Think Big, Start Small!
Getting more people to know about your business is key to growth, after all, they have to know about you to buy from you. Growing your audience and network can seem like a daunting task but it doesn’t need to be if you start small.
Here are 5 great ways to let more people know about your business. You could implement one of these a day and all of them in a week. If you see success from these small steps, you can scale them to see increased results.
1. Google My Business
Northern Ireland is a small local market, appearing in those local searches is therefore really important. Keeping your Google My Business account accurate with opening times, locations, contact information will help people interact with your business. Even something as simple as photos of your office so people know what to expect before emailing you – it can all ease someone into contacting you.
Taking ownership of your Google My Business is a great way to start leading the conversation, improving your search ranking, and enhancing your presence on Google Maps.
We’ve created a useful document to help you get the most out of Google My Business – you can find it here.
2. Google Reviews
If you’ve got happy customers, make the most of them and ask them to leave a review of your product or service.
One or two recent and relevant reviews could make the difference to someone who is on your Google My Business page, comparing you to someone else. Recent Google reviews will also help your search rankings, you will appear higher in the results and more people will see you.
Take 15 recent customers, send them an email with a polite request for a review on Google. You should give them instructions and a link to where they can fill out the review. Make it as easy as possible for them to leave the review as you can. If you save the email you can manually send it each time you have a customer you want to leave a review but if that gets too much, email automation can be set up to take care of this. In a local market, local reviews matter to your potential customers and to Google.
3. Lead Prospecting
LinkedIn is a huge resource with over 340k members in Northern Ireland alone. That’s a few more than your local networking group! LinkedIn allows you to search for companies and people based on specific factors like job titles, responsibilities, company size or location. When you find the right person, send them a connection and introduce yourself.
Don’t worry about trying to sell on LinkedIn, it’s not generally seen as a place to sell. We’re just trying to grow our network with these connections.
If you happen to connect at a point when someone is looking for your services it’s an added bonus.
4. Facebook Advertising
Whilst anyone can Boost a post, it’s not going to allow you to reach outside of your existing fanbase and grow. Instead, set up a Facebook Business Manager account, once you’ve done that you can start targeting new people based on who your ideal customers are.
You don’t need anyone’s help to start this and if you use free tools like Canva to create your adverts then it’s just your time and your spend on advertising. We’ve created a walk-through guide that gives you the full rundown on Facebook Advertising and why it might be a great fit for your business.
5. Referral Scheme
Are there other businesses that offer complementary services? Solicitors, Estate Agents, Surveyors, Mortgage Advisors etc are all connected by one buyer. If you were to recommend a provider of one of those complementary services would they return the favour? Quite possibly. Pick up the phone, chat with those providers, and see if they’d be willing to start a very informal relationship.
It’s not about paying for referrals, it’s about building relationships and being the person that people want to recommend because you’re not only good at what you do, but also because you and your team are just good people.
