It doesn’t matter how ‘traditional’ you consider your business to be; your online presence is of paramount importance. Even for a ‘brick and mortar business’, online activities can be the difference between success and failure. I’m not talking about building a basic website. That’s a given. If all you do is make a website and nothing else, then you don’t really have an online presence, and without a real digital presence you’re missing out on a lot!
This article will highlight some activities every business owner can do to generate success from the digital world. They do not require technical skills or digital know-how. Getting started shouldn’t involve any significant time investment. The more time you invest, the better, but that’s no excuse not to get started.
Understand Your Online Goals
There are two goals behind the activities we’re about to cover.
Goal number one is to make your business famous online. You want people to notice your business and what you’re doing. But not just any people. You want to be seen by people who will either become your customers or lead new customers to you. For example, a construction company in the USA would have little need for an online audience consisting entirely of people in New Zealand.
Goal number two is to build an online reputation. A good reputation doesn’t only attract new customers; it allows you to charge a premium for high-quality products or services.
Achieving these goals means that people know who you are, and know you’re great. They will either become your customers or refer new customers to you. Remember, just because someone might not buy from you themselves, doesn’t mean they’re not valuable.
Define Your Ideal Customer Avatar
Start with the end in mind. You probably already know but define your ideal customer. Think about what interests them, what they want, and where you can find them online.
Think About Your Online Brand Image
What image do you want to portrait? You want to be known for quality, but what else? Do you want to be seen as a serious business full of straight-faced experts, or a laid-back organisation where your customers see you as friends and professionals? Consistency is important. Decide how you want your audience to perceive you from the start.
Now let’s look at the steps you can take to start using the digital world to your advantage.
1. Generate Regular Content
Generating regular online content is the first step of having an online presence. After all, as exciting as you believe the ‘about us’ page of your website is (and chances are it’s not that interesting), somebody is only ever going to read it once. New content is the bedrock of your online reputation. It gives people a reason to pay attention to you. Why else would anyone return to your website, social media profiles or to open your emails?
There are several benefits to publishing regular content online; it boosts search engine rankings, develops relationships, builds your reputation and turns prospects into customers. By publishing content online, you are creating a library of information proving your skill and expertise. This library is an invaluable asset for when you’re trying to acquire new clients. If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits, we have published an article covering ten benefits of having a blog on your business website.
Don’t worry if you’re unsure what content to create. It’s not that complicated. Publish anything that your target audience will find helpful, interesting or entertaining. The content doesn’t have to be expertly written or produced to the standards of a Hollywood blockbuster. As long as the right people want to consume your content, you’re on the right path.
2. Share Your Work
Use your online platform to share what you do. But here is the kicker, do not make it boring! Don’t just upload hundreds of photos to a page of your website titled “portfolio”. That is not exciting.
Select an exciting project or product of which you are particularly proud. Write an article explaining what you did and bring it to life with pictures. Explain why it is interesting and exciting. Don’t assume your audience is going to appreciate it without you telling them.
Make the content visual. Use plenty of high-quality pictures, or even better, use video! If you’re a home renovation company, record a video walkthrough showing off a recent job! If you’re an estate agent, create a behind the scenes video showing how you film a video walkthrough of a property. Teach your audience about your methods; show them something interesting!
There are plenty of ways to get creative. You’re not just trying to demonstrate how great you are (although that is a benefit); you should be trying to entertain your audience. You want people to think, wow that’s interesting. I’d love to see more of what these guys do.
3. Begin Building An Online Following
Just because you’re putting content on your website, it doesn’t mean that anyone is paying attention. At least nobody will pay attention if all you do is upload content and hope for the best. You need to take steps to build an audience.
There are two ways to build audiences online. You can grow a social media following, and you can build an email list. This article will focus on collecting email addresses, while social media is important, there are too many factors to cover in one article. For example, the best platform will depend on the nature of your business. Furthermore, for a local business, it’s harder to build a social media following concentrated in a geographic area. It’s also important to remember that you don’t actually own your audience on a social media site. If the website changes their delivery rules (as Facebook has done in the past) all your hard work could evaporate overnight. Fortunately, nobody ‘owns’ email, so your list is safe.
Once you have somebody’s email address, you can reach them anytime you want. Sending regular emails is the most reliable way to tell people about your latest content. But don’t just collect emails online. Collect them in person too. Tell everyone you meet about all the helpful content you publish and ask them to join your email list. Print some business cards with a weblink or QR code that leads to an email sign-up page. Alternatively, physically collect email addresses and manually add them to your list once a week. Offering a discount or signature piece of content in exchange for their email address will help you seal the deal (see the next tip).
If you’re just getting started, email marketing providers such as MailerLite or MailChimp have generous free plans. Talk to the person who built your website about adding a popup or sign up form to your site. It is a simple task and shouldn’t take long. With the right website builder or WordPress plugin, you can probably do it yourself.
4. Create A Signature Piece Of Content
Also known as a lead magnet, it is something you offer people in exchange for joining your email list. It needs to be something of extremely high perceived value. Signing up should be a good deal, a no brainer! So be generous! If the nature of your business allows it, consider offering a generous discount on a product or service.
Another option is to create a signature piece of content, a valuable guide or resource that your target audience will find useful. Try dedicating your first ten pieces of online content to producing material for your lead magnet and put it all together in an eBook. See our article for more information on this approach.
Don’t worry if that approach feels slow; it’s the quality, not the length of the content that’s important. You can create a one-page cheat sheet or ten-minute video. Just make sure that it’s full of useful information that your audience will want!
5. Start Local Partnerships
Now you’re producing content, and you have a way for people to join your audience, you need to get in front of the right people. A great way to do this is to pair up with local businesses.
Aim for at least one joint online activity with another local business every couple of months. Either promote a special joint offer or work on a collective piece of content. By carefully selecting your partner, you will increase your exposure to the right people. When your partner publishes the content, their followers will find out about you and vice versa.
This approach helps you get in front of the right people because a local business is likely to have a local following. Similarly, a complementary business is likely to have an audience interested in what you do.
For example, a wedding planner could create a wedding inspiration guide in partnership with a local wedding photographer. An interior painting company could team up with a business who specialises in cabinetry to publish a guide to redecorating a kitchen. A real estate agency could partner with a home improvements company or a local landlord insurance provider.
Select your partners carefully. Look for businesses with decent followings. Indicators of a healthy audience include an active blog, large social media followers, and evidence that they’re collecting email addresses, e.g. a popup or sign up form on their website.
Once you have found a suitable business to partner with, make a proposal and reach out to them. If you have chosen the right company to approach (someone interested in their online reputation who is not a direct competitor) then they should be extremely open to your proposal. It’s a win-win situation.
6. Paid Advertising or Guest Posting
We’ve discussed collecting emails in person, getting website visitors to subscribe on your website form a popup or form, and local partnerships. A couple of other ways to get the right eyes on your business is through paid advertising and guest posting.
It might raise some eyebrows that I have included paid advertising on a list that allegedly requires minimal specialised skills. After all, online advertising requires a high level of specialised knowledge. But that doesn’t stop the average business owner from dabbling. Unlike traditional advertising where a page of a magazine or TV slot is going to costs a fixed fee, you can spend as little as you want to advertise online.
Of course, a professional digital marketer could get better results and will have the skills to manage more complicated objectives like getting new customers in through the door or quickly growing your mailing list. But if you just want to increase brand awareness in your local area you could learn the basics of Facebook advertising and spend a couple of dollars a day promoting content. Obviously you can’t expect great results with such a small investment but you can slowly boost your profile while testing what people respond to.
If getting your head around digital advertising seems like too much for you, try your hand at guest posting. Guest posting is part of search engine optimisation. Similar to local partnerships, this involves approaching a website owner but instead of proposing a partnership, offer to write a guest article for them to publish on their website.
They benefit from publishing your expert knowledge and having something they can exclusively share with their audience for free. In exchange for the guest post, you can place a link to your website at the end of the article. There are a couple of benefits to guest posting. Firstly, the people reading your guest post will click through to your website, thus increasing your website traffic. Secondly, links from other website’s improve your search engine rankings. Naturally, there is a lot of trial, error and rejection. Many website owners are simply not interested, but you don’t lose anything for trying. Try and pitch a genuinely useful piece of content that the audience of that website would find interesting.
Conclusion
Building an online reputation and audience is an investment in your business. You won’t only acquire new customers in the medium and long-term but also increase the value of your business. Every new email subscriber, social media follower or visitor to your website is a tangible asset. Some commentators believe that each subscriber on your email list is worth between $1-5 additional revenue every month. So even if your business primarily takes place offline, start making a noise online!