In business, there’s always talk surrounding how to land new clients – and that’s obviously important. After all, you can’t expect to be successful unless you’re bringing in a steady stream of new customers. But more important than generating new business is actually finding a way to keep your existing clientele happy. In fact, the cost of retaining existing customers is actually 5-25 times lower than acquiring new ones, which means you’ll achieve a much higher ROI in the process.

Let’s take a look at a few proven strategies for keeping those loyal customers coming back again and again.

Make it convenient.

The easier it is to do business with you, the more likely your customers will be to stick around. People tend to take the path of least resistance, and they appreciate when brands do things to make their lives easier. Play on this by leveraging the convenience factor, whether it’s offering 24/7 support via online chat or providing the option to transact via a mobile app. Listen to what your customers want and then use that feedback to create a level of service that exceeds their expectations.

Add a personal touch.

In a world that is increasingly digital, personalization has never been more important. People want to feel like they’re more than just a number. They want to feel connected to the brands with which they do business. This can be challenging, particularly as your company grows, but there are still ways to establish this personal touch, even for larger organizations. Identify your target audience’s preferred channel of communication and give them what they want. And don’t forget to inject a little personality into your interactions. This adds a level of humanity that can do wonders for relationship-building.

Solicit feedback.

There’s no better way to deliver exceptional service to your existing customers than to ask them what that type of exceptional service means to them. Solicit feedback from your clientele every chance you get. Ask them to complete surveys to let you know how they feel about doing business with you. Invite them to share their experience on social media and other review sites. Most importantly, listen. Use the information you gather to improve your product or service, and you will be repaid with customer loyalty.

Incentivize.

While it’s true you can’t necessarily buy someone’s business, you can persuade people to stick with your brand by making it worth their while. There are a number of ways you can do this. For instance, you could offer a rewards program through which customers can receive discounts or other offers by doing repeat business with you. Or, you could invest in gamification, where customers can earn things like digital badges, the more they engage with you. As an added bonus, incentives that include referral rewards will help you generate new business while also solidifying the bond with your existing customers.

Prove your worth.

Perhaps the best way to keep your customers coming back is by serving them better than anyone else. Don’t just call yourself the best. Aim to prove it to your clientele with each and every transaction. When people begin to recognize what sets you apart from the competition, they’ll naturally gravitate toward your brand. And when you go above and beyond to over-deliver, your customers will further your impact by leaving positive reviews and providing you with powerful social proof.

With the value of an existing customer far greater than that of a new one, it’s clear that retention must be a priority for business owners. The five simple, yet highly-effective strategies above should help you generate loyalty that will sustain your success for many years to come.

With the growing demand for personalization, it’s never been more important to leverage market research in your marketing efforts. Uncovering key insights into your ideal buyer and your customers can be the difference between growing your business or steering a sinking ship.

But where do you start with your research process? With so many tools and data out, there it can be overwhelming. The good news is that the harrowing process of conducting market research is about to get way easier for you.

But before we share the top tools for improving your research game, let’s give a quick rundown of what market research entails.

Types of Market Research

There are a ton of ways to get the intel you need for your marketing. Before you can pick the best tool for the job, it’s wise to identify what you’re hoping to achieve – and whether you need primary or secondary research.

When it comes to marketing, primary research includes activities like:

• Surveys
• Gathering and analyzing data
• A/B Testing
• Observing users/customers in the field
• Focus groups
• Conducting interviews

Secondary research is anything you didn’t gather or develop on your own, like:

• Statistics
• Reports
• Studies
• Reading online articles

Now, whether you’re launching a product, preparing an ad campaign, exploring new markets for your service, or collecting feedback on one of your offerings, here are nine tools to strengthen your market research process.

#1: Google Surveys

Google Surveys is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a tool for market researchers to create surveys and deliver them to highly targeted demographic groups. You can further target specific audiences by adding screening questions to your survey, like, “are you an online advertising professional?” or, “are you an iPhone user?” You pay on a per-completed-survey basis, and the actual cost varies depending on your target market, length of survey, number of screening questions, and other key data. According to the Google Surveys pricing page, if you’ve created a survey that contains 5 questions, you might pay anywhere between $1 and $10 per completed survey.

What we like: Google incentivizes internet users from all over the world to answer these surveys by giving them access to high-quality content in exchange. As a marketer, utilizing this service gives you access to highly-targeted respondents from all over the world.

Image courtesy of SurveyMonkey

#2: SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey has been around since the nineties, and it’s used by businesses from enterprise to SMB. It allows users to create branded surveys with various types of questions, from thousands of tested templates. Beyond collecting data, Survey Monkey has a suite of tools to help you analyze data, predict the success of different types of surveys, collaborate with teams, and more.

What we like: It’s more than just a survey generator, it’s a whole slew of data gathering and analysis tools.

Image courtesy of FocusGroupIt

#3: FocusGroupIt

If you already have a solid mailing list and online social network, FocusGroupIt makes it easy to put together online focus groups. Just devise a few questions, send a secure link to your lists, and watch the feedback trickle in. The downside is that you’ll need to provide your own focus group members, since the tool doesn’t aggregate these for you.

What we like: This tool is free, and you can have your groups open as long as you’d like — which can be great for getting long-term, deep feedback about a product or service.

Image courtesy of Social Media Examiner

#4: Social Mention

Need to know what people are saying or doing, in relation to a specific product, company, or idea? Social Mention scours the internet — looking through Twitter, YouTube, Google, Facebook, and more– to capture the “buzz” about any particular topic. It shares the overall sentiment that users have about your topic, along with top related keywords. This tool is great for researching how your potential customers feel about a specific topic, or if you’re a big company, it’s good for measuring the overall sentiment toward your brand.

What we like: In addition to being free, this tool is great for its ease of use. Just visit the site, type your keywords, and get a nice, detailed report on that subject.

#5: U.S. Census Website

Though it may take a bit of digging to find exactly what you’re looking for, the U.S. Census website is the go-to resource for key data about market conditions, buyer behavior, and the general economic pulse of the U.S. If you visit the “Business” section of the site, you can browse data by sector, geography, or special topic (for example, small business, e-commerce, or minority-owned businesses).

What we like: It’s free, and the data is more reliable than you might find on some third-party research sites.

#6: SEMrush

SEMrush is a search engine marketing tool that analyzes what people are searching for in relation to any given topic. It’s great for discovering what people what to know about different topics, and is bound to lead to content creation and product development breakthroughs when used to its full potential. It’s also especially fantastic for competitive research in the digital space, revealing what draws users to your competitors’ sites, how they rank for certain keywords, and where they’re getting backlinks from.

What we like: It’s a killer tool for content marketing, and an especially powerful tool if SEO is a big part of your strategy. It also comes with a ton of other benefits and add-ons to make every stage of your marketing process easier – from research to content production, to measurement and refining of campaigns.

Image courtesy of Questback

#7: Questback

Questback is an end-to-end market research tool that leverages information from your employees, customers, and the market at large to give you a 360 view of your business. It supports survey making, focus group management, and provides both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

What we like: It’s an all-in-one solution, so if you want to do all of your research with one tool, this might be the one.

#8: Pew Research Center

The go-to for secondary research, Pew provides data on just about everything you can imagine. From global and demographic trends to religion, science, and technology, Pew provides reports, statistics, and articles to inform your marketing strategy and strengthen your marketing content — all sourced from reliable writers, social scientists, and other professionals.

What we like: In addition to providing a wealth of interesting stats and facts, Pew’s “Experts” section gives you access to experts in various industries.

Image courtesy of AYTM

#9: AYTM (Ask Your Target Market)

AYTM is a survey creation and market research tool that boasts responses to your surveys within minutes of submitting them. It offers detailed survey targeting, and gives you access to over 40 million potential survey respondents across the world. It also features easy-to-use survey building with an extremely user-friendly design.

What we like: It offers both free and paid models, serving as a solution for businesses of all sizes.

The everyday demands and stresses of being a small business owner means some “nice to have” initiatives often get pushed to the backburner. Especially during those days where you’re struggling to find a minute to gobble down lunch, investing time (and of course, money) into an employee development program can seem unnecessary.

But the truth is, employee learning is one of the most valuable things an entrepreneur can do for his or her company. Though it can be costly, you’re building a solid foundation for your business and fostering a happy, productive team. Offering employee education is a great way to show current and future hires that you’re willing to invest in their wellbeing (and keep high performers engaged).

Here are six reasons to consider making employee education part of your business’s bottom line—and why it’s worth it.

It can improve employee retention rates

Employee retention can be a huge and expensive burden for the small business owner. Hiring takes time and money, so once you land a great employee, keeping them is just as crucial. Investing in employee development really means investing in your employees—and showing them that they matter to the company, especially in the long term.

No matter how long an employee has held a position, there are always new skills that can’t always be learned on the job. In addition to making workers feel more valued as part of the team, the best employee development programs allow the employee to take charge of his or her own career. This is empowering for any employee, but not only that—if you make it clear that conference attendance or continuing education is important to a given role, you’ll appeal to the most passionate, motivated type of worker.

A big reason employees jump ship is because they feel uninspired or underutilized. Team learning programs can help provide a much-needed jumpstart to a stagnant career and keep employees from job-hopping.

It can help attract the very best

In a world where job hopping is considered the norm, employers have to work hard to recruit and retain good employees. Company culture is steadily becoming more and more important, and with websites such as Glassdoor allowing employees to rate and review companies, your reputation matters.

Not only will a prominent workplace development program attract passionate workers who want to better themselves, it can help improve a company’s overall culture and reputation. Offering an array of perks can be vital to attracting top talent, and this is one perk that truly benefits everyone involved.  

It can help you save more money  

A highly skilled, productive employee is well worth the cost. The more efficient your team is, the greater the output and higher the quality of work will be. The best employee learning programs encourage employees to pick up new skills, allowing them to work across areas and wear more hats.

This is especially important in a small business, where all hands are always on deck. As your employees diversify their skills, they can be tapped to fill needs and take on new projects. Not only will this help the company bridge gaps in the short term, it gives employees the opportunity to feel empowered and learn skills for the long one.

Plus, a well-oiled employee learning program has the potential to make money. A super efficient, highly skilled employee has the potential to increase sales output and bring more money in. As business changes quickly, keeping your employees on the top of their game will keep your company there too.

It can help you promote from within

Promoting the best and brightest from inside your own ranks is always a good idea. When it comes to filling managerial or executive roles, who better than those already familiar with your company and product? While not every passionate employee is ready or equipped to take on a larger role, employee learning can help them get there.

The best employee learning programs not only teach, but also help identify gaps in knowledge, so you can hone in on specific needs across your team. As your employees become masters of the subjects in which they are being trained, they will become teachers to your future hires, setting up a cycle of education.

There are many ways to implement employee learning

When it comes to employee development, the possibilities are virtually endless. The benefits of a robust learning program are self-evident, but how it’s implemented is up to you. Employee development doesn’t have to mean reimbursing workers for expensive college courses or paying for lavish conferences. As a small business owner, it’s important to consider the ROI of your spend—and employee learning is no different. If funds are tight, consider investing in online courses, bringing experts into the office for trainings or simply providing a book stipend for independent learning. Some employee development is better than none, even if it means starting small.

Employee learning can be expensive, but it often pays off in the long run. While you’ll almost certainly cultivate smarter, more efficient employees, a development plan will also help create a better work culture and more engaged team.

Author Bio

Meredith Wood is Editor-in-Chief and VP of Marketing at Fundera, a marketplace for small business financial solutions. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.