How you can start connecting and serving your clients better outside of social media.

Have you ever worked on a project so intently, so mindfully, pouring endless hours of yourself into it all while learning how to use the platform you are working on to create the project? How about working on a project where the platform you are using is continuously changing? Changing without you even knowing? How about the platform having its own algorithm that seems to operate seemingly on its own? It feels a lot like being in a fun house at a carnival except it’s not fun. 

That’s what growing on social media feels like as a new business owner. And it’s mind numbingly unfair to new accounts. Growth is hard. Reach is stagnant. And you really have no idea if you are genuinely connecting with your people or not. Let’s face it, you don’t know if they are real people at all. 

When I first launched my coaching business I was panicked at the idea of not having any other source to reach, engage and secure clients other than through social media. And even though I did secure a good number of clients that way, I knew enough from my days of marketing that it was not the best way to secure long term interactions and meaningful relationship building with clients that wanted to engage with me for the life of my business. So what works?

Not newsletters. 

Ok, so then what? Just hear me out. 

Build a website immediately. By immediately, I mean before you even build your social media account or at least make it equally as important. Have someplace to lead them, to get them to a site you own. Even if it isn’t the best. Because what you will do with it is build your email list by opting people in to what they are interested in hearing about from you. 

So, let’s say you are a small home decor store. And your intentions are to grow. Perhaps have multiple stores, an online sales platform and you want a steady stream of both in person clients and a way to sell to people online. Ok, well then, you better be establishing your audience now. 

So, how do you get them to opt in to emails? Give them something they want! And I’m not talking about discounts or sales. I am talking about information! Education and entertainment.

Let’s stick with the home decor store idea. Maybe you create 3 outlines, guides, checklists for clients that are filled with information on particular topics. Like “How to decorate an odd space in your home”. What about one that is unique to your store? Maybe you sell a lot of vintage items,  “How to find and build relationships with vintage vendors for your diy projects”. Maybe you put together a holiday checklist of “All the must haves for entertaining”. (These are just ideas, I don’t have a home decor store.But hopefully you are getting the idea.)

Once your website is designed you can add these 3, what we call lead generators, to your site and it will start to help you not only collect emails from your clients but as you are collecting them you can segment, categorize them into topics they specifically identified as being interested in. So, that’s how you don’t spam them to death and force them to opt out. 

I know your next argument will be, but I don’t want to send emails and have a website. And my answer to that will be, well then how do you expect to grow? 

Social media is borrowed space. What will you do if you’re shadowbanned for some odd reason? Or what if the site is just not working for weeks or worse a month, worse yet, two months. 

Building your presence on social media is obviously very important. But using it as your only marketing strategy, just isn’t practical in most businesses. Using your analytics on social media helps you to identify what people like most in your particular business and will help you to build on that and allow you to be more creative and also have more fun. 

I can show you the how to’s and what to do’s and it’s really not as hard as you think. And once you get started it will run practically on its own. 

I house my emails on Flodesk. You can add your branding to it, design style and the best part is they have segmenting options and so many premade templates. It’s surprisingly easy to use, even for the novice 50  year old, who has only just begun. 

What are you waiting for? Let’s go!