By Aaron Johnson, CMO
There are some basic, blanket steps
While reading through this, keep in mind that this is in no way intended to be an “applicable to all” sort of guide. Your marketing campaign, ads, types of social media posts, etc would be different for say a online shopping business versus a consultancy or financial group.
Really, I wanted to give you all a basic, early-days guide with some ideas to get your PR (public relations; how the public sees your business) off the ground and ways to do that. The beginning stages are the worst, but it doesn’t have all be bad.
The beauty is, these are all steps that you can do yourself so that you can build up your marketing budget before you hire on some pros (which I strongly recommend you do asap).
Facebook Pages
Facebook has evolved into an absolute marketing beast. Not only can you keep up with friends and family, but it’s a perfect venue for blogs, videos, ads and product placement. It also has its own ranking system that you can use to your advantage in order to increase your reach.
Our view on Facebook is that it is the channel through which we give out as much free information, advice and even key pieces of our sales training to as many people as possible. We don’t use our Facebook page as a giant ad. Be careful when you do start posting and try to balance your advertisements with plain, good-hearted help.
I.e.: if you sell a product, sure, advertise products on your page, but also balance that out with something fun and helpful to your potential customers. One stable piece of info that I keep is to post at least once a day, but make it meaningful.
Also remember to check out your page insights after your first week or so, and keep checking it. This way you start to get an idea of what times to post that get you the most views. If you’re posting at 3 A.M., no one will see it. Not saying that insomnia is good or bad for the new business owner, but there are better activities you can do at 3 in the morning.
Note: don’t use your personal page… please don’t. Create a business page and keep your lives separate.
Instagram is a bit of a hidden gem. Not a lot of “professional service” type business use it to its full extent (or even at all). However, if you sell products, Instagram is a must. If you sell consulting-like services and don’t use Instagram, you might want to try it out and see if it works for you.
Matterhorn posts different types of quotes in picture form as well as seminar pictures on our page just as a fun PR type of activity.
There is a hidden use of Instagram. You can search for people who would be your target public (type of clientele) and start following them and liking/commenting on their posts. Things as simple as “hey I like what you did there,” can cause someone to turn around and start paying attention to your page and yields easy leads.
That’s all I’ll say for this issue, but check out Part II for info on Google +, LinkedIn, Networking and Paid Ads!
Contact Us
If you want to learn more, read through the rest of our blogs or you can check out our about sections on our main page. Also, go to our YouTube channel for videos of Greg and testimonials and follow us on Facebook.
If you have any questions, you can email us at info@matterhornbizdev.com or call at 727-249-3651. Don’t forget to sign up for our next FREE Seminar
