Are you a business owner who is struggling to find people to talk to about your online business?

Are you having a lot of awkward conversations with your friends and family when it comes to explaining what your business does and how it helps people?

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Are you struggling when it comes to building an audience for your business?

This is a common issue for people who are beginning their online business journey or even business owners who have been active for a while.

Making the Transformation Is Important

Making the transition from a friend, family member and coworker to business owner with something to sell is a challenge faced by lots of people who want to earn online.

Lets talk about making an important transformation when starting an online business. There's a right way to start, for example with authority, versus thinking that you can sell to everyone without taking specific steps to build a solid foundation. We'll talk about this issue more in the third installment of this series.

Transforming is one of the hardest things for new business owners to do. Some business owners never make the transformation. Yet without making the right transformation, you can't have a thriving online presence.

One of the biggest mistakes new business owners can make is to think that once they get their products and services online, they will automatically be found, generate sales and enjoy the benefits of earning a consistent stream of income. Even when you have products on platforms that claim to send you traffic, you still have to promote, to build targeted traffic... people who are truly interested in your business. 

However, getting your products online is just the beginning. Yes, you have a presence online, but the next steps, like promotion to follow up and you can't leave things like exposure, follow up and closing the sale, up to chance. Yet this is what lots of online entrepreneurs do.

Otherwise, your business stands a huge chance of being lost in the shuffle in the growing sea of online competitors.

As a business owner, you need a strategy that helps your business accomplish and automate or incorporate systems that handle (1) audience attraction, (2) lead generation and (3) client transformation.

Video Tutorial

Part One of a Series

This article is part one of a series that will walk you through building a thriving online business. 

For example, the words you choose in your messaging (throughout your entire audience building process) will either attract your ideal customers to your business or drive them away. 

And a lot of people are terrified of driving people away from their business, but if you follow us you'll learn that this is a necessary part of the business building process.

So as a business owner it's important to think of what you want to accomplish with your marketing. Next, create messaging that helps draw your ideal customers to your business.  To get better at creating on point messaging, it's important to understand your ideal customers. 

Taking the next step, selecting a niche will help you narrow down your niche and understand your audience much better. 

Listen on the Go

Here's our most recent podcast episode that covers the items in this article. If you don't have time to read, you can listen while you do other things. Listen to the Creative Impulse here on Spotify or where you get your podcasts. 

Selecting a Niche Market

A niche is a segment of a larger market, part of an industry. Industries track data that can be used to understand a niche and help business owners grow.

And by narrowing your messaging to appeal to a particular niche you can actually reach people who are a good fit for your business. 

Generate Interest in Your Products and Services

Many people are confused about how to generate interest in your products and services. Once you know who your ideal customers are, you will have a better idea of how to generate interest. 

Here are a few ideas:

Working with Your Ideal Customers

Contrary to popular belief, everyone is not your customer. So there are only certain people who want or need what you have to offer. Think of the following people in your marketing: 

• People who have done business with your before

• People who have bought items that are the same or similar to yours

• People who have a need for your products (whether they know it or not)
  

Start with a Free Resource

Forget the paid, complicated methods business owners use to build an audience. Using free social media accounts in a well organized, strategic way (the right way) can bring in lots of traffic and introduce potential buyers to, and help you grow your business. 

Paid methods are a great way to build an audience if you know how to use them to build on what's already working. If used the wrong way, paid ads can result in a lot of wasted time and money.  

I recommend using free social media first, creating a posting strategy, measuring your results and then making the jump to paid ads once you have something to build on.  

Using the data you receive from your free strategy will give you lots of great information you can use to get the best results from a paid strategy.

Get a Head Start with Social Media Templates

Make the job of reaching potential customers much easier, than starting from scratch. These done for you templates have everything you need to build an audience of engaged, loyal followers. 

Perform a Social Media Audit

Before you start with your free audience attraction strategy you should perform a social media audit. That means reviewing the feeds for all your business accounts.

You might even want to have your team members, family members or close friends to take a look at your social media accounts and give you feedback.

If you're using a tool like Google Analytics, you can run reports that will give you data on how your social media is performing in sending traffic to your business.

If you haven't set up business accounts yet, that would be the first step. All the popular social media platforms will allow you to set up a business account for free.

So think of the platforms where your ideal customers hang out and set up your business accounts.

If you're just starting your business account, you won't have any data to analyze, but you can think about the following questions when you start posting.

Here Are a Few Questions to Get You Started with Your Audit

Keep in mind that most social media platforms will allow you to have a business account. 

A business account gives you things like access to data. Data that can be used to make informed decisions.

Business accounts help you outline your profile and they give you a place for your actual feed where each post is listed. Keep in mind that your feed is more than a string of posts, it's an opportunity to build your brand and tell your story.

Here are a few questions you should ask while conducting your audit.:

• How does your social media feed look? Are your posts leading people to valuable content or are you constantly selling (spamming) without adding value?
  

• How does your profile look and where does it send people? Do you have a compelling image, text and message on your social media profiles? Are these profiles sending potential customers to a place where they can become a lead, learn something new or obtain a freebie to get started engaging with your company?
  

• What can you do to improve your social media activity? Are you offering your followers a buying journey (sales funnel) that they can benefit from? If so, write out the primary steps and benefits your social feed gives potential customers when they get started, including any freebies. 

• Is the information in your feed valuable to your ideal customers? If so, write 3 or more sentences about why your social feed is valuable. Have a friend or family member to evaluate what you write. 

• Does your messaging attract the right people to your business? Are you attracting people who never take action, tire kickers, nay sayers and people who are total mismatch for your business? If so that's an indication that your messaging is off. 

• Is your social media activity consistent? Are you posting each day, week or will potential customers have to hold their breath until you make another post. If that's the case, you may lose people who might be a great fit for your business. 

• Where does your data say that most of your traffic is coming from? The platforms that send you the most traffic, should be a priority. And if you're not using Google Analytics or the data you can obtain from your social platforms, you may be missing valuable information that can help you make informed decisions.  
  

If you're totally lost and you need a solid social media strategy to build your online business, click the button below to learn more about our course 30 Days of Social Media Posting for Business.