You really don’t have to do something that you absolutely hate just because everyone else is doing it. There are so many ways that you can get yourself out there, to spread your message and bring people into your world.
But the key is finding a way that works and aligns with you. Because when we do that, when we’re following a path that totally lights us up, that really works for us, and we can see ourselves doing it well into the future, you’re far more likely to stick to it and be consistent.
Because the best thing you can do to get your business out there is be consistent with how you’re showing up. You need to be a predictable presence in your ideal customer’s lives.
But that doesn’t mean you need to be constantly online, you just need to find what works for you and repeat it again and again.
So let’s dig into what that could look like for you.
Choosing your platform and strategy
Firstly we need consider all the platforms and strategies that are actually available to you right now. There are so many options available, but you don’t have to be everywhere. This is about choosing one initially that most aligns with you.
This is the trap a lot of business owners fall into. They get sucked into the noise online where other people say XYZ platform is the next best thing to grow your business. Then you go down a rabbit hole exploring this new strategy. Your attention is pulled in lots of different directions and you never quite perfect anything. So you end up spreading yourself far too thin.
There’s not enough time in the day to be everywhere at first. So choose one avenue that you enjoy and that’s already working really well for you.
So let’s talk about some of those different platforms and strategies that you can follow here. This is about choosing your own journey. Choosing your own path that you can master for your business so you can get yourself out there.
Social media
Social media is a popular choice for business owners. There are lots of different options like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Tick Tock which has blown up over recent years.
Social media is great to get started because it’s totally free to use. You can post content and grow an audience organically. You don’t have to spend any money if you don’t want to. But this is about figuring out if you want to use it, and how you want to show up.
Maybe video best suits you, and maybe you have a strategy where you show up live every week. Or maybe you want to stick with simple text and graphic posts. Perhaps reels or stories are more your bag. There are many different features within each of these social media platforms, but it’s about choosing a strategy you feel is achievable.
Plus, you can always repurpose content into different formats too so you’re not always starting from scratch. So say for example you share a video first. You might then turn that into a text post, a story and a reel to get the most out of that one idea.
Consider when you’ll show up too. We want it to feel easy for you, so you can show up with meaning. You don’t want to be posting just because you feel you have to get something out there. You should take the time to sit down and consider your message, because it’ll always be more potent that way. It’ll resonate with more people because it’s considered.
But if you don’t want to use social media, you don’t have to. There are plenty of other options available.
Email marketing
Email is a brilliant strategy, and is actually something I recommend first and foremost over anything else. You should start growing your email list from day one.
Email is the most profitable marketing strategy that you can have because the ROI is much higher than social media. Plus, your email list is yours. No-one can take that away from you. And the last big bonus – email open rates are far higher at around 30% compared to social media reach that’s often below 5%.
It’s a little more hands off than social media too. For example, you might just have an email that goes out every week on a Friday morning. All you’re doing is creating one newsletter a week so it’s not as labour intensive. And you can automate a lot of the work too.
So when people sign up to one of your freebies/lead magnets, they’ll then be sent a series of automated emails. Which means you can create a bunch of emails once and your system will deliver those for you. It’s a lovely hands off way to nurture a relationship with your ideal people.
Search engine optimisation
Another brilliant strategy that may work best for you is SEO. This is about making sure your website is optimized for the search engines. So whenever anyone types into Google a question or search query around the problem you solve, your website pops up at the top of the search engines in Google, Yahoo or Bing.
This can be a great way to drive lots of lovely traffic to your website with no input from you. There are many key areas to consider when optimising your website for the search engines. But primarily you want to ensure you’ve included relevant keywords into the pages on your website.
So perhaps your focus for the next few months could be SEOing your website and boosting your search engine rankings. Maybe that’s your golden strategy that best aligns with you.
Ads
Perhaps you want to focus solely on paid ads. There are many different ways you can use ads. One way is to bring people onto your email list so you can eventually sell to them down the road, or you can use it to sell straight up.
It’s definitely a good idea to have a strategy before delving into the world of ads. A great way to use them is to have 3 campaigns running with different outcomes, and use retargeting to take those people on the next step with you.
So the first stage might be directing people to a free piece of content like a blog post. This runs to a cold audience and helps people warm to you.
The second stage is about enticing people onto your email list with an opt in.
Then the third stage is purely promotional and asks people to buy your thing.
At each stage you retarget the audience from the las, and all of the campaigns that you run would be relevant to each other.
Ads can be hugely lucrative when you have the right strategy going. And pretty hands off too. You do need to check on your ads, make sure they’re performing well, tweak things if they’re not quite working the way you want them to. But maybe this is your sweet spot and you want to go all in on ads to bring pet parents into your world.
PR
This is where you can share your story in national newspapers, online magazines, printed mags and TV. This is a great opportunity not just to share your story and more about your business, but also to bring people back to your website or onto your email list.
It’s a brilliant way to get in front of many more people. You can expand your audience in a big way through PR. And maybe you want to form a strategy that gets you featured once a month or once every two months. Maybe that could be your golden strategy going over the next year or so.
Guest expert opportunities
This is where you might do a live interview or masterclass in other people’s Facebook groups where your ideal customer hangs out. Consider a few Facebook groups that have the same ideal audience, but the admin owner isn’t a direct competitor of yours. Instead, you complement each other.
This can be a brilliant way to bring people into your world, grow your audience, and sell to them down the road.
Podcast interviews are another effective way to get yourself out there. Get in touch with podcast owners and ask if they’d like you to be a guest to talk about your area of expertise.
Guest blogging is another great way to get exposure. Get in touch with some highly trafficked blogs where they have thousands of monthly readers that would be perfect for your business. And then share what you know, share your expertise through lovely blog posts. And again, you can lead people back to your website with a link to your freebie.
Book
So you might want to consider actually writing a book. An amazing book that shows your whole process or all your expertise in a book format. This gives people a low cost way of being introduced to the work that you do.
You don’t even need a big publishing deal to write a book. You can self publish your book on Amazon and people can get access to that easily. This is great because a book almost works like a lead magnet in that it’s a low cost, low entry solution to come into your world.
But it means that they’re already in that buying mindset. Which means they’ll be much more likely to purchase other services or products you offer. If you wow them with your book of course!
Podcast
Maybe starting a podcast is the perfect strategy for you. You might enjoy showing up through voice recordings and sharing your expertise through weekly episodes.
It can be a fantastic way to establish yourself as an authority, grow your audience, nurture your existing audience and grow your email list.
This is what I call core content. They’re lengthier pieces of content that showcase your expertise and help people get to know you in a much deeper way. It also means you can more easily repurpose the content from your podcast into other formats too. So there’s a big benefit to having a marketing strategy like this.
Blog
Just like this blog right here, perhaps you’re happiest when you’re writing. Maybe you know you’re pretty good at it and find it easiest to show up in this way.
You might have a weekly or monthly blog post going out. Depending on what kind of schedule works best for you. Then you can optimise your blog posts for the search engines to bring traffic to your website, leverage social media or an email list to bring people to it.
You have a ton of options to help you get your business in front of more people. But it really is about choosing the route that most aligns with you. And stripping it back so you’re not trying to spread yourself too thin.
Because if you feel like there’s too much going on and you’re not getting the results you want, streamlining is the best thing you can do.
This way you’ll pay way more attention to what’s working and not working. Over time you’ll learn and tweak things to ensure it works better for you.
So choose one way that aligns and perfect it. You can always add more layers to your marketing strategy later.