Mastering Customer Attraction and Retention: Strategies for Creative Home Businesses

The Art of Winning and Keeping Happy Customers

As a Creative Home Business Owner, whether you are operating Baby Casting Business, a Pet Keepsake Business or a Silver Jewelry Business, attracting & retaining new customers should be your top priority. But, unfortunately, many Creative Home Business owners appear to struggle when it comes to devising a Customer Service and Customer Retention Strategy. So, here are six quick tips to help you succeed in winning and retaining new customers.

Know Your Brand

The biggest secret that many Baby Hand and Foot Casting and Fingerprint Jewellery Business owners make when attempting to attract customers, is failing to have a clear vision of what their brand stands for and how to communicate it to their target market. I have touched on this before in my recent article on Branding Tips for your Keepsake Business. But many Creative Home Business owners fail to devote the necessary time to Business Planning and devising their Brand Strategy. Instead, they often rush through the process, resulting in creating "accidental branding," which fails to reflect their brand's core values and key messages.

If you want to be successful in attracting and retaining high-value customers, that resonate with you, your brand and your brand message, you need to understand what wins customers over to begin with. To do so, you need to understand the answers to the following questions:

• Who are your ideal customers?
• What motivates them to buy your type of products and services?
• What sets you apart from your competitors?
• What is your unique selling point?

When you fully understand the answers to these questions and know how to sell your Baby Life Casting and Keepsake Jewellery Products and Services, in a way that adds value to your brand, you will find it much easier to build a loyal customer base, who not only returns for repeat orders, but who act like your silent sales team, singing your praises and raving about you and your business to their friends. Never underestimate the power of this, because it is far easier to win repeat business and customer referrals than it is to find brand-new customers. So customer satisfaction and customer retention should be an instrumental part of your Sales and Customer Service Strategy.

Set Yourself Apart

Once you know and fully understand your Brand Strategy, Core Values and Key Messaging, you have to work at making your Brand highly visible. But, if you fail to implement an effective Brand Strategy in the first place, opting instead for make-shift "accidental branding," you will never generate enough awareness or interest to win over your first round of customers, let alone have to worry about generating repeat business and referrals. Particularly, when buying Keepsake Products, such as Baby Castings and Fingerprint Jewelllery, these types of products are highly emotive, so customers buy at an emotional (not a functional level). So, you need to understand their emotional buying motives and communicate these effectively through your Branding and your entire marketing actions, whether that is through your website, Signage, Point of Sale, Leaflets, Social Media, Blogs, or any other form of Online or Offline Marketing. If you do this effectively, you will soon have a steady stream of customers keen to buy.

When you have this first stage of customer attraction nailed, you must then move on to the next vital step of winning more customers, by using your loyal, existing customer base. This involves stimulating word-of-mouth recommendations by asking your existing customers for social shares, testimonials, reviews and referrals. Surprisingly, many Craft Business and Creative Business Owners fail in this crucial step of business growth and development. They simply don't ask their customers to provide them with reviews or customer referrals. But social proof is such an important element of the customer journey and buying cycle. So, at the very least, make sure that you ask your customers for Facebook and Google Reviews. Don't forget also, to ask them to recommend you to their friends.

Target Your Marketing

There is a popular saying in Business, "Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one." So, never be tempted to take a scattergun approach to marketing. Taking the time to know and understand who your ideal customer is, will save you time, money and heartache in the long run. In the same way that you have to be 100% certain of your Brand Strategy and what you offer, you also have to completely understand who you are targeting. Knowing who your ideal customer is, helps you to create a customer journey and experience, that they will highly resonate with and which will help their decision to buy from you.

Keep Customers Happy

Proactive engagement with Customers, not only helps you to win new business but is also an important step in effective and successful customer retention. Always remember, that the cycle of winning customers and retaining them does not begin and end with them handing you money. That is just the beginning of your relationship. Taking care of existing customers is not only cheaper for you because you have to market less, but it will also help you make more money in the long term, in the shape of repeat customers, upsells and customer referrals.

The simple fact is, that loyal customers eventually end up buying additional products and services, which is why I always recommend that you build multiple revenue streams into a Creative Home Business, regardless of whether you are operating a Baby Business, a Pet Business, or a Jewelry Business.

Be sure to offer bonuses and special offers to loyal customers to incentivize them to buy additional products and services from your Handmade Craft or Creative Home Business. Make sure also, that you provide them with easy ways to refer new customers to you and reward them for doing so.

Value Customer Satisfaction

Customer experience and satisfaction are massively important for any Creative Business. With the power of choice given to customers and the desire to have incredible customer experiences, every single time a customer buys something, Creative Business owners, must learn to step up and think of innovative ways to WOW and delight their customers. If you don't prioritize giving customers joy and satisfaction every time they interact with you and your brand, you will fail to win their affection or attract any new or repeat business.

Stand out from the competition and dominate your creative niche or local Market by providing an amazing customer service experience, which is joyful from start to finish. It doesn't matter if your competitors offer cheaper products and services, so long as your products and services provide more value in a way that makes you easy to do business with. By doing so, you will position yourself above and away from the competition, preventing you from having to compete on price.

Attracting and retaining customers is not rocket science, but the ways to go about it can be confusing if you don't know where to start, especially if you are a new Creative Business owner, with little business or marketing experience. First, figure out how to effectively communicate the uniqueness of your brand. From there, offer products and services which are tailored to your target demographic. By focusing on your ideal customers' needs and desires, you will succeed in developing lasting, profitable relationships for your Creative Home Business.

Dealing with Customer Complaints

Very occasionally you may experience an unhappy customer, unfortunately, this is part of being in business. Disputes are never nice to deal with, therefore it is important for you to consider what your Customer Satisfaction Policy will be in advance. Amongst other things, you will need to outline and consider:

• Transparent Customer Service Levels – Provide customers with clear timescales concerning when they can expect completion or delivery of their finished products and services.
• Keep to your Commitments - If you are unable to honor a timescale or commitment, always keep your customers informed.
• Quality Control - Never deliver a finished product to a customer that you are not entirely happy with yourself. If you are a perfectionist and constantly doubt the quality of your work, ask for feedback from a trusted and respected source, such as a Member of The Keepsake Guild.
• Satisfaction Policy – If you do experience an unsatisfied customer, think about what your policy will be. Make a replacement free of charge? Offer a Credit Note? Offer a Refund? Whatever you do, make sure that you are working within the law. Consider both the Consumer Rights Act, Online and Distance Selling Regulations, and if you are involved in making Silver Clay Keepsake, Hallmarking Law.

I hope that this article on Winning and Retaining Customers for your creative home Business has been helpful to you in starting, launching, and growing your Baby Business, Pet Business, or Jewelry Business.

If you need any extra advice or guidance on starting and developing your Creative Home Business, I offer a leading series of Craft Courses and Creative Home Business Opportunities, along with a growing collection of Business and Marketing courses, designed to help you with each stage of starting, launching and growing your Creative Business.

If you need any help with writing a Business Planning, developing your Brand Strategy, or designing your Website, I have a range of services to help you with that too!

If you are right at the begining of your journey of considering starting a Baby Hand Casting Business or Fingerprint Jewellery Business, check out the additional links and resources below and register for my FREE Mini Course on "How to Start your own Creative Keepsake Business."