Your business is up and running, but you are not generating the revenue you would like or building your customer base. However, finding ways to effectively market your business, get noticed by your ideal customer, and build your customer base can be challenging to say the least. You may have considered an marketing ad campaign, but you need a large budget for it to be effective and your will need to run your campaigns over an extended period of time to build band recognition with your customer base. If you have the money for it in reserve, that’s great. If you are like most business’s right now, spending that kind of money may not be an option for you. There is always social media…or is there. The platforms have constantly changing algorithms that make it increasingly difficult for you to reach your target audience. That is why they offer you the opportunity to buy ads from them so they can create revenue for their own business. Feels a bit like a “catch-22” dosen’t it. So, as a new or struggeling business owner what are you supposed to do?

Partner With Influencers to Build Your Customer Base

It is all about strategy. The goal is to work smarter, not harder and the good news is it that you do not need a ton of cash to do it successfully. Here is how. There is an old saying that goes “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. Personally, I think it’s both. Getting yourself and your business noticed by those who shape opinions in your niche market can be a game changer.

These “Opinion Shapers” or “Influencers” could be someone in your local area, someone online, or even someone in the national media depending on who your target market is.  An opinion shaper or influencer is someone who is active online or in the media and followed by your target audience. We are not talking about your competitors here, but rather individuals who are equally passionate about your particular industry.  You need to be aware of them and connect with them.  They can help you tap into the audiences that you have yet to reach which can help drive leads towards your business and bring visitors to your business website. Every industry out there has influencers.  Your job is to learn how to find them.

Share Your Content to  Build Your Customer Base

Why would they share your content? These creators are always looking for something new and meaningful to share with their followers and that… is exhausting. The more prepared you are and the less work they have to do, the greater the chance they will be willing to share content about your business. However, and this is an absolute must, your content must be of exceptional value to the audience you share with the influencer. Now that you know who you are looking for, you will need to make the most of the tools available to find them. Several paid services are available that will provide in depth analytics and draw out the crucial influencers for your industry. If you do not have the budget for this here are a few free tools and tactics to help you.

SocialBakers is a great resource for finding influencers with a simple search. In the search bar, type in your keyword and the most search terms.  A list of top influencers will be generated. This can take some trial and error when picking the right terms. The number beside each profile image is their Klout score – the higher the number, the more influential they are, although this isn’t a perfect metric, it is helpful for getting a rough idea.

Social Media Communities and Groups

Once again, with both of these networks a simple search will do. Find Communities and Groups relevant to your field and do a little research into the members – who are they and what do they do? How many connections do they have? Do they update and share content other than their own?

Twitter chats

I am a big advocate of Twitter chats. These are hash tag discussions that take place at a given time where people come together to discuss a particular topic. Influencers are likely to either participate or lead these chats, and so they are well worth tracking down.

Use Search Engine Optimization to Build Your Customer Base

Let’s not forget SEO! For instance, you can improve your site’s visibility in search-engine results, a process known as search engine optimization, or SEO, by tagging specific terms as so-called keywords in the coding of a website. In addition, you can work to secure referrals in the form of links from other sites. It’s very difficult for someone to just stumble on your website, but when you have other people linking to you, who themselves have a following, that’s how you get new visitors. Our favorite tool for this is a WordPress plugin called Yoast. If you website is hosted on a platform like Wix or Squarespace they may have an SEO tool available for you.

Keep in mind that the job may require some trial and error. It is possible you may find that some keywords are more effective at driving traffic than others. What’s more, terms that are popular for describing a product or service can go out of style over time.  Try to change things up weekly. Don’t forget about social media.  About 40% of a site’s traffic comes from Twitter business pages like ours as well as from websites and blogs.

Social Mentions

There are several free tools including Social Mentions  where you can type in your brand name and look at where your website, business, product, or services are mentioned across the web. Alternatively, you can use a social media dashboard or analytics to monitor mentions. Twitter’s own TweetDeck lets you set up columns for your brand name and relevant terms so that you have a real time update of any mentions.

We hope this post has inspired you with a more effective way of marketing your business and help you generate real results.  In addition, we want to empower you with tools to actually do the things you just learned, so that you can personally experience the level of success you are currently seeking.

To that end, we have gathered an entire collection of tools and resources that we love and put them all in one place to make it easy for you to locate the ones you currently need…

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