In today’s Q&A episode of the podcast, I’m talking all about where to put your focus when it comes to marketing your business, especially as you’re starting out.
It’s a brilliant question from a brilliant woman named Kim and I’m super excited to dive into it.
Let’s get started!
The Q&A question for today’s episode comes from the wonderful Kim Hancher. You can find Kim on Instagram at @kimhancher, and also at kimhancher.com.
Kim’s question is:
“I just launched in June. Small list, small social following, but growing. Weekly content is a blog. Where should I put my marketing focus? Social media, guest blogging or press coverage in a digital publication? If social media, which format? My ideal client is on many of them. I’m a style coach looking for 1:1 clients with a longer-term goal of selling digital courses. Thank you!”
Kim, this is such a juicy question that you have asked because it may actually be that you’re focusing your energy and attention in the wrong space.
It is a very common mistake that people make when they’re starting a business online.
Fun fact: The highest conversion audience that you could possibly ever focus on is your hottest audience – those people who know you, like you, trust you and feel connected to you.
When it comes to getting clients from online spaces, you are more likely to convert and get those clients – especially when you’re first starting out – from spaces where you already have a connection to people, NOT from your cold audiences.
90% of online business owners spend their energy and attention in their marketing on growing their cold audiences, but that activity and focus is less likely to get you clients than simply by focusing on very high connection, high conversion strategies.
Whilst I love that you’ve committed to doing a weekly blog, and that’s a really great foundation of your business, I actually don’t think any of the marketing focuses that you talked about would be the right fit for you.
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Have a very clear and precise niche
You may have that information for your business, Kim, but for everyone else reading along as well, when it comes to choosing what your high connection, high conversion marketing strategy will be, you need to know your niche really, really specifically.
The five specific things about your niche that you need to know in order to be able to make those marketing decisions are:
- What is their agenda?
- What is their job status? Are they working for themselves, working in a job or not working at all? You don’t need to know what job they have or what business they have, you just need to know what their status is.
- What is their important trait? What makes them the kind of person that you want to hang out with? Regardless of whether they’re the right fit for your business or not, would you go to a barbeque with them?
- What is their priority goal that you help them to achieve directly or indirectly through your work?
- What is the reason why they say they can’t have that specific goal?
Niche questions to determine where to focus your marketing in business start-up
If you cannot answer those five questions about your ideal client, or there are slashes, or‘s or commas involved in your answer to that question, then chances are your niche is not narrow enough. This means that you’re going to struggle to make those important marketing decisions, and you will struggle to focus your attention on high connection, high conversion strategies that actually work.
First and foremost, we want to make sure we’ve got real clarity around that niche.
Remember: Your niche is the set of people that you focus on with your marketing activities.
Your niche is not your work, it’s not your modality and it’s not the service that you offer.
Your niche is a group of people – not the group of people that you COULD help, but the group of people that you focus on when you are marketing.
There’s a very big difference.
If you are looking for more help with getting that niche decision really clear, I have a free niche training for you. It’s called Nail Your Niche and I would highly recommend that you check it out at tashcorbin.com/niche.
That’s part one – you need to make sure you’ve made very clear decisions in those five points around your niching first.
2. Select your high connection, high conversion strategy
You need to choose your high connection, high conversion strategy that’s going to work most effectively for your audience.
You want to focus on a marketing strategy that allows you to quickly and easily engage members of your audience in a one-to-one conversation.
Think about the strategies that you’ve talked about.
1. Social media
You can definitely do some high connection, high conversion activities in there (and I’m going to go into more detail in a moment because that’s going to be your best option).
2. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get people interested in you by association, but it’s a very cold audience that you’re generating.
If you do a guest blog on someone else’s website, what are the chances that someone who finds that guest blog will strike up a one-to-one conversation with you? Pretty slim to nil. Guest blogging is a reach growth strategy, it’s a cold audience growth strategy, and it is not suitable if you are in the startup stages of business.
3. Press coverage
Press coverage is even colder.
Take it from me as someone who has been in a bunch of different spaces in the press. The likelihood of me being in the press translating into me getting clients is very, very low. Over the years, of the thousands of people that I’ve worked with, barely any of them have initially discovered me from a random press coverage.
I would definitely be focusing on social media out of those three areas.
When it comes to social media, it’s not just about building a cold audience on that platform, it’s about building high connection, high conversion strategies.
You need to make a decision on one of two platforms: Instagram or Facebook.
I know that there are others, but none of them work for high connection, high conversion strategies the way that Facebook and Instagram do.
You’ll need to answer a few questions to make a decision about whether Facebook or Instagram is the right fit for you.
I would suggest with design and style coaching (anything where it’s a very visual business) you’ll probably find that Instagram is going to be a better fit for you. It’s probably more naturally aligned to your strengths, but there’s definitely a big market for style coaching on Facebook as well.
Depending on whether your ideal client is in a job or working for themselves, that will also dictate which platform I would recommend.
If it’s for people in a job, I’d probably recommend Instagram, whereas if it’s people who work for themselves, I’d probably recommend Facebook.
That’s all dependent on what you’re most comfortable with in terms of social media strategies as well.
Regardless of whether you choose Facebook or Instagram, your goal is NOT to grow your audience, your goal is to have one-to-one conversations in your DM’s.
Make sure that whichever platform you use, you are focusing on high connection, high conversion strategies.
If you decide that Facebook is the channel that you would like to go down the path of exploring, I do also have a free $0 Facebook Marketing Strategy training that you can access at any point at tashcorbin.com/zero.
Hopefully, beautiful Kim, this has answered your question and given you some clarity on where you need to focus your energy and attention moving forward as you grow that amazing style coaching business.
If you would like to continue the conversation, please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you’ve been reading episode number 247 and share your lightbulb moments and questions in the community.
Would you like me to answer one of your questions on the podcast? Simply go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your question in there, and I will answer your question and give you a shoutout on the podcast.
Thank you once again, Kim, for your epic question.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
