Creating a strategy that identifies your ideal customers is something we talk about a lot but so many small business owners turn their noses up at doing this - we are too busy running our business for all that.
We get it, you are the person delivering/making the product, answering the calls, creating the marketing, closing the sales, balancing the books etc... But being this busy is WHY you must create these customer avatars, as they will save you time and money.
Time For a Short Story
Nearly 5 years ago, James and I went with friends to Wales for white water rafting. On the drive down, it was raining sideways, so we assumed on arriving it would be cancelled and we'd head for the pub.
How wrong we were. The chap running the course explained his 'magic finger' - which prompted 5 lads to ask what this magic finger was! Turns out, when he started he would point out the dangers, thinking that would help people avoid problems but it had the opposite effect as people headed towards them.
This is why he now points directly at the furthest point you can see in the direction you should be going and simply says 'head that way'. Simple really. But a perfect analogy for how small business owners can avoid costly mistakes (time and money) by not getting distracted. Focus is EVERYTHING.
Shiny New Toy Syndrome
One of the biggest reasons we tell people to build customer avatars is so they can be used to judge if anything new is worth your time and money. We call it the shiny new toy syndrome. We are all guilty of this. A new channel arrives, new technology we could use, an idea of messaging, maybe a new product range we could add.
But how do we avoid spending time and money on these shiny new toys, or at least avoid wasting it on the ones that are not worth it? Let's look at a couple of examples and how having ideal customers is the best answer.
A New Social Media Channel
Over the last few years, we've seen the emergence of TikTok and to a lesser extent Threads. When new channels arrive, the temptation is to jump straight on them. But will they use time you don't have, without delivering any returns? If you understand the type of customers you want to acquire, you'll know if they will be on these channels.
Whilst TikTok is a great engagement channel and the shop is increasingly becoming a must-use shopping channel for many, people won't buy certain products/services on it, whilst some personality types won't use it. You need to understand all this before making a decision.
Imagine if you spent half a day creating your ideal customers, then didn't spend 2 days a month working on a new channel that doesn't deliver results for you - that's 44 hours saved within the next three months. You're welcome.
Developing a New Product Range
You've had an idea for a new product and are about to spend several weeks and £2,000 developing a prototype. Now stop for a second and assess your ideal customers. Will they purchase this product range? What price would they pay for it? Even if it's a good product idea, would you need to start appealing to a new customer type?
Considering all these points, you might decide now is not the time to launch this new product, saving you weeks of work and £2,000. Once again, you are more than welcome!
Focus, Focus, Focus - Use Your Ideal Customers
Ultimately, having customer avatars is a key part of a marketing strategy and gives you focus. It is your magic finger that points you in the direction you want to go and avoids rowing into rocks.
Build out your customer avatars and every time you have a decision to make if you should be investing your time and money, you ask yourself - will our customer care? Will they buy it? Will they engage with it? This focus will save you precious time and money.
If you are looking to start a side hustle and still struggling with the perfect idea or maybe you’ve got the ideal solution but no idea how to get started - maybe it's time to do a little research and read a book about how to start a side hustle.
With side hustles being such a popular modern phenomenon, there are a LOT of books to choose from. They range from how to pick an idea through to how to turn it into your full-time career, with everything in between. Fear not, we are here to help with our guide to our favourite books for someone starting a side hustle.
We’ve also provided links to the books if you want to buy them. We don’t get a commission if you do buy, and we’ve made a point of giving you links to small businesses that sell these. Therefore, if you choose to buy, you are helping small, independent businesses just like you!
Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days (Chris Guillebeau)
We might as well start with the king of side hustle books, Chris Guillebeau. We could have picked from numerous books he has produced, and we certainly give a nod to the excellent 100 side hustles, where he details the story of 100 people who have created highly successful side hustles.
However, if we were to pick just one of his fine books on side hustles, then it has to be ‘From Idea to Income in 27 Days’. It is perfect for those starting out on the side hustle journey.
It provides a step-by-step guide on how to get started, where ideas come from and is packed with real-world examples. You feel like you’ve picked up some of those experiences to give yourself confidence moving forward.
The Side Hustle Millionaire (Tony Whatley)
Aside from his book being one of the most popular side hustle books, we love Tony Whatley because he’s a no-nonsense expert who doesn’t hold back. We also appreciate his detail-led approach to life.
If a side hustle is a new venture for you, then you might be apprehensive, but you don’t need to be. Tony will give you loads of practical tips that will help you understand what’s needed and strip away those concerns.
$1000 100 Ways: How Real People Make Real Money on the Side (Nick Loper)
In his excellent book, Nick Loper highlights 100 entrepreneurs who created themselves additional income from side hustles. By taking you on these entrepreneurs' journies, you’ll learn how to make money online. He also shows you how/when you might need investment, without having to take any risks.
The book is excellent at highlighting the importance of finding those potential customers for your side hustle, so you can start generating additional revenues without giving up your day job.
The Side Hustle Guide: Build a Successful Side Hustle and Increase Your Income (Bola Sokunbi)
Written by Clever Girl Finance founder Bola Sokunbi, we like this book for its sound and sensible approach. You get great advice on a business plan (which many running a side hustle wrongly don’t see as important) and establishing your brand. Essentially doing the things that any serious business should do and being a side hustle shouldn’t excuse that.
Side Hustle: A Beginner's Handbook On Effective Ways To Earn Extra Income On The Side (Eric Scott)
If you are at the early stage of deciding if a side hustle is right for you, then this book from Eric Scott might be the right one for you. For example, if you are struggling to come up with good ideas, this book will immediately inspire you.
It’s packed with practical tips, productivity hacks and a set of rules that everyone should follow as they begin their side hustle journey.
That’s our list of 5 books you should read if you want to start a side hustle or are looking for ways to get momentum with something you’ve already started.
We’d love to hear your recommendations, message us and post them on our Instagram feed and we’ll update our guide with any great new books you suggest.
Small business marketing is hard. There you go, we said it! But only if you don’t remember two key things - always think like your customer and remember your personality matters. If you master those, then it’s not so tough. There you go, we said it!
That’s a lovely opening paragraph to grab the reader's attention (see what we did there…) but what does including your personality in your marketing mean?
People Buy From People
Before the pandemic, we had started to see a trend of people wanting to support small & local businesses, which was then magnified during that tough period. Whilst that is great news for all small businesses, we should never take that for granted - partly because there are literally millions of small businesses in this country for them to support!
Therefore, if we want our small business marketing to work, we need to ensure our personality shines through in our marketing. People choose a small business because they feel like they are helping individuals, not corporations, but if they don’t know who you are and what you stand for, why would they choose you?
This doesn’t mean you have to be on camera all the time. Every social post doesn’t have to be a video of you talking. Your website doesn’t have to be your life story. BUT. You have to find ways to get your personality, your values, and your beliefs, to come across in everything you do.
At the end of this article, you’ll see some examples of what we mean. Still, the main thing to remember is that your best customer will love you, so you have nothing to be afraid of and anyone who’s not drawn to what you believe - well they probably aren't your type of customer anyway.
There Is Only One You
One of the great challenges in marketing is standing out from the crowd. Most businesses (and I include Future Mantis in that) have competition. It might not be a direct competitor doing exactly the same, but there is always someone else that people could spend their money on or their time engaging with.
When we help people understand the formula for how to stand out from the crowd, we talk about a combination of your proposition, your audience and YOU. One thing is for certain, no competitor has you, so you really can make the difference.
Getting your personality across in your marketing is a way to distinguish your business. It’s at the heart of successful small business marketing. The more people understand your story and what you bring to the table, the more of a relationship you build. Marketing is about making connections and people connect with people better than faceless brands.
One final thought on this area, for most small businesses, their ideal customer shares their values and beliefs. Therefore, the more your personality comes across in your marketing and you showcase your values, the more people are drawn to your business.
Small Business Marketing Examples
Here are a few ideas about how you put personality into your small business marketing and one real world example that we love.
Tell Your Story
The about section of a small business website is under-utilised. So many never have one at all (why would people want to know about us) and those that do, typically just explain what they do and when they started. We don’t need this information here. We need your story.
Tell us how the business was founded, what was the motivation? If the business came from a personal frustration, need or maybe unfortunate circumstances, then tell people. This is how we build a connection because many of your potential customers will have been on the same journey and this will build a connection.
Explain the Name Or Logo
Another technique we’ve seen used really well is someone explaining why the name of the business was selected or even the inspiration behind the logo. Of course, this is only relevant if there is meaning behind this! Bonus tip - these often work as a short video at the bottom of an About page.
Show People The Process
One of the best ways to show off your personality, style and values is by letting people behind the door. If you are a maker, people love to see how something is made - baking the cake, painting the picture or building that furniture.
If you present workshops, let's see a clip of you in action. Could we see pictures of you at a client meeting? If you have to collect materials, maybe show that trip and explain why you’ve picked the suppliers you did.
You Are Not Just A Business Owner
The final thing to remember is you are not just someone who runs a business, you are a person. Let’s hear occasionally about what else is going on. You don’t need to get deeply personal, but maybe you took a day off to go to the school play or ran your first 10k and feel great about it.
Put little things on your social channels to show the person behind the business. In a monthly newsletter, always add a little story about non-work stuff. If you present live, include stories from outside of work.
Hopefully, that’s been useful in showing how to add personality to your small business marketing and why it is so important.
We wanted to end with a bonus tip.
“Write How You Talk”
The more you sound like you, the more personal your brand becomes. The greater the chance you’ll connect with people, the better the chances they will buy from you and not someone else. Don’t overthink it, be as natural as possible and write exactly how you would talk to someone about what you do.
Whoops, we promised an example of someone putting personality into their marketing that we love. Whilst they have gone on to become a huge brand, when this video from a small start-up called “Dollar Shave Club’ went live, they were hardly known, yet this one example drew millions of people in and created a brand that sustains today.
If you are thinking about starting a side hustle or have already taken the plunge and are looking to find the time to do your side hustle marketing, then we might have the answer for you - your work commute.
Immediate warning, this is for people who get a bus, tram, or train to work. If you are driving (or riding a bike) then the following might be a little dangerous - but for those people, jump to the bottom for our bonus tip for people commuting in cars!
Schedule Like a Professional
For most, social media will be a critical part of the marketing mix. Which exact channels you use will depend on your target audience, but let’s assume that at least a couple of the usual suspects are in your marketing mix.
This means that for some of your commuting time, you should be writing and scheduling posts. To make the absolute most of your time, then we’d like to recommend you use a scheduling tool rather than try and natively schedule posts on the platforms themselves.
The reason for this is simple, it will be faster if you do them all in one place. You won’t waste time flicking between them and have less chance of making a mistake. Much of the content will be the same across the platforms, so create the base post and then adjust it within the scheduling tool so it’s right for each platform you use.
For example - if you are putting out a post about a new product you are launching, build a post with details about why the audience will like it and a nice image. Maybe you’ll shorten the text for Instagram and add more images (maybe a video!) but on Facebook, you can go into a little more detail and possibly link directly to a preview page. All completed within the scheduling tool and done on the commute to work.
Fresh Web Content
One of the tricks to side hustle marketing is getting free traffic/eyeballs via content people are searching for. It needs to be relevant to your business and of benefit to the prospect but if you get that right, you’ll have people visiting your website and then you have the chance to convert them.
This requires frequent new content on the website, so it’s time to exploit the power of AI. Firstly, you need to ensure you have a good understanding of the topics that matter to your customer, then it’s time to enter the world of ChatGTP.
On your route to work, you could be typing in article ideas, giving ChatGTP lots of clues and information to build a great first draft. Once it creates an article, you have the time on your commute to review and improve it.
You might change some of the wording, you’ll add some extras or make it more relatable to the business - but it’s all faster with a ChatGTP head start, making it another thing you could do on your commute. Develop a draft on the way in, refine it on the way home - bang, you’ve got a fresh piece of content on the website. Do that twice a month and you are flying.
Networking Ninja
The secret to many businesses' side hustle marketing is networking and whilst you might think it’s unlikely to be doing this on the way to work, you’d be wrong.
Let’s start with the easy one - LinkedIn. If you spend just 15 minutes every morning on the way to work going through LinkedIn, I promise you that your network will increase and you’ll meet potential new clients.
Spend this time going through your feed and responding to a minimum of 3 posts a day. This isn’t saying ‘Hi’ or ‘That sounds good’. It’s not liking 50 posts but saying nothing. We are talking about intelligent comments that inspire the author or others in their network to read and respond to your comment.
Another good example could be Facebook groups or forums - wherever your potential audience hangs out. Find these places and spend time engaging within them. Be a trusted member of the community and avoid selling. Focus your time on the commute to helping people, offering useful ideas and generally being someone that people like.
Ultimately this time spent converts into good relationships and the opportunity over time to talk a little more about what you offer, but by restricting your commute to non-sales engagement, you resist the temptation to become ‘that guy’ who no one wants to listen to!
Engaging Email Marketing
The majority of email platforms have a mobile app that you can utilise to create and send emails on the go. That’s right, we see no reason you couldn’t create and send an email in the time it takes you to get on the train and alight 25 minutes later at your destination.
The best way of achieving this is via templates. Create them in advance, and have a bank of templates that you like to utilise for different types of emails. Create these at the weekend or in the evening. It’s maybe a couple of hours of time investment that will pay back handsomely.
With these templates in place, you’ll simply need to pick the ideal one, write the content you want to distribute, select some images and pick the segments it will go to. Done. If you prep those templates, it really is about deciding what to write and scheduling everything to go out.
Imagine that, twice a month you’ll spend your commute to work writing and sending emails and suddenly you are engaging frequently with your customer base.
Customer Service
You might be thinking ‘customer service is not marketing’ but we respectfully disagree. Every single time you communicate with your customers, you are marketing. It’s a common fact that it is 5 times cheaper to get an order from an existing customer than find a new one, so good customer service is marketing gold.
Use your route to work or the trip home as a chance to stay on top of any questions they might have, a fast and helpful response can lead to a good feeling and the chance of a follow-up order.
Checking the status of orders and spotting any delays before the customer does can do wonders for your customer relationships. The same goes for any supplier contacts, the better and faster the response, the better service they will deliver - it’s the perfect way to avoid looking like a side hustle and acting like a full-time business.
Social Media Engagement
We started the article with an example of how to do your social posts on the commute, we end it talking about how to use that time to engage with your social audience because posting on social media is only half the job.
It is just as important (if not more so) to be social and talk to your audience. Respond to any comments they make. Connect with people who like your posts. Find prospects in other places and engage with their posts - basically, make the time to talk to your customers and prospects.
It’s potentially the most useful thing you can do on your commute to drive your business forward. Social media accounts grow faster through engaging with people online than they do through just posting and sitting on your journey to work is the perfect time to do this form of marketing.
So there we have it, 6 ways you can be doing your side hustle marketing on your commute to work, to maximise the time you spend outside of normal work hours on developing and growing your business. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Sorry, forgot, we promised a tip for people who drive to work - learn! Listen to audiobooks, download podcasts, do whatever you can to learn about marketing, understand how someone else succeeded and think about how you can apply that to your business. Your drive to work is time to invest in your side hustle, so learn, learn and learn.
Whenever we run workshops, we always say our best qualification to run them is the amount of mistakes we’ve made in our time! It always seems to worry people, we never understand why…
Of course, that is meant slightly tongue in cheek, but the truth is that making mistakes is all part of growing a business and if you don’t make mistakes you are probably not trying enough things.
However, the key to the success of any small business is avoiding the silly mistakes or the ones that others can help you avoid - which is where our workshops come in, and now this guide to the common mistakes small businesses make when they get started.
In truth, across our time building multiple businesses and working directly with small business owners, we’ve made or seen a lot of small business mistakes and we thought it would be a great idea to document them and help more small businesses avoid the same mistakes.
No One Cares What You Have To Say!
Well that’s not easy to hear is it? When businesses first go to market, the temptation is to tell the world how amazing they are, how brilliant their product is or why people should buy from them. You must resist this urge and instead focus on what the customer cares about.
We talk about this all the time, the key to reaching and connecting with an audience is explaining what you do or offer in language that the customer understands and cares about. Learn what matters to them, their pains, needs and desires - then translate your offering into one that fulfils these things.
If you sell candles with personal messages on them, don’t tell me about how they work or what you did to create them. If you know your customer is looking for a unique and special gift, talk about how you offer this amazing gift that is personal and unique - that’s the thing that grabs the customer's interest.
Write Down What Success Means
And you cannot just write “Making loads of money”. Think about sitting down in 12 months and looking back on a ‘great first year’ - why was it great? What constitutes a good first year? It will be different for everyone, for some it will be 100 customers, for others it will be 4 retained clients, for the next person it might just be a good work/life balance.
Why is this important? Because without it, you cannot focus your efforts. Every time you get a new idea, you have to judge if it’s worth investing time into based on its ability to help you achieve that 12-month ambition. If it won’t then put it into the ideas drawer for a later date.
A big small business mistake so many make at the start is to take on too much. To try lots of things at once, launch multiple products at the same time, try and gain too many customers, and market into loads of channels from day one. To avoid this, focus on what you want to achieve and don’t get distracted by everything else.
Not Giving Yourself A Head Start
You are likely entering a market with competitors that have an established name and credentials, putting you at a disadvantage, but that’s not the mistake we often see. No, the mistake is when people enter a market and don’t take advantage of competitor analysis.
Because it’s madness to enter a market with people already trading and not learn the following
- What their customers are saying their weaknesses are. For example, if people are saying they are consistently late with deliveries, you can launch in the market with a message of a faster and more reliable delivery service
- Learn where they sell. Are they selling F2F, do they have a website, do they use marketplaces like Etsy or maybe Facebook or even TikTok
- How to price your products or services. Too often small businesses undervalue their offering, go in low and struggle to raise prices over time. Learn what the customer is willing to pay and be brave enough to match that
Ultimately, take advantage of arriving later into the marketplace and launch with a better version than everyone else.
Don’t Forget There Is More To A Name
You might have a great idea for a name. It's smart, it tells people what you are about and you are confident it will be something that people remember. Then you create your website and set up your social media channels, and whoops, you cannot register the name.
We have seen it happen so often. When creating a modern business, it is critical to consider your website and social handles when you choose your name. Find out if the domain you want is available. Check that you can get the same social handle across all the platforms you intend to use.
You are not well-known when you launch your business, so it's vital people can find you easily. The last thing you need is for a prospect to learn about your business and then not be able to find it easily online. Don’t put any barriers in the customer's way and avoid this classic small business mistake.
Trying To Sell To Everyone
Sorry, everyone is not your customer. Even the biggest companies need to focus on a specific set of customers and as a small business, it’s even more important that you do. The big mistake we see is trying to appeal to everyone and ending up appealing to no one. Spread your net too wide and your message becomes generic and doesn’t resonate with anyone.
Focus on a smaller, targeted audience and speak to them directly. It’s better to convert 10% of a smaller audience than 0.1% of a massive one - it’s simple maths!
Budgeting For The Little Things
We tend to find most small business owners are sensible with putting together a business plan including a budget forecast. However, whilst most obvious things like overheads, rental costs, staff and even paying yourself are considered, it's often the smaller things people forget.
Those little things add up faster than people think, and we normally refer to them as the hidden costs of running a small business.
For example, office equipment like monitors, paper, desks and even chairs. Some people often forget they need a computer! Another area is permits and licences. These could be ones needed to trade in your chosen field or maybe for different software you’ll need to do the job.
On a similar theme, insurance is one we often notice is missing but most businesses need some form of insurance depending on the type of work they do. This will appear in most tender documents or agreements with larger clients.
Cash Flow Is King
One final cost-based small business mistake that’s never well planned for is clients not paying promptly and its effect on your cash flow. We see people’s budget plans and they all assume they do work and get paid within 30-60 days, sometimes even faster. I’m afraid that rarely happens.
You need to plan that up to 25% of your clients will pay late, or dispute invoicing to slow it down or even refuse to pay. It’s critical for cash flow, which is the thing that kills most small businesses. We often talk to people who have stopped trading not because of a lack of interest but because they couldn’t afford to run at a loss.
Plan out your budget to assume slow collection, build in a cash buffer and stay on top of your invoices - if you are not chasing, don’t expect your clients to remember.
Assuming It Will All Go Well
We have to end the article talking about planning for the worst. It might not be what you want to think about at the start, you are full of enthusiasm and excitement, who wants to plan for what will go wrong!
But the reality is things will go awry and ignoring that is one of the single biggest small business mistakes people make when they start up. You need to spend time thinking about what different things could go wrong and building a plan for what you’ll do if it does.
For example, what happens if you don’t get any clients in the first 3 months? How do you manage things if a member of staff walks out without giving notice? If a supplier turns around and increases their prices by 20% at short notice, what would you do?
Every business has different scenarios it needs to plan for, so no list we could write is exhaustive, but if you work through your internal plans, and then think about customers, and then suppliers, you’ll have covered most of the worst things that could happen.
Hopefully, we’ve helped you avoid some of the worst and most avoidable small business mistakes that people make at the start, which means you can get going with confidence and then go make your own mistakes - remember, mistakes are ok, just learn from them and continue to grow - good luck!
Being a small business owner is never easy, but if we can be smart about some of the tools we use, then it can make our lives easier AND save us precious time. Often these tools come at a cost, so you are balancing the benefits they bring with the cost, however, if we are smart, lots of free small business tools exist that we can utilise.
Coming into the new year, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to share our favourite free tools for small businesses in 2024.
Hubspot
Let's start with one of the big boys. Hubspot is one of the biggest and best in the CRM market, but did you know they offered a free version for small businesses? Yep, you can get free access to the same powerful tool that many of the biggest companies in the country use.
For those unfamiliar, Hubspot is a platform where you can store your contacts and build a strategy to ensure you are constantly contacting the right people at the right time. So if you constantly worry about not following up with people, and that you are missing opportunities, this is the perfect free tool for you.
We’ve all been there, you chat with someone or they send you a message, telling you they are interested but now is not the right time for them. If you’ve ever worried that you forget these moments and are not maximising the sales opportunity, then Hubspot is a great tool for you.
Hootsuite
It’s important to be actively listening to what’s being said about you on social media, but it's also one of the most time-consuming jobs if you are not careful - so enter Hootsuite. It’s one of the better social listening tools that also happens to offer a free version for small businesses.
We always look for the tools that grow with you, so if you do outgrow the free plan, you’ll easily justify the small monthly fee to upgrade, but you’ve got good initial room in the free version before you hit that.
Trello
If your business needs structure and processes to function correctly, then a project management tool might be the order of the day and one of the best, with a completely free version for small businesses, is Trello.
The free version of Trello comes with loads of templates, unlimited storage and access to their app so you can use the tool anywhere.
Google Forms
In truth, we could have done an entire blog just about the free business tools that Google provides but one of the best that we think all businesses can utilise is Google Forms, because they act as a great survey tool.
Talking to your clients and learning what’s important to them is vital in helping a business grow, you can understand the needs of the customer and react with updates to your messaging, evolve your products or services and become more attractive to your audience.
Canva
If you are a small business owner and looking to do any form of marketing, you’ll likely need to pull together some creative. That is scary, as many of us don’t see ourselves as creative and certainly don’t know what tools to use.
That’s where a tool like Canva comes in. It helps the non-creative person develop marketing materials without any formal training and we include things like brand logos in those materials.
It’s stacked with templates, access to free images and advice that will help anyone, regardless of their skills - and it comes with a free version for small businesses just like yours!
Calendly
If you are a services business that needs to book appointments, you’ve probably experienced the stress of ensuring your calendar is correct and you are not missing appointments or double-booking yourself.
Stress no more, because we have a free scheduling tool that solves all these problems.
Calendly allows you to offer people access to your calendar to book meetings directly and you can even control what they see, so they only get time slots you are happy with.
Website Builders
Cheating slightly here because there are so many different free options it didn’t make sense just to pick one. Over the last few years, we’ve used all of these different options and each comes with its own pros and cons, but ultimately any small business that needs a website should be looking to utilise one of these free options first.
Wix comes with a lot of power out of the box, Weebly is good for simple websites, WordPress is the biggest option in the world with a lot of free templates and Webflow is great if you want to get a little more hands-on.
Mailchimp
Similar to the website builders, we could have named several free email platforms, but as a long-term supporter of small businesses with their free packages, we felt Mailchimp was the best one to suggest initially.
Mailchimp will store your email contacts, place sign-up forms on your websites and ultimately help you send professional looking emails, by choosing from free templates that will fit your needs.
Google Analytics
Ok, I’m going to squeeze one more Google tool in, because I think it's that important and one of the best free pieces of software for any business. If you have a website, then you have to place Google Analytics on that website.
It will enable you to understand how your site is being used and make key improvements, as well as track all the sources of traffic. It’s critical to understand what traffic is arriving and what they do, so you can optimise any marketing spend.
Semrush
When it comes to understanding what your customers are looking for online, few tools offer you support better than Semrush. It gives you the ability to track what keywords are popular with your customers and alter your marketing to capture these potential customers.
They offer a free version that is a little limited but will still enable you to track at least 10 key phrases, which can really kick-start your marketing efforts.
We hope that’s useful and some of these tools help your business grow and become more efficient. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, so if you’ve got any other that you use and think others would benefit from, please share - let's make 2024 the year we support each other.
As a small business owner, you don’t have hours a day to spend on marketing, yet everyone is telling you that you need to stay on top of your social media.
We are marketing people, so we’d love it if everyone spent days and days on marketing but we understand that this isn’t realistic. We plan to ensure we maximise our marketing potential whilst not taking hours out of our days when we should be working with amazing companies like yours.
Over the years we have refined our internal processes to ensure we make the most of the time we have, stripping away wasted time, effort and money.
FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS
99% of how to successfully manage your social media without it taking over your life is about having an ideal customer that you are targeting. We always say that if you can understand your ideal customer as well as your best friend, then marketing is easy and efficient.
- You know what channels to find them in, meaning less wasted time in places they will never see you
- Coming up with ideas that will interest them is second nature and frankly, it is much easier
- You’ll be able to respond to their posts, comment comfortably and engage with them
It also stops you from falling for the shiny new toy syndrome. TikTok was a perfect recent example. It is growing exponentially and can be a great addition to your marketing strategy - but it’s not for everyone. You can quickly decide if it is right for you by looking at the ideal customer. Assess if they would be interested in TikTok and then move on or learn more.
PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION
This blog is about how to spend your day efficiently using social media for your business and the truth is that to do that you are better off doing the harder work beforehand and then this makes your daily management of social media so much easier.
Come up with content ideas in chunks. Spend a couple of hours at the start of the month deriving ideas for the next 30 days, then you can save that time each day and you’ll be more efficient in generating ideas, it’s much harder to dip in and out of idea generation, better to have a couple of hours dedicated to it.
The same goes for posting your output. You MUST use a tool to plan and schedule your social media, it’s so much more efficient, very low cost and allows you to get this out of the way in one go. Again, you shouldn’t be wasting time dropping into the channels constantly to post fresh content, schedule it and let the platform do the rest. Your daily time should be spent engaging with social media, replying to people, commenting on other posts etc…
ONLY 30 MINUTES A DAY
We have written (sorry, we are writing) the book on how to do your marketing in 30 minutes a day, and here is an example of how I use LinkedIn. I spend 10 minutes a day on LinkedIn, yet people assume it’s a lot more. Let me show you how;
- I break my time up into two 5-minute sessions. One first thing and another mid-afternoon, depending on other meetings I have going on
- If I plan to post that day, then I will have scheduled it to go at 7.45 am as I’ve realised over time this gets me the best responses
- I log in between 8-9 am and quickly check for connection requests or messages. I deal with them immediately
- I then spend the remaining time scrolling through my timeline and identifying stories to which I can contribute. I set myself a minimum target of one post to comment on, alongside a couple of likes.
- The comment has to be meaningful, and grab the attention of the poster. It should enable me the opportunity to reach out and connect. It might also allow me the chance to engage in conversation
- In the afternoon I repeat this exercise - this means I generally comment on 10-15 posts a week
- My posts are planned in advance. I maintain a separate internal document and whenever ideas pop into my head, I write them down. This way, I’m never lacking ideas. I generally post 3 times a week
- I mix up my posts between personal, informal, business and direct selling. I find if I post a sales message once a fortnight then people respond well and don’t get turned off my posting
- My personal posts are the most engaged, which is fine. They are there to build relationships and allow a smaller percentage to react to what I do
Let me explain a recent example of this in action. I posted about my efforts to get back in shape for a new marathon (classic humble brag) and asked the good people of LinkedIn to be my accountability audience to whom I reported back on training progress. It's a simple post that got a lot of engagement but you would assume very little business benefit.
However, one of the people who commented on the post was an old connection that I had lost touch with and who I had tried unsuccessfully to re-engage with.
After his comment, I exchanged some messages, then set up a meeting, something I’d been trying to achieve for months.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
My social media interactions won’t be the same as yours, what works for you won’t be the same as me. So what do you take from my daily interactions?
- Focus only on the channels that matter. As a small business owner, if that is greater than 3, then you might want to review your ideal customer again
- Plan content ahead of time. Don’t wake up and try to dream up ideas each day. Have a bank of content ideas and release them at appropriate times - here are some tips on doing this
- Engage with your audience. 10% of social media is about what you post, 90% is how well you engage with the audience
- Small and often. If you spend hours a day reviewing your social feeds and interacting with forums or groups, you need to cut back. You don’t need to interact with everything, just the things that matter
- Mix up your content. Too much selling puts an audience off, too little and it’s a waste of your valuable time. Know your customer and you’ll understand the right balance for them
If you are struggling with any of this, then we have a free 30-minute webinar for you or a course dedicated to just this. They take you through how to build your ideal customer and discover where to find them.
Most of all, try and enjoy your social media engagement. If it’s a chore, this will come across in your communications. Have fun with it. Understand your ideal customer, then talking to them will be easy and who doesn’t want marketing to be easy!