It's an on going saga. How can business owners locate potential customers who are willing to spend their hard earned dollar to buy your programs and products? What are the techniques that work effectively in making this happen? How to attract more customers willing spend more money and bring more profits and revenues in?

A perfectly reasonable question unless you are in business only to give away your programs, products, or services. As a general rule, most business owners are not in business just to provide charity and they need some way to attract more customers who will spend more money.

The official name for attracting customers in this manner is customer acquisition. Buying office furniture, designing business cards, applying for licenses, purchasing computer systems -- none of these counts more in a business than customer acquisition. To make a profit and stay in business, every business owner needs a reliable way to get more customers in the door, who are willing to spend money on what you have to offer.

Hands down, the very best way to acquire more customers is hrough a direct response marketing system with the capability of carefully tracking and accounting for the source of the traffic. This simply means that whatever method a business owner chooses to seek out new customers should have a built-in way of tracking response so the owner knows where the customer came from.

You must tell your potential customers where they can find you AND give them a compelling reason for doing business with you. This actually is the secret behind all marketing. All marketing practices can be boiled down to this one thought. Tell your potential customers where they can find you and why they should do business with you. It sounds so simple when you think about it, but this is one of the major stumbling blocks to a successful business. The owner thinks potential customers will spend time and energy searching out a company to do business with. Wrong.

Most potential customers will shop only at places they already know. Stop and really think about this for a minute. Most potential customers will only shop at places they already know -- AND they need a good reason to do business with you. If they do not know how to find you, they will not be coming to buy from you. You must find a way to tell potential customers where your business can be found.

To accomplish this is easy, if you follow a few basic steps. Following is a sampling of the possibilities that can be used for this purpose:

1. Distribute a press release detailing the latest breakthrough in your business field, available only at your place of business. AND include a special telephone number for customers to call for more information.

2. Place an add in your local yellow pages publication. It doesn't have to be huge, elobrate, or expensive. Something modest, but consistenly run will do. Readers become comfortable with ads they have seen before. After your ad runs a feww times, you will be surprised how many people begin to feel they can trust giving your ad a try. Additionaly, it can be quite an added attraction to couple your local ad with such things as special discount offers in the ad.

3. Send everyone in your zip code a postcard announcing a sale at your place of business. AND have them bring in the postcard to receive the discounted price.

4. Become the local expert in your business field by being nterviewed on the radio. AND include a special phone number for customers to call during the broadcast to get more information.

5. Give a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. AND hand out problem solving brochures with your address, phone number and a special code number for customers to use to get a discount.

Many business owners regard marketing only as a necessary evil. They would rather concentrate on their core business activities. But when they use these simple methods to harness the powerful secret to getting more customers, they can eliminate the pain of marketing. Then their businesses will be truly successful in bringing in more customers, more money and more profits.