Whether you’re in the process of setting up your own business or you’re a seasoned small business owner, having a strong online marketing strategy is essential to your success. As well as this, when coming up with your business’s marketing plan, you will have no doubt considered who is the target audience for your product or services. From Twitter to Snapchat, Instagram to YouTube, the sheer quantity of online platforms can soon become overwhelming, especially if you feel that your business should have a presence on all of them. To assist you with getting the best from your online platforms, here are three ways that you can reach your target audience online.
- Identify what platform your target audience will respond best to
Research shows that different demographics of people respond differently to different types of social media. For instance, Snapchat is popular amongst teenagers, and Instagram has a large user base of Gen Z and millennial women; Facebook, however, is the most democratic social media platform, having the largest number of users across all ages and genders. To take advantage of this research, you could ask your customers and followers to complete a questionnaire to provide you with information about the demographics of your customer base. This will give you the information to know on what social media platform you should focus your online marketing.
- Collaborate with bloggers and influencers
Although still a relatively new career choice, bloggers and other online influencers command a huge amount of respect and influence over customers, having built up their own trusted brand. With some bloggers and influencers reaching well over a million followers, a post or two about your product will ensure that your business reaches a huge number of potential customers. With bloggers and influencers active in a variety of different fields, from book bloggers to fitness Instagrammers, you are sure to find an online influencer to suit your business’s ethos. For instance, Click Intelligence can match you up with a blogger suitable for your business who can help to increase your online presence by producing great content on your behalf that you can use for your business.
- Interact regularly with your customer base
There is growing evidence that customers respond better to businesses that are open and transparent with them, disliking traditional hard sales techniques such as a constant stream of promotional information. This is perhaps because most customers like to feel that they are building a relationship with a trusted business, rather than being a disposable statistic in a corporate setting. Considering this, you must connect with your customers over your business’s social media platforms. You could, for instance, host a Livestream when launching new products to provide your customers with a proper look at what is on offer, as well as being available to answer any questions they may have about your business. By doing this, you are then able to build up a trusting relationship between your business and your target audience.
