Check out our top tips for organically growing an audience using branding, social media, networking, and generating word-of-mouth referrals amongst your current customers.
👀 Know your audience, your niche, and what makes your brand so special
It's true that we all believe we can do everything, but in terms of standing out from your competition, it's important to keep in mind the saying "less is more."
Your story and background are so important to securing customer buy-in, so it's worth thinking about why you created your business, what your ultimate motivation is and how this will resonate in some way with your potential audience.
Have a think about what makes your business so special i.e "we specialize in creating vegan-friendly food for people who want to make serious lifestyle changes" or "I've been teaching yoga for 5 years, learning my trade on the banks of the Ganges and now have a desire to bring this knowledge to the people of Brooklyn, New York"
The vast majority of your communications and content that you put out should position you as a 'domain expert' whilst offering real value to your audience, so as they can learn something from you in a fairly passive way.
Think macro in terms of the knowledge you share, but think micro when talking local so as you become extra relevant to your target market.
💌 Be consistent in messaging, voice, and sharing content
Whether blogging, sending newsletters or using social media, the real way to grow an audience organically is by being consistent and building up a narrative with your audience.
Regularly post/repost interesting articles on your chosen subject and of course don't forget to have an interesting opinion on matters yourself.
Get involved in conversations with your possible audience and of course link back to your chosen primary domain of where you'll start to convert them (this could be your mailing list so as you can communicate with them regularly on your own terms.)
Build yourself a consistent content plan so as you can share content that's episodic and understand that highly organic audience growth doesn't usually happen overnight. What it takes is consistent posting in short-term marketing (social) and long-term content creation (blogging for SEO) so as you leverage all the channels available to make your brand visible to where your target audience hangs out.
🧪 Feel free to experiment with new channels to grow your audience
It's highly likely you'll be using the most obvious channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your own blog to gain interest in your business.
This is definitely a smart way to approach spending the vast majority of your marketing time, however, do also invest some of your resources into testing out new ways to secure potential customer eyeballs.
This could range from local opportunities such as message boards and community Facebook groups to appearing on industry-specific podcasts and YouTube shows.
It could be a case of building up your presence and exposure on Reddit, Quora, Medium, or other places you can grow a sub-audience that gets attention in your brand.
It's also all about embracing the new, and working out where your potential audience lives. So for instance TikTok may be a great place to market yoga, but it may not be so good for restaurants.
Do some research, craft a unique message for that audience and test out what's possible - you never know where you'll discover a new channel that has less competition for attention than the current mainstream offerings.
Our top tip here is to make sure you're consistently measuring your traffic and where you're being referred from. If you use Google analytics, get pretty obsessed with measuring and double down on what's clearly working and converting for you.
🗣 Network, network, network to increase your exposure
Your network could already be sizeable, or you may just be starting out, but to paraphrase Jeff Bezos, "act like it's day one, every day" - meaning treat each day like it's a fresh start and get to work as if you had to do it all again from scratch.
Network on and offline with similar-sized businesses or amplifiers of your content, connect regularly with people who'll open doors for you, and make sure you're building genuine relationships where you both win from being connected.
Join industry organizations, niche communities, guilds, and business support groups to help you stay on course and to put yourself in the mix of possible introductions and opportunities you just won't get from keeping yourself to yourself.
Putting out consistent quality content will help you build your network, then start looking at ways to take it to the next level by finding opportunities for greater exposure for you and your brand.
🏆 Turn your customers into incredible evangelists of your business
Even if you have only a small number of customers to start with, there is no better way to build an audience than by asking them to become advocates of yours and developing greater word-of-mouth referrals.
This can be done in a number of simple ways such as asking your customers to share favorable reviews of you on Tripadvisor, Yelp, Google reviews or Trustpilot (just make sure you have created accounts on these channels with your own branding, etc so as you can own the experience and quality of content shared)
To really take things to the next level, give your customer base super easy ways to share your business with their networks, building out sharable assets that help generate direct leads to you.
We hope you've enjoyed reading our tips to organically grow your audience. As always, there are many ways to do this, however, it's important to first take the time to plan, experiment, and commit to following through. We can't wait to see how you get on with growing your audience organically.
Until next time...keep winning...
Jonny Quirk
If you like what you've read here, have your own success story, or want to join the conversation around entrepreneurship then hit me up on Twitter or check out our YouTube channel - I'm always around!
Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.
