3 Ways to Grow Your Online Presence

The Importance of Digital Marketing for Business

Why do you need an online marketing plan?

When you start a business, there are many hurdles to overcome and in a perfect world having a steady stream of income would be the last thing you have to worry about. Unfortunately, many businesses fail because they can’t bring in the ever so vital clientele they need. 

You may be able to scrape by & survive during “slow months”, but without a consistent stream of eyeballs and interest directed towards your products or services it will be very difficult to stay afloat in the long run… not to mention the ability to scale up and thrive in the way I’m sure you envisioned when starting your business.  With your ideal client’s attention being spread so very thin it is no longer enough to simply post on social media… you need a plan of attack.

Before you go all in on setting up your marketing plan I want to help you understand a concept that many business owners skip right past. This oversight often leads to an unbalanced and unsustainable “marketing plan” that will leave you burnt out and frustrated.

The first concept you need to know about generating “traffic”...

When it comes to client acquisition and growing your online presence you need to understand that there are essentially three categories that your “traffic” will fall into…

• Clients Later- This is where the majority of business owners start (and in many cases where they stay forever without much progression or structure). Clients down the road will come as a result of consistent, high quality, niched down web content. This includes your social media content, web page content, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ratings on your website.

• Brand Reputation & Loyalty- The best approach here is through building relationships and loyalty with your clientele. Your brand reputation shows up online in the form of reviews, mentions, and testimonials. It’s absolutely critical to over-deliver on your promises and do right by your clients. How often would you go to a restaurant that has terrible reviews? Doubly so if a similar restaurant with 5 star reviews is right down the street… This is exactly why your online reputation is absolutely critical! 
• Clients Now- Typically composed of paid advertising… most relevant to you would be Social Media Advertising (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.) and Google Paid Per Click (search engine advertising… typically paying to appear atop a given search term).

Avoiding Overwhelm and Burn-Out

The goal is to build a marketing plan that factors in all three of these categories. A successful game plan will lead to the sustained traffic you’ve dreamt of… Failing to plan (as I’ve mentioned) will lead to unpredictable results and most likely a lot of wasted time and energy.

I will be writing more in-depth posts on each of these categories & how you can go about optimizing them, but for now it’s most important for YOU to step back and create your plan of attack with a very solid foundation. Our team here at FreedomBuilderz has helped each of our clients with this daunting task and we’ve found that business owners have the tendency to skip right past the basics and attempt to hit the ground running… posting on EVERY social media platform, trying to run ads, and trying to build out their website all while keeping their business up and running.

More often than not all I’ve seen this achieve is creating an exhausted/burnt out business owner without much to show in return. I want to make sure you don’t fall into that trap, so let’s start with a few basics. Once you check these boxes then you can move onto the next step of the process.

Getting started with the online marketing foundations…

The absolute best advice I can give you is the exact same I’ve given all of my clients. START SMALL. Just like anything else in business, building an online presence comes down to consistency. If you are just getting started it typically makes the most sense to devote your time and energy towards the “clients later” bucket. I know it’s tempting to jump the gun and spend $ to try and get some immediate income, but to get the most out of that investment it is important that you have a strong online presence. If someone engages with your ad and sees no content, no reviews, and no proof it’s not too likely that they buy from you. Those ads are now just time and money down the drain.

To build out your online presence you are much better off posting every single day on a single platform until it is an unbreakable habit than you would be by inconsistently posting EVERYWHERE online.

Take a second to look at your current social media. What platform are you most comfortable with/ have the most engaged following? Where does your ideal client spend the majority of their time? Set up a plan of attack and focus on posting there daily. Once you have that habit developed and a strong game plan in place then you can begin to add in other platforms or further complexity.

While it is important to have a marketing plan that utilizes each of the concepts I introduced, it is even more important to approach online marketing in a sustainable way that lends itself to quality and consistency. Do yourself a massive favor by building the foundation before trying to pile way too much onto your plate.

If, however, you want to shortcut this process you should reach out to our team here at FreedomBuilderz. We have an amazing team of experts who help business owners just like you to go from overwhelmed and exhausted to spending their energy on their passion and seeing massive success!

_{Written by Andrew Lee (Owner of T1ER One Marketing & Chief Marketing Specialist at FreedomBuilderz)}

_{Proofread & Edited by Ethan Chapluk}