There are different customer types businesses want to acquire. There are customers that are loyal to a particular business. There are customers that come in for specific discounts. However, perhaps the most important is the walk-in customer. This is a customer that simply walks into your business without a previous appointment or existing business relationship. Most customers were walk-ins at some point. Below are three strategies for attracting walk-in clients.
Choose a Prime Location
In regards to attracting walk-ins to your business, location is everything. If consumers don’t know about your business beforehand, they certainly are unlikely to find it by accident if your location is somewhere that isn’t well traveled. Instead, you need to find a location that drives traffic, either by car or foot, to your store.
The downside to this of course is that the best locations also tend to be the most expensive. Either the real estate is too expensive or the prices charged to rent those spaces for your business are very high. Overall, you’re going to need to use some strategy to obtain a good location for a price your business can afford.
Update Your Branding
Something else that can drive walk-ins to your store is branding. In this case, this includes branding in regards to logos, text, mascots, design aesthetics and especially signage.
Signage is extremely important for driving in walk-in business. You need to ensure that your business signs are in line with your branding and likely to attract your target demographics. You don’t want to look like a fast food restaurant when you’re a sit down restaurant. Effective signage is different for each individual business. Choose something that is attractive and also plays into the overall theme of your business. Signage for a law firm, for example, will be very different than signage for a pancake diner.
Decorate a Display Window
If your location receives a lot of foot traffic, having a display window for your products is an excellent way to hook-in customers. Put a lot of effort into this display. While it should showcase some of your best products, it shouldn’t be boring and straight forward. You can use art, mannequins, props and more to help set it up like a movie scene. Overall, it needs to immediately catch the eye of anyone walking past that window. They need to be intrigued by what they see.
If you want to achieve true success as a business, you’re going to need to develop the ability to attract walk-in customers. The list above is a good starting point. Overall, you need to develop strategies to ensure that you are always producing new customers. Being able to attract walk-ins can do just that.