To find new customers for your business, consider 3 key questions

Q: What is the most effective and inexpensive way to find new customers?

A: Generally, the more effective, less-expensive approach to acquiring new customers is to find people who are like your existing customers.

There are three main questions you need answered: how your current customers found you, what media they regularly consume and why they like your products or service. You can answer these questions by talking with your existing customers.

First, if your customers tell you how they found you, such as through Yelp or Angie's List, you now have direct knowledge of where to focus putting yourself in front of new customers.

If those answers come back too scattershot, ask about their media habits.

Do your customers listen to a specific show on talk radio or NPR? Do they regularly read a column in one of the free papers in the area? What your current customers listen to or read can be a good place to advertise yourself.

Finally, you need to know why your customers like you. That will tell you what to include in the messaging you put in front of potential new customers.

Now, context clearly matters here. For example, the way wireless carriers currently acquire new customers is very different compared to 10 years ago because the industry is saturated today, whereas there were still many people without wireless phones not that long ago.

Carriers now need to "steal" new customers from each other. We also have an assortment of statistical research tools to better analyze customer responses that I will not address here.

But generally, if you know your existing customers by talking with them — understanding why they like you, how they found you and what media they pay attention to — you will be much better situated to find more customers like them.