How to build a strong clientele on social media- A guide for start-ups and late bloomers
Digital marketing is all about exposure and increasing visibility of the product. Every business now days have a digital presence. If you did not consider digital marketing in past but are now warming up to the idea, this post will benefit you immensely. An added advantage here is you get to see how different technologies and tools were used over time. It is a good thing to start from scratch as you get all the right questions to ask and build your progress steadily.
I am going to refer your target audience as future clients in this whole post because I want to inculcate this idea in your mind that all those people around you and many more can be your clients, you can build such a strong presence with these simple yet efficient ideas.
Let’s start building your social media presence and get you some clients:
- Get basic information on your future clients
Digital marketing will work only when to target all your energies on gathering clients, every ad, every action should be in direction of getting client attention and pursuing them to join you. Now all this seem good in writing but how to do actually do it? Well, all good things come at a price and so does this. You must do a thorough research on demographic features of your targeted clientele.
Demographics is a study of geographical features that affect the habitants of that place along with the age, gender, education, marital status, income and family size. Here you can limit your search to basic functions like area, age, education etc. or go for in depth analysis by including preferred mode of transportation, family size etc.
Now I completely understand all this does not sound very exciting but what needs to be done should be done especially when it promises an amazing ROI rate. After doing the initial research, ask some other basic questions like:
* Is your product gender specific?
* Are you targeting young people, middle age people or old people.
* The location of target audience- local, national or international.
* Income range of targeted clients.
All this might seem tedious at first but this will help you in building a strong, failure proof strategy. You must use every source in your reach to full optimization so that there is minimum room for error. Going back and forth for doing these researches is not something I’ll advice. Undoubtedly it will increase your expenses and blood pressure.
- Know your future clients
You collected basic information, amazing. Now let’s move to basic interest areas of your client. When advertising your product you must realise that interest plays a very significant role here. For example, If your business deals in car segment and particularly comfort laden sedans then middle age group people are your prime clients, if you deal in sports cars then you’ll seem very less middle age clients.
Similarly gather data regarding:
* What does your future clients do in their spare time?
* What are the key areas they’re willing to spend money?
* What are their reliable information centres?
* Apart your basic interests, what other hobby groups or communities they have joined on internet?
* Which social media platform is more used among the clientele?
I personally believe that the point of marketing is: to attract even the toughest customer but this must be done after you have a strong foothold in your field and a reliable client base.
- Get into the minds of your target clientele
Do not start imitating Sherlock Holmes, what I mean by this is simply:
(a) Value system
Try to know as in depth as possible about the values that drive your clients because this will effect their buying behaviour. Collect Intel on various activities like:
* Social causes supported by them.
* Their political inclination.
* Do they prefer any religious sect which might have a direct effect on their buying behaviour?
* What are the core values that will get a response from them?
(b) Understand what will drive positive and negative behaviour from your clients
Our subconscious mind has a direct relation to our thought process. As a result, whatever makes them happy or relate to a happy memory is bound to generate good results. Try to capture it by producing ads which remind them to those memories. Similarly try to understand what their fears are and try to reduce them by building some trust addressing the specific fears. Also note down what makes your clients angry.
When clients will return to your product because of its reputation and trust worthiness, you have achieved epitome of digital marketing success.
- Think about future
One of the biggest advantages of building your site presence from scratch is you get to lay the groundwork for future expansion beforehand. Get a roadmap and an action plan to highlight immediate implementation strategy but also spend some hours in brainstorming future expansion. Digital Marketing will help you grow by leaps and bounds provided you know where to go and at what speed to go. I am not saying you start diversifying your client market or products right away but do have a basic idea about how to proceed in future.
- Observe other similar businesses
The advantage of starting late marketing is you get to see all the mistakes of your successors. So please learn from it. Notice the social platforms they visit, check how they post content on their site, what does that content revolve around, do they use professional bloggers, how they handle customer queries. All this will give you a brief idea on how to approach your target clients and it might give you an additional client interest area which you have not explored before. Do not make the rookie mistake of copying their content; it’ll be disastrous for your business. Just observe and implement according to your requirement.
6.Build client identity database and engage accordingly
This activity is quite tedious but the end result is worth the effort. Try to create identities for your clients’ .Create a database and write all basic info like name, age, education, job, interests etc. For example: Priya is a master’s student, loves movies, nature lover and will only spend money if company produces herbal products. Add as much information as possible. This will help you group people with similar interests in one place. Now comes content. Publish content which these people will relate to, try to optimize your content according to information in your database. This will be highly rewarding as you’re optimizing all the different client markets at the same time.
- Create lifelong relationships
Now you got all the ammo and your strategy is ready. Go and build your site, use all the identity groups data and post the content you have specially curated for clients. By now you must have an idea of favourite sites and social platforms of your clients, start with that and once you gain popularity traffic will build on your page. Make sure to be present on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, pinterest as they have a huge following and a mass appeal.
The success in the end will depend upon the initial legwork and dedication with which research data is collected. Once you cross that hurdle efficiently it’s a downhill task.
