In today’s episode, I’m answering the question: How do I reach my ideal clients online?
It may seem like a straightforward question, but the answer is quite layered and complex.
We are going to unpack this in today’s episode so that you have clarity on how you can best reach your ideal clients online.
Sound good? Let’s dive in!
There are so many options for how you can reach your ideal clients online. Because of that, there are also eleventy-billion opinions about what will work best for you.
There are people who say you MUST:
- Be on Tik Tok
- Do Instagram reels
- Be on Facebook
- Be in groups
- Have your own group
- Build a mailing list
- Use paid advertising
- Do guest-posting
There are so many people out there that tell you they have the ONE thing you must be doing in order to reach your ideal clients online.
But here’s the thing: generally, any of these strategies will work… But if you half do everything, you will nail and get results from nothing.
The number one thing you need to do when it comes to reaching your ideal clients online… is focus.
You need to focus on:
FOCUS acronym to reach my ideal clients in business start-up
- A specific niche
- Your primary channel
- Consistently being in front of your audience over and over again
- Getting your messaging down to something that’s of value to your audience
There is so much out there that’s trying to drag you away from being focused. There’s so much contradictory advice telling you that the problem could be this or that or this.
All of these things are designed to get you into a frenzy of thinking that what you need is another strategy, when in reality, most online business owners are already doing more than enough to reach their ideal clients. The problem is that they’re not putting enough focus, energy and attention on ONE of their strategies.
That’s the big challenge.
The big challenge is not being in all places at all times, speaking to all people. The challenge is making the commitment to focus down on your niche, channel, strategy, messaging, and consistency.
I have four things that I want to talk to you about today to help you get that focus, and reach more of your ideal clients online.
1. Channels
I understand that there are a lot of different spaces where you could be showing up online right now. I also understand that different algorithms are favoured differently throughout time.
Whilst your Facebook page reach may have gone down for a little while, and you were getting easier reach by doing reels on Instagram, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should stop your Facebook strategy and move over to Instagram.
We have seen the comings and goings of multiple platforms over the years.
But there are certain platforms that have the most users, consistency and the easiest structures, that have stood the test of time. They will continue to stand the test of time, regardless of the fear-based strategies and the fear-mongering that’s going on out there in the online business world.
Whilst I understand that there are some shiny objects that you might want to be playing with in terms of channels (ie. TikTok, Clubhouse, etc.), there’s always going to be someone that’s trying to drag users away from Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
Those three channels have been the foundational channels for quite a while. Not only that, they’ve been established for so long that there’s a lot of opportunity with those channels for you to be able to tap into existing networks, existing understanding of those audiences, and existing behavioural patterns that people have.
Generally, I recommend you choose one of those three as your core channel:
1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. LinkedIn
In most cases, it’s going to be Facebook or Instagram if you are working in a person-to-person model and your ideal client is not actively seeking new employment. (If your ideal client IS seeking new employment, LinkedIn may be a better space for you, depending on the service that you offer and the type of person that you are trying to reach.)
Ultimately, if you haven’t got a nailed strategy for your Facebook page, or you haven’t got a nailed strategy for your Instagram profile, then chances are you need to work on that as your foundational step first.
I understand that you can get really good reach on TikTok and other platforms at the moment, but those platforms aren’t necessarily proven as being scalable, repeatable, income-generating platforms for service-based businesses.
If you are in the business of selling services or online courses, then chances are you are going to be better off focusing your energy and attention (even if it’s just for the next six months) on one of the big three: Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
2. Reach ecosystem
There are three ways to grow an audience on social media.
1. Build the audience organically
2. Borrow the audience from someone else
3. Buy the audience with advertising
Those are the three ways you can reach your ideal clients online.
Yes, in terms of building an organic audience, there are things you can do under that in terms of tactics and actions. But at its core, there are three major strategies: Build, borrow, and buy.
If you’re in startup and have a low budget, I recommend you start by building and borrowing.
When you have more consistent income coming in and you have the budget to be able to market, you add buy to the mix.
Most people think that they can get away from having to do organic audience-building by buying their audience (ie. investing in ads). But the more you get all three of those things working together in a cohesive strategy, the cheaper the buy part becomes, the more effective the borrow part becomes, and the more that your organic reach is continually nurtured and you can rely on organic reach as a core part of your marketing strategy.
Have a think about where you’re at in your business journey right now… Are you effectively building your organic audience, borrowing other people’s audiences, and/or buying your audience through paid advertising?
In order to build your organic audience online, you need to:
- Understand what works in terms of reach and engagement
- Be consistent with what it is that you’re sharing on social media
- Organically get your content in front of as many of your ideal clients as possible
If you just focus on organic building and you don’t borrow or buy, that is going to be the very-slowly-building-up-snowball approach to growing your audience.
It is a legitimate strategy for building your audience, however, even with zero marketing budget, you can use borrow strategies to fast track that process.
One of the things I did when I first started my business, was I started an interview series where I was platforming other people in my industry who also served my ideal clients but with slightly different services.
I would invite them onto my video series and share the interview on my YouTube channel, social media channels, and with my mailing list.
Often the interviewee would also share the interview with their audiences. This meant their audience became connected into my audience, and it grew my organic reach.
Additionally, I was in Facebook communities that had been built by other people where I was allowed to promote my products and services, give advice, and share my content.
Through that, I was able to borrow their group audience to grow my own audience.
I now create that opportunity for other people with the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group.
Not only that, when people actively participate in my live free events (for example, 5-day challenges, CEO week, webinars that I run), I also allow people to borrow my audience at that point in time by creating opportunities for people to get in front of my audience.
I’m providing those opportunities for others as part of this reciprocal relationship because I was able to borrow so many people’s audiences myself… Not by waiting to be selected and chosen to be on other people’s podcasts, but by creating an interview series of my own, and platforming other people who had audiences that I might be able to borrow some of their members from.
Think about your strategies.
It’s not just organic stuff or pay-to-play.
There are so many ways that you can create a snowball of growth by bridging the gap between build, borrow, and then looking to buy your audience.
3. Engagement always equals reach
That is the hard and fast rule of social media.
The more engagement you have on social media, the more of your audience you will be able to reach.
You should be paying very close attention to what gets great engagement with your audience, what other people are doing to build engagement with their audience, and experimenting and playing with strategies so you can refine your strategy down to some key things that you know will work for you.
Remember: The number one driver of reach is engagement.
If you are not actively looking for a good strategy to grow your engagement on social media, chances are you’re not reaching the potential audience that you could be reaching if you were to take on that focus.
4. Consistency beats flash and crash. Every. Single. Time.
There are so many people who have abandoned their Facebook pages because, at some point in time, they decided Facebook organic reach was dead and was never going to come back.
They abandon their Facebook page and they stop posting on it consistently.
Now that Facebook is preferencing organic reach for Facebook Pages again (if you haven’t seen the algorithm update, it is amazing – reach is going sky high for business pages at the moment), those pages that abandoned their audience for an extended period of time, are not seeing the same benefits as those of us who continue to stay consistent with showing up and engaging with our audiences.
No matter which strategy you use, no matter what your reach ecosystem might look like, your number one driver is to ensure that you are able to maintain your consistency with that audience.
There are so many people that almost get to that tipping point with this strategy, and then they give it up… And then they sort of get there again, and then they give it up.
If they had just stuck with their first strategy and nailed that consistently month after month, they would be much further ahead in relation to their audience size and the reach that they were able to achieve on social media.
Simply by sticking with the strategy.
Instead of saying, is this the right strategy? Or isn’t this the right strategy? Just ask the question: How do I make this strategy work? And how do I ensure I’m consistent with it?
It doesn’t matter what the strategy is. At the end of the day, if you are consistently looking for how to make it work more effectively, and you’re consistently implementing, you will see audience and reach growth.
Your fear of missing out on reach from that new shiny platform or that new shiny strategy is actually stopping you from achieving that exact same result with the strategies you already have in front of you.
Hopefully, this has been really helpful for you in getting you focused, and sticking with your strategy to reach your ideal clients online.
One of the big #ButTash’s that I get when I talk about social media reach, consistent organic growth and sticking with the big three social media channels, is people say that they don’t own that audience. What if Facebook/Instagram disappears? What if all of a sudden I lose access to my audience on social media?
Lucky for you, I’m looking after the long-term sustainability of your audience, and your long-term reach as well.
I have a new free training for you called Grow Your Audience.
In this training, I help you to understand which audiences are the most important, how to build audiences that are an asset to your business that no one can take away from you, and growing your mailing list.
You can gain access to this free training here: CLICK ME
Thank you so much for reading this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
