Now more than ever, all businesses must be digital and have an online presence. While most have a website, the ability to develop an audience that will be captivated and revisit your site is the real challenge. For those companies strategic enough to develop and attract their target audience with content (often referred to as SEO) the next challenge is conversion. Bringing that audience to you in person and meeting face to face enhances your target audience’s journey. You may have heard of this process as “lead generation” and there is no better conversion on a lead generator than JOB ADs! In this article, we will discuss how to build and nurture an online audience.

STEP 1 - Know thy audience

• Build a persona of what your ideal audience looks like.

STEP 2 - Identify where your audience hangs out online.

• Social Media Sites

• Blogs

• Slack channels

• Meetups

STEP 3 - Develop content targeted at that audience.

• Blog

• Webinars

• Podcasts

• Infographics

• Contests, Giveaways, Raffles

• Newsletters

STEP 4 - Host or Sponsor Virtual / Online Events

• Virtual Online Meetups

• Webinars

• Podcasts

STEP 5 - Host or Sponsor in-person events and bring the audience to you! (after Covid, of course)

• Onsite Mixers, BBQs, Panels, Meet & Greets, Dinners, etc.

• In-person conferences

STEP 6 - Only send your key stakeholders to participate in Step 4 & 5! Hourly workers will not engage!

• Hiring Managers

• Investors

• Business Owners

STEP 7 - Track Your Online Presence

• Facebook Pixels

• Google Analytics Console

STEP 8 - Invest in a marketing solution that offers the following features

• Segments your audience

• Tracks the source where you acquired lead

• Tracks visits to your website

• Creates landing pages or forms you can embed on your website or elsewhere

• Automates communication

STEP 9 - Hire or contract amazing people!

• Storyteller to write articles (Remember, SEO is content)

• Researcher to track industry trends

• Social Media (with graphic design) to post pictures, quotes, video, etc.

• Programmatic Ad Manager to boost content across channels (if needed)

• Video editor/producer or “Preditor” as they are known in the industry

STEP 10 - Develop a weekly content schedule.

• Stay consistent with your content and cadence.

• Review all the content to sure it’s “on brand” and send the right message

STEP 11 - Hire an Amazing Lead Generation Scientist / Engineer!

There are many tools out there for lead generation. You have to know what to do with those leads so you are not spamming your audience. Hire someone or do the following:

• Set up a CRM - Hubspot, Infusionsoft… even Mailchimp for a budget friendly solution

• Integrate lead gen tools into that CRM - Apollo, Swordfish, Seekout, Hiretual, etc.

• Map the communication channels

• Automated communications, emails, etc. to those channels

• Automate alerts to sales or appropriate staff for engagements and/or followups

STEP 12 - Boost Your VIDEO!

• Videos get more views!

• Try to keep daily video posts to under 90 seconds.

It’s all about being consistent with the above. I started out with email folders and excel spreadsheets and now our tech stack consists of the following “small business stack”:

Mailchimp, Convertkit, SquareSpace, Wordpress, Seekout, Zoom, Facebook Business, Hootsuite, Anchor, Camtasia, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Canva, Lumen5, Slack, Zapier, Eventbrite, G-Suite, Outlook… think that is everything.

Have a tool you love? Tell us about it!