For small business owners, it can be really difficult to grow your business and try to reach new people. So we have shared our top 5 ways you can grow your audience which doesn’t cost too much or take too much time.
1. Ask for reviews
As busy business owners, we can often forget to ask for reviews from customers/people we have worked with.
Did you know that 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase?
That’s crazy, isn’t it?!
So why aren’t you doing it?
By recommending 10 businesses yourself, this may also prompt that person to recommend/review others themselves.
These reviews can be on any platform; Facebook, Google, LinkedIn. They can also be for anything; if you have used their products/services, if you had a meeting with them and they were knowledgeable in their industry, if they did a great talk that you attended, absolutely anything!
2. Make connections
Make personal connections; either by booking in meetings/1-2-1’s with people you have recently met, joining groups on Facebook, starting a conversation with someone and genuinely being interested in them. The list can go on and on!
As business owners, we may often forget about building relationships with other business owners (especially if your business is B2C), we are always trying to find our next customer or sell.
By simply talking to other business owners, you will build those relationships and you may even be able to help each other in other business related ways i.e; marketing, finding new clients or finding reliable suppliers.
3. Talk about your business on your personal page and your personal life on your business page.
This may seem like an easy challenge to do but we come across so many people who struggle to do both.
Many people don’t like talking about their business on their personal page as they either:
Feel like they will be judged by the friends/family
Don’t want to spam their friends/family news feed
But..
You need to stop thinking like this! Your business is a part of you and your life so why wouldn’t you post about it on your personal page. It doesn’t have to be ‘Buy my products/services’, it can just be a simple ‘Please like my page or share it with people you think would be interested’, or ‘I’ve had a great meeting today with …. so many exciting things
happening’.
This goes with posting about your personal life on your business page. There are 2 things for us that get the most likes; when the girls are included or when the dog is included. This doesn’t even need to be business related! People buy from people so why wouldn’t you include your personality and family life in your business page?
4. Put your business on all of the Business Directory sites.
What is a ‘Business Directory’ site?
“A business directory is a website or printed listing of information which lists businesses within niche based categories”
By putting your business on these sites, you can be found on a much wider scale. There are many sites you can use to platform your business, Google being one of them (if you’re not on Google then I suggest you do this ASAP).
Not only does being on these sites help you be found, it will also help your SEO as it will link back to your website.
An example of a business directory site is Cylex UK.
This may take a while so make sure you take some time out of your day to get this done!
5. Have a website.
Having a website for your business is so important as this is a great way to grow your audience.
However, if you don’t keep your website up to date, your ranking will be lower and lower meaning it will be difficult for other people to find you on search engines.
Here are some great tips and advice on how you can improve your rankings and grow your
audience!
– Your website speed needs to be fast, if your website takes too long to load people will get impatient and probably won’t wait around.
– Keywords are important! To be on the first page on Google, ensure your SEO is great.
– Your website needs to be able to work on mobiles. Most people access the internet on their phones than on a laptop/computer
– Include pictures of yourself and your life. You need to be relatable
– Have a chat box. This makes you more accessible online and allows customers to talk to you in real time.
– You need to use Facebook Pixels. This will show you who has been on your website from Facebook. (You should get your website designer to do this for you).
– Your domain needs to be safe and secure. An easy way to check if it is, is to go to your URL and if it has ‘https’ it’s secure. The ‘s’ means secure so if your website is showing ‘http’, you need to ask your web designer to sort this for you
– Your content should be easy to read by an 8 year old. No jargon, keep it simple, remember they don’t know as much as you and will probably not understand your industry lingo.
– Give free downloads. This is a great way to get people’s email addresses and build your email list. Remember to follow GDPR guidelines.
– Keep your website up to date. This will show that you are still active and stay on Google’s good side.
Have you got any other ways or ideas on how businesses can grow their audience? We would LOVE to know!
grow your audience
