Truth be told, in the recent year, growing your business on social media has become more complex and challenging with algrothrim changes and more pay-for-play models. Over the last six months, I have been working with clients to grow their business without relying on social media audiences. Today, I break down for tips to help your business succeed without social media.
Invest In Paid Advertisement
First and foremost, this is not dependent on if you have a local business. My clients have seen success with utilizing billboards and podcast ads to drive traffic to their business. When I mentioned a billboard to a client in LA, she thought it would be crazy priced, but as always, I make sure my clients do their research. We niched down to where her target audience might reside in the city to ensure the correct demographic saw the billboard. She saw her online business grow within 60 days.
In addition to that, podcasts have grown their listenership by 10x, with more people wanting to learn or listen on the go. If you have a couple of podcasts, you love to reach out to the host and ask about their rate sheet. Do be realistic when reaching out about 1. audience demographic 2. pricing for the ad on the podcast. In addition to that, understand the podcaster being selective of who they advertise. The odds of another business consultant wanting to run an ad about my services are slim, so make sure you do your due diligence about who’s the podcast you work with.
Establish Company Retention Plan
Many businesses spend countless dollars creating campaigns that drive new sales and forget the customers who are already loyal shoppers. If you analyzed your current customer base, could you state how often they utilize your service or shop with you? Understanding customer frequency will help you gather better data on creating new services or launching new product lines. On average, it takes a customer five to eight “touches” before they buy. That means they have checked out your website or social media several times before that commitment; however, your existing audience has already been through that funnel. You want to keep them in that cycle, so they are either spending money monthly or quarterly. In the “how to make $100,000 in revenue a year” series, I share some excellent tips to help you scale your business
Set Up Email Marketing
One of the best-kept secrets in growing your business without social media is leveraging your email marketing list. Customer data is a currency that most people are not fluent in. One thing I try to teach clients is understanding the marketing flows before and after the sale. Great you, got them to give you their email, but how are you utilizing it. For example, Target was sending me an email every day, and I switched to weekly. First and foremost, understand the frequency of the email marketing flows for your customer base. Are they daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. This will help you design a better experience not only for the user but for your team too.
Speak Up For Yourself
Finally, I want you to start speaking up loud and clear about your business. When you ask a man what about himself, and he will say he leads the founder of a tech startup with staff working towards unicorn status with revenue exceeding $1mm. You ask a woman about herself, and she says, “I run a little online shop.” The online shop is doing over $10 million in revenue with staff, warehouse, and changing her community, but she is speaking down on herself. You’re running a powerhouse, and people can feel when you lack confidence. When you speak highly of yourself, others are more likely to buy-in.
Combining all four of these tips will help you grow your business without utilizing social media. As I stated earlier, too many people have put all their eggs in the social media basket, and it’s biting them now with all the changes constantly happening. Take one of these four tips and start using it today and measure what happens in the next 90 days for your business.
Photo by inlytics | LinkedIn Analytics Tool on Unsplash
