecommerce plugins and do some posting on social media to create awareness? This is what most business start-up plans aim to do, in way of the future to enhance their business performance? This is looking at it from a different point of view. It’s the same as having a high street shop where people can walk by or notice it and walk in on impulse. Even if they don’t buy today, they now know it’s there and can come back in the future or recommend it to others. And being virtual, there is no rent, rates, insurance, maintenance costs etc. Funds for business are therefore very considerably reduced! Is a virtual shop really the same? Do people walk by or drop in on impulse? If they are searching, with the impact of SEO spending to get on page 1 of Google. This should have the positive effect of getting more customers onto your business website and some eventual purchases too. This is certainly one important aspect on how to grow your business. Whatever the approach, there is no getting away from the age-old imperatives of knowing:
Through our real case studies and practical work with businesses, the most common issues that we have unearthed, is their lack of new customers and clients and help to raise finance. Here we have helped many a business improve business performance making their business sustainable, compete effectively, improve profitability, structure their decision making process and achieve business goals. In the last month alone at RBSS Consulting Ltd, we have helped client businesses to implement marketing programmes such as the ones stated below:
In most cases, the first strategy in their marketing plan was research. This is because they didn’t know the answers to the seven questions above. In that case, how did they get where they are? Initial diagnosis. The common trend is, they rode on a wave of new demand with automatic growth by getting in early into a new gap in the market and did very well at the beginning, until the market became choked with new competitors. This resulted in the prices going down, customers proving to be disloyal, business becoming a struggle and it therefore became difficult to make ends meet and meet the business development plans before getting far into the business. Action Plan and solution. Some clients did not contact us until they had lost all hope of their business getting out of the above situation. At the initial stage, we had to convince them in becoming aware that without market research the risk of wasting money is high because spending decisions will be based on a hunch and assumption rather than hard facts. Going into many of these cases, the first discovery we made is that there was no CRM (Contact Record Management) system. Therefore, there was nowhere to collect data about their customers and prospects who will be used in drawing up the research result. We were also able to direct them in setting up an easy to use CRM system. Results. The appropriate research was able to proceed and it turned out a lot easier than our clients had expected. Furthermore, it was informative and surprisingly fun. A transformation occurred and they switched from scepticism to motivation as they started to see why their sales and margins had declined and understood that knowledge is power on the way to solutions to business growth plans. So, what about the database issue? There are two approaches:
This works out fine until the drought comes, as it did and will eventually.
Those who choose this approach and are consistent, avoid the drought when it eventually comes. So, are the marketing methods wearing out? Yes. This is mainly because many who use them do so insufficiently, which is the reason why effective marketing has become so difficult for everyone. Fortunately, there is a ‘but’ for those who invest in and manage a live database of customers or clients of the past, present, and future in a way they understand, communicate with effectively, and listen to as a guide. For these, there will always be good business. That will never change. If you can relate to any of the above, please discuss this with an experienced RBSS Business Advisor by contacting us or booking here.  Customers are the heart of all small businesses and without them the business is sure to fail. Therefore, it important that they are treated properly and you strive to build a relationship with them, to ensure you gain a loyal customer.
 Business is business and whatever the size of your company there are many principles that apply to all. Look at the following skills that big businesses use that small businesses can use too:
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