Reaching Out to New Customers

New customers are the lifeblood of any B2B company. Although you certainly need to maintain your existing customer base, you need new customers to grow—which is where reach comes in.

How Do You Reach New Customers?

Reach is the first part of the B2B buying continuum; everything starts from here (see Figure 3.2). Before you can make a sale, you have to acquire a new customer, and before that happens you have to make that potential customer aware of you and your offerings. That’s what reach is all about.

Figure 3.2. The B2B customer life cycle starts with reach.

Reach is all about spreading your message, hopefully in places where prospective customers will see or hear it. In traditional B2B marketing, reach is accomplished when your message is seen—or presumed to be seen. For example, reach can be accomplished by placing an ad in an industry periodical or getting an editorial mention from one of your press releases.