There are many opportunities to market your business online – and some people take advantage of as many as possible, whilst others don’t know where to start.
My advice is to start with yourself and your business:
- What do you deliver to your customers? In other words, how do they benefit from what you do/sell?
- Who is your ideal customer? You need to have at least one clearly defined niche, but you can have more than one.
With this clear the next step is to work out where your target niches gather online. You’d do this offline – what’s the point in going to a networking event for accountants if they’re not your target clients? The trouble is some people don’t even consider this and just ‘chatter’ all over the social media platforms in the hope that somehow, somewhere, someday the right people will, eventually hear their message.
At a simple level if you’re aiming at consumers (B2C) then Facebook might be a good place to engage with individuals – especially in some of the Facebook groups where your ideal customers ‘hang out’. If you’re trying to reach a business audience, perhaps companies with 10 or more staff then you’d probably find LinkedIn a better bet.
You can find chat rooms online for specific groups of people – and finding these can be a good way to raise your profile in the right groups. Just don’t try to sell at them. Offer advice, share your knowledge, get involved and, over a period of time, your authority in your subject and ability to understand their businesses will become sufficiently evident for people to see you as the ‘go to’ person for that service.
Where have you been most successful in finding new business online?
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If you don’t know where to start with marketing online – sign up for the Step-by-Step Approach to Online Marketing course – it’s just 30 minutes a week with a hands on, work-as-you-learn process that guides you from creating a simple strategy to having an effective marketing system that’s manageable.
