You’ve probably heard it said that, when it comes to digital marketing, content is key, and of course great, original content should be at the heart of your online marketing efforts. BUT what good is a brilliant, perfectly written piece of content if it doesn’t get seen, or if it only gets seen by the wrong people? If you want to grow your business and sell your services online, you have to get in front of the right people: your CROWD. You have to find these people and build relationships with them…it’s all about CONNECTING.

Here are my top 7 tips for connecting with your crowd online…

1. Know who your customer is

Do you know who your target customer is? If not, or if you only have a vague idea of who you’re trying to reach, now is the time to GET to know them! Before you do anything else, grab a pen and paper and brainstorm who your ideal client really is: how old are they, how do they earn money, where do they live, do they have children, where do they shop, what do they dream of, what do they love, what do they hate? You get the idea. Picture them as the real, living, breathing people they are; this will help you to communicate with them in a way that’s natural, direct and, most importantly, convincingly

2. Know where they are

Next up, find out where these guys are hanging out, otherwise you’ll have no chance of speaking to them, right? Do your research: are they all flocking to Facebook, or is Twitter their thing? Maybe you’ll find them popping up for recipes on Pinterest or looking for business opportunities on LinkedIn. Wherever they are, FIND THEM.

3. Use Social Media

Once you know where they are, you can be there too. Don’t panic and assume that you need to be everywhere your customers are; trying to keep up with too many platforms will dilute your message and may well drive you to distraction. Focus on the ones which are best for YOUR business and work hard to really get those right. By all means dip in and out of the others, but don’t spread yourself too thinly. And be patient: focus on what you can do over the long run: your aim is to build relationships with people, and that doesn’t happen overnight!

4. Make the most of your website

Your website is simply brimming with opportunities for you to connect with your crowd, so make the most of it. Make sure it’s optimized – include your location, use the right keywords, add well-written and useful content, link to your social media profiles and use responsive (mobile) design. Use your site to show your customers who you ARE. If there’s any outdated information on there, broken links or sloppy content, fix it now. Clean it out and freshen it up, it’s too important to neglect!

5. Practice good SEO

SEO makes it easier for clients to find your website online through organic searches and other natural ways and is the key to inbound marketing for small businesses. Your site will be ranked on many factors, but the most important ones are:

• Content: Get blogging! Every time you post, it registers as a new page that’s ranked by search engines. Make sure your content is regularly updated, original, engaging and well-written.
• Links: Google also scans the links on your website, inbound, outbound and internal – take advantage of them all.
• Structure: Google analyses how your website is built and organised. Reducing your page load time is one way to improve the structure of your site.

6. Email Marketing is essential

This is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with your customers. I’ve explained why every business needs and email list in a previous blog, but the main point here is that, unlike social media, email marketing gives you total control over who sees your messages. Plus you get to target specific people on your email list based on a variety of factors such as when they signed up, their interests and if they’re already customers. Trust me, you NEED an email list!

7. Monitor with Analytics

Your online marketing efforts should be constantly evolving as your audience grows and you branch out. Using business analytics to track the progress of your marketing campaign will help you to fine-tune your activities and improve your performance. It’s only by looking at the results that you’ll find out what’s working and what’s not, so make sure you monitor all of the above! There’s no magic spell to charm your crowd: it’s a question of putting the work in to find out who they are, where they are and then putting yourself in front of them in a way that’s engaging, useful and honest. Help yourself by making sure your content is of a high quality, that your website is optimized, that you’re blogging regularly and that you’re monitoring your efforts and tweaking as necessary. No, it’s not magic, but connecting with your crowd online can bring some pretty bewitching results!