As a small business owner, your journey will be both challenging and interesting. You took the risk to start your business with a big idea, spent time and energy for its launch and are now looking to find new clients. 

One of the main keys for staying in business is to continuously build a pipeline of new business. While every business owner is looking to expand their client base, it’s no doubt that customers come and go. 

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into learning more on how you can build up your clientele for your small business this year. 

1. Define your unique selling proposition (USP) 

Before you start taking any step further and communicating with prospective clients, you need to become clear on what your business stands for. In short, it’s what helps your business stand out from competitors and the reason why people should consider your business over your competitors. 

USPs can be assessed in four different ways: 

1. You offer traditional services: Maybe you are a business that is offering traditional services. For example, you own a cleaning business and are focused on creating environment-friendly cleaning products. This part would be your unique selling proposition. 
2. The way you deliver your services: In industries where poor services might be common, you can show why you stand out. For example, you are an online business that offers AI tools that can build an online business in minutes. The USP here is that your tools can create an online business in minutes, something many can’t do. 
3. Your product is part of a unique niche: You offer some product that nobody or very few businesses have, and this is your USP. It can be powerful enough to start a whole new market. 

After you define your USP, you can easily proceed to the next steps to finding potential clients in your market. 

2. Set up a strong online presence

A strong online presence is the key to making sure you can reach out to as many people as possible, and this helps in acquiring more clients over time. You can strengthen your online presence by following three important practices: 

1. Always updating your website: Your website needs to be mobile-friendly, and well optimized to rank in search results. Websites that are better optimized will rank higher on search engines and this will expose your website more to clients.
2. Leverage the use of social media: Nowadays, everyone is using social media for communication. It’s important to create consistent and valuable content to engage your audience and build trust. Currently, 5.17 billion users are using social media so this is your opportunity to reach out to potential people that may be your future clients. 
3. Optimize local listings: You can use popular platforms like Google My Business, and other local directories for finding clients that are nearby you. This is a more popular option if you are looking to find local clients. 

In an online world where competition is high and there are new businesses being created everyday, it’s important to establish a strong online presence to stand out at all times. 

3. Start using cold emails 

Cold emails are a huge advantage since it allows you to reach potential clients much easier. Most people and businesses will respond to you via email much quicker than other channels. Moreover, personalized emails are an even better way to reach out to potential clients. Personalized emails deliver customized value and can reach higher conversion rates in comparison to academic ones. 

In fact, personalized emails show a 29% increase in open rates and 41% more click-through rates. A good way to write personalized emails when reaching out to potential clients is to start by mentioning their first name and keeping the email clear and short. 

Avoid sending out too many emails as it might look spammy, and don’t write emails that are too long. Nobody wants to read long emails, so it’s best to keep it short and simple. 

4. Encourage strategic partnerships 

Many small businesses seek to build strategic partnerships. Strategic partnerships are an excellent way to expand your clientele scope. They give you a direct connection with your audience.

Strategic partnerships can be most beneficial when they are implemented in the following ways: 

1. Referral programs: Use co-marketing strategies to share webinars, blog posts, and social media campaigns. These activities help reach a wider audience and build up your brand’s reputation and establish long-term trust with clients, making referrals much more likely. A referred customer is 18% more loyal than customers acquired in other methods. 
2. Attend industry events with strategic partners: Representing partnerships at conferences and local networking events helps increase exposure and combined services are adding value for your prospective clients. 
3. Developing a formal partnership agreement: This includes establishing clear agreements on all responsibilities, promoting revenue-sharing arrangements, and lead-sharing processes. Not only does this help avoid misunderstandings, it helps make sure that both parties are invested in acquiring more clients. 

Strategic partnerships are a powerful way to improve business growth and expand your clientele. 

5. Create high-quality content 

High-quality content allows you to be seen as a data source and attracts clients over time. High-quality content can be separated into different categories: 

1. Educational content: This includes writing high-quality blogs, establishing webinars, and even creating video content that can be helpful for your audience and shows your expertise in your field. 
2. SEO-focused content: High-quality content that uses targeted keywords is great for attracting potential clients. Targeted keywords increase search engine visibility and will allow clients to find you much easier. 
3. Reviews and case studies: Real success stories help you build credibility and allow clients to see what kind of business you are. Good words spread easily and you’d be surprised by how fast clients will want to come to you. 

High-quality content matters a lot if you want to reach more people, and if you want to make it easier for clients to find you. 

6. Use the power of paid ads 

Paid advertising is another way small business owners can improve their strategic planning and continuously monitor for maximum returns. Different platforms will target different audiences and business types. Popular options include:

1. Facebook and Instagram paid ads: Effective for targeting ideal clients based on the demographics, buying behaviors, and interests your clients have. 
2. LinkedIn ads: Best option when you are a B2B small business. This is because LinkedIn is a B2B social network. 
3. Google ads: Great for capturing intent-driven searches. This is an excellent option for business ideas that are looking to reach local clients and are actively searching for a product or service. 

There are plenty of ways to reach potential clients through paid ads. This will all depend on what kind of business you are running and the type of clients you are trying to target. 

7. Focus on client retention

No matter how many clients you get, it’s always important to know how to retain them. Statistics show that increasing retention rates by 5% will increase profits by 20-25%. Key retention steps you can follow include: 

1. A strong onboarding process: A strong onboarding process makes it possible to build a good first-impression and help new clients feel more confident about their choices. It’s essential to provide clear guidance from the beginning to make sure that clients understand what kind of value they’re getting. 
2. Maintaining regular communication: Retaining clients is only possible when regular communication is carried out. Always undergo consistent quality checks to make sure your deliverables meet high standards and be transparent on how you want your services to provide ongoing value. 
3. Offer loyalty programs: Encourage client retention with loyalty rewards, such as discounts for long-term clients. 
4. Foster a client-centric culture: When your team focuses on client retention and satisfaction, this creates a super positive experience and it’s important to create a client-centric culture by training employees on client service and making sure that every interaction you have with them shows how committed you are towards them. 
5. Evaluate retention strategies: This includes using metrics such as a Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction score, and measuring your churn rates. This better helps you understand how clients are viewing your services and what kind of changes you can make. 

Client retention is important and the truth is that all companies need to focus on improving relationships, increasing loyalty, and the likelihood of earning referrals. After you do this, growth just becomes constant. 

Securing clients is all about dedication 

Attracting high-quality clients is a journey that needs dedication, and a deep understanding of your target audience. 

This can be done by defining your unique selling proposition, establishing a strong online presence, using cold emails, formulating strategic partnerships, creating high-quality partnerships, using the power of ads, and focusing on client retention. 

Starting your own business is not that hard, but the real deal is attracting clients and retaining them in the long-term. Of course, if you follow these steps, it’ll be much easier for you to attract and retain clients.