How To Grow Your Customer Base

"Build it and they will come". This is totally False! Unless you are a 90s movie star, your name is big  or you have a big-sized budget, this is not the way to get the attention of your target audience.

"oh, but I just built a website and I have listed my services and products for sale" That's super! It surely is! We are not here to ruin moods or stamp out optimism, all we want to do is help you gain more business now that you have the correct domain name and your website is live.

To get the attention of more clients and  drum up more revenue for your business, you have  to get your target audience (clients and customers) interested in what you have to sell. The pertinent question is - how? Let us explore three different approaches  you can use to find and get the attention of your target audience, so  you can convert them to paying customers.

1.Choose the relevant social media channel for your business

The number of users on social media is ever increasing, chances are everyone you know or could possibly know has a  social media account - well, maybe not that guy who went ghost  after college. This doesn't mean you have to join every social media channel out there. In as much as your ideal customers are on social media, they are not on every single channel,  your business doesn't have to be either.

If you just launched an e-commerce site or a marketing blog, why not try using Pinterest?  On Pinterest you can share and create things that are linked to your website like a product  or a post blog post. The more the  pins you've created  are shared, the more your following  will grow. Pinterest basically serves as a visual road map  for the discovery of great ideas, strive to ensure your pins are done well. Not a professional graphics designer? Not to worry, there are  a lot of free tools like Unspalsh or Canva that can help you create amazing looking pins easily.

For lifestyle brands, Instagram is a great social media channel.  Be square and be there -seriously, square images of  1080 x 1080 pixel  is best  on this platform, although there is  an option for horizontal and vertical images. To locate  your audience on Instagram, research the right  hashtags and include them in your post when applicable.

Pro tip: Share your story and  describe the image using  captions but try publishing hashtags as a comment. This will help  increase your posts visibility, through post engagement (comment on a post with hashtags perform better).

2. Build your off-line network

If you haven't  contacted  your local Chamber of Commerce, now's a good time to do so. Your business should not exist as an island - your local Chamber of Commerce can help open up networking opportunities for you to  foster connections with similar but non-competing businesses in your industry. Talk with other Chambers members and find out what has and  what  hasn't worked for their business.

When you talk to other local business owner,  you gain an advantage  that isn't easy to come by social media - word-of-mouth. A Convince and Convert research states that  the average American values word of mouth recommendation from family and friends 41% more than they value  social media recommendations. When you build a relationship with other local businesses, you can tap into their network, thereby getting you business in front of new audiences - which means more business for your brand.

3.Use social media search to the find customers

What's your go-to search engine - Bing? Google? For us,  Twitter is best. If you are looking for an engaging  audience, twitter is the place to go. You can search for your target audience on Twitter using keywords, username or hashtags, location and much more. For example, if you are a  friendly local microbrewery, searching  for customers in your location - you can search on Twitter using advanced search for individuals having conversation about beer in your geographical location via Boolean operators . Individuals who are currently having conversations about your value offering, are more  likely to  talk about your store and site, when they hear about it.

What are Boolean operators? Boolean operators are  symbols and words which  improve your search results. For example, if your search for  beer drinkers locally  is returning a lot of local root beer drinkers, you could try  searching "beer - root" as "Beer Minus Root" to help you get better curated results.

Here's a cheat that often comes in handy:

Spend only the amount of time necessary  on each social media channel to ascertain if your target audience uses it  - do not spend all your time running wild on every social media network. Once you know which social network you target audience is,  start to engage with them via these platforms. Where did people find customers before the advent of  social media? Is it still possible? Yes, it is.

On a final note

Finding your  audience doesn't have to be  done alone,  make use of community health. Set up your business on social media channels, use it to locate your target audience and grow your following by getting in front of new audiences( via partnership with other similar businesses).

What are the tricks or hacks you have  used to find your  customers and audience on social media? We will  love to know and other  readers would too. Please let us know in the comments section.