Growing Your Customer Base as a Small Business Owner
For over 50 years we have understood one of the key concerns small business owners have – how to bring more customers into your business. As we all know – no customers – no business. That’s why we developed our signage products – to help small businesses nationwide capture the attention of new customers.
While we think signage is one of the most important tools for attracting customers to small businesses – there are of course a number of other methods that small businesses use to grow their customer base. As small business owners we can all help each other by sharing our marketing and PR successes.
This will be the first blog in a series that touches upon the many ways you can help your business grow through marketing and PR.
Using Social Media for Your Business.
Chances are you’re already using social media personally. You have a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest account that you use for yourself. But are you leveraging it for your business as well? Did you know that within Facebook you can create a business page that is linked to your personal Facebook profile? Then you can switch between both and manage them separately.
When you create a Facebook business page make sure to brand it to your business. Use your logo and create an eye-catching cover image that instantly tells your potential customers who you are and what you can do for them.
Content is key for your Facebook business page. It must be regular and relevant. Your visitors must get value from what they see on your Facebook page. Does it educate them? Help them? Touch them? There are many ways to leverage your content to help your visitors.
Make sure your are using photos and video in your posts as well. People are drawn to intriguing photos and videos.
Pass along value. The best thing you can do is have pass along value for your visitors. If they like what they see and it makes an impact on them – chances are they will pass it along to others. The more people that see your posts the better. Everyone one of these can be a potential customer for your business.
Five Keys for Business Social Media Success.
Audience – The reach of your social media is limited by the size of your audience. You should spend at least 50% of your social media activity time building the size of your audience.
Relationships – Social media is about relationships, not sales and marketing. If all you ever post is advertising, your audience will eventually ignore you. Instead, fill your social media channels with content that is full of benefits and value.
Funnel – Original content needs to be created on your website first. Post a teaser to your social media channels that leads visitors back to your website to consume additional content. Conversion primarily happens at your website, not on the social media platform. This model also brings in visitors via the search engines, and exposes them to your social media platforms helping you to build your audience.
Engagement – To be successful in social media you have to be active. Daily interaction, posting, and audience building is required. Some platforms may require multiple daily interactions to be successful. Relationships require interaction!
Integration – Key social media activities need to be integrated into your website. There are two primary functions for most social media, relationships and sharing. Each of these activities have two different button / icon sets. First, make your social media channels highly visible on your website. This is generally done with icons placed in the header or footer area of your website. Second, is the ability for visitors to share content from your site directly on their own social media channels. These buttons are generally located at the top or bottom of each piece of content.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for social media strategies for your business. In future posts we will explore more strategies – both online and offline
