If you haven’t invested in an automated email subscription service, I think it’s well-worth the cost to build a list of targeted consumers that you can entice with regular emails offering sales, discounts, new products and links to your blog that contains content that is useful, informative and actionable. Email marketing isn’t going anywhere, and it’s still one of the most effective tools to identify, persuade and convert prospects into customers.

I also think that outreach to existing customers is another key to growing your customer base, and what I mean is actively soliciting their opinions, offering them freebies for being loyal and asking for reviews and referrals. Your existing customers are one of the most efficient and simple ways to grow your customer base, because if you are providing products and services that they like, they will likely refer you to people they know who have similar interests, wants and needs. Not only does that cut down on the amount of money you have to spend attracting this desirable market, it also makes it much easier for you to turn those prospects into customers, because they are already primed by the referral to want to trust and like what you’re offering.

The other way to grow your base is to be active on all your social media platforms, and that means Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram. This is the currency of the digital age, and if you haven’t set up dedicated pages on these platforms, you’re losing out to your competitors. Social media has grown immensely in the past five years, and innovations such as live streaming has really upped the ante in terms of customer insight into your company, so take advantage of it. Consumers want to engage with businesses that let them into the inner workings of the company. That’s why Google became so popular, because it branded itself as a company where workers had free snacks, free lunch, relaxation pods and no cubicles. Google became not just a search engine platform, but also a billion-dollar company that was all about the cutting-edge in technology and employee satisfaction.