Finding an audience for your business is the hardest part, especially if you are not quite sure what your business is yet. With that said, there are many ways to do this!
One of the most effective ways to find new customers is through organic marketing. What we mean by that is just going online and doing things like looking at Yelp reviews or reading Amazon customer testimonials.
You would also look up your business on Google and other search engines to see what people have been saying about it. There are even tools that will actively monitor and review websites for your brand!
These are all great strategies to use in order to expose your business to as many eyes as possible while creating a positive impression. You want to make sure everything looks natural and authentic though, so be careful about how much you contribute towards these campaigns.
Create a website
After you have determined your niche, what services or products you will offer through your business, and how to make them more efficient, it is time to start creating your online presence!
Most people begin by buying pre-packaged websites from large hosting companies like Bluehost, WP Rocket, and Site Builder Labs.
This is totally fine if you are not very tech savvy or passionate about web design! But hopefully you’ll find yourself changing settings, editing pages, and designing layouts later on so having some basic resources can help get you up to speed quickly.
There are many free website builders that do not require you to purchase their service package to create an account. These include WordPress, Squarespace, and Google Sites to name a few.
By choosing one of these platforms, you can easily customize your site and add features such as content, email notifications, and social media integration.
Create content
Creating engaging, well-written content is one of the most important things you can do to achieve success in marketing. People spend less time looking at an advertisement or listening to an audio piece than reading material related to the product or service being marketed.
Content should be written with real people who are interested in the same thing you’re offering. Your readers/listeners will connect more quickly with your brand when they feel like they know you personally.
You can make money off content and it’s a very cost effective way to market your business. Many companies start their day by editing and writing about products for their website or social media pages.
Running a blog comes with its own set of costs, but you are able to generate revenue through advertising, sponsorships, and other types of income designations. There are many ways to create your content and not only that, you don’t have to write yourself! Hiring writers is a great way to begin investing into content creation.
There are several online tools available to help you manage your content production process and distribute work among different writers.
Buy advertising
Advertisements are one of the most common ways to market your business. There are several different types of advertisements you can use for your company, with each having their place.
For example, television commercials and ads run in magazines or newspapers are considered media advertisements. Websites and social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter are also important marketing tools that contain advertisements.
Businesses will sometimes pay to put their advertisement next to or in front of another ad to create competition and additional exposure. This is called sponsored content and it’s very popular these days.
The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) paid for this sponsored content is usually much higher than normal advertising, which is why there are so many companies able to have an audience!
Direct mail and email campaigns are not only effective but economical too. Many people begin their search online before deciding on what product or service to buy, so direct-mail and email messages are perfect opportunities to influence someone into buying for your company.
This article will talk more about media advertisements and how to be successful with them.
Distribute content
Content marketing is not a one-time event, instead it is an ongoing process that never truly ends. You will always have to be creating new content every day, possibly even throughout the night or around the clock.
Content marketplaces like YouTube offer off the shelf videos and other media that you can easily add to your channel. Creating your own video content is also very easy now with all of these smart phones coming with good quality cameras!
Having a variety of different types of content helps to grow your audience, but writing a short article once a week that people may or may not read is not going to help you achieve our goal here.
Encourage social media presence
As we mentioned before, having a social media profile is an integral part of any organic marketing strategy. People these days use social media to connect with friends and family, learn about new products, and keep up-to-date on what brands are doing.
By adding your business as a follower or friend, you become accessible to all of those people! They can now interact with you and contribute content to help promote your brand.
Running a Twitter account is free, but running a Facebook page requires paying monthly fees per fan. It’s totally worth it though, especially if you want to reap the benefits of promoting a product and gathering more followers.
There are many ways to start building your online community through social networking sites. Creating engaging posts, responding to comments, and staying organized will make your pages grow in popularity.
Connect with your audience
A few years ago, people were skeptical that spending money to promote products was worth it. With the rise of the internet as an easy way to spread messages, companies have now access to more avenues to advertise their product brands.
With all these opportunities, however, we need to be careful not to go overboard in advertising. Overadvertising can hurt your business even if you are using natural marketing strategies.
It may seem tempting to use every tool at our disposal, but this is never a good idea.
Why? Because tools that cost money typically start off expensive, but then continue to increase in price as additional add-ons are needed to make them function properly.
There could also be issues related to usage or software ownership, which require another investment in time or resources.
Avoid overdoing it when investing into new technology by only buying what you need for your own personal use.
Provide a quality experience
As mentioned before, organic marketing is about creating an engaging online environment that attracts people to your business or product. It happens through the hard work of keeping up with the trends in the internet industry, and investing time into developing rich content to share with others.
Running an effective organic social media campaign takes time and effort, but it is totally worth it. Being aware of the latest developments in the social media world makes your campaign more efficient.
You will want to stay on top of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other major platforms to ensure you are using the right tools for your business.
Making sure your customers have a good experience on all of these sites is a key part of having successful organic campaigns. You will want to focus on giving them information they need and encouraging repeat visits.
Look at your customer experience
A successful organic marketing strategy is focused less on what products or services you sell and more about how you position yourself to help your customers find you, learn about you, and connect with you.
This is called the “Customer Experience” or “CE” for short. It can mean anything from offering helpful tips on using your product, to creating an online community that is dedicated to it, to developing a rich profile on social media sites so people can interact with you.
The CE doesn’t need to be large-scale, but it does need to be significant — something that takes time to create and maintain.
It’s not just about being known, it’s also about having meaningful interactions that grow trust and rapport. Your potential clients will keep coming back if they perceive that you don’t care enough to try hard, and that you’re going beyond what most people do.
