#GiftYourBusiness - The Gift of Clients

This week we are going to talk about another way you can #GiftYourBusiness for the holidays. This is, traditionally, a pretty slow time of year for a lot of businesses. Retail aside, many consumers are more focused on the hustle and bustle of the holiday season than they are about anything else. Here are some tips to help you keep filling that funnel anyway. Give your company the gift of new clients!

Find Your Audience

When you just begin to generally market your business, you are hitting a lot of people that simply are not the right audience for you. That’s just a waste of time, money and effort. In order to maximize the potential of generating quality leads and winning new work, you have to spend time narrowing down your focus.

With online marketing, the goal is to figure out who your target audience is and where they are most likely to spend their time. There are a lot of social media platforms and online communities out there. However, just because one of them is a big name doesn’t mean they are going to be a hot ticket venue for what you do.  The key is to understand what each site excels at and then determine if that is a good fit for your business. Don’t dilute your efforts by trying to be everything to everyone. You’ll just get overwhelmed and that’s not productive.

Become Your Client

Take some time to really consider your ideal lead. What do they search for online? What hashtags would they use on Twitter? What groups would they join on Facebook or LinkedIn? What influencers would they follow? What type of events would they sign up for?

These questions will help lead you to places where people are already in the right frame of mind to listen to what you have to offer.  It will also give you a much better insight on the keywords that will work best so you can incorporate SEO into everything you do online.

Now Engage

Once you now where to find your prospects it’s time to start engaging. However, don’t just go in there guns blazing. Promoting yourself too heavily or coming off too strong is the best way to push leads away. Start small. Start liking posts, sharing, or re-tweeting. Leave a comment on something they’ve posted to start a conversation. Team up with some influencers and collaborate. This will establish your expertise in the field and give you more credibility.  Do some prospecting and make some connections.

Then, once you’ve dipped your toes in the water, start sending a few messages. Don’t overdo it. If you work this process well, interested potential clients will reach out to you.  This is not only more effective, it saves you time.

Track Your Progress

There are plenty of different tools available to track your effectiveness. Most of them are free. Use them. Just because your gut says Facebook is the place to be doesn’t mean that the numbers will agree. This will allow you to continually fine tune and adjust your plan. There is no point wasting effort on a site that just isn’t producing results.

Follow Up

Often, this is where many businesses drop the ball. Yes, it is time consuming to input all of these leads into your CRM database. Developing a landing page or an email newsletter list involves investing up front. However, all of the progress you’ve made to this point is a complete waste if there isn’t adequate follow through. If you don’t have time to make it happen, hire someone who does.

Yes, it seems like a lot of work. However, if you are doing the preparation on your own it could not cost you a thing. Unlike traditional methods of marketing and advertising, there is no budget required. Just time. And if you effectively utilize some of the time management techniques from our last blog post, you could free up the time to really go out there and sign up new work! 

It can be easy to get buried in the day-to-day tasks and projects of running your business. Take some time this month to really think about how you can best #GiftYourBusiness and make next year the best one yet! And remember to #BeAwesome.

~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don't get left behind ~ 

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Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a "#BeAwesome" Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+ , YouTube,Pinterest, Instagram  and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.