How did you start marketing your business?

[tranguyen]

It’s May at last 🌞! 

With a new month starting, we’ve been seeing a lot of new faces in the Community and more questions around starting a business, such as a question from @Starwayy around how to get their first customer. 

In the spirit of new beginnings, this week, we’d love to find out:

How did you start marketing your business?

Did you start advertising locally in-person or did you start with social media right away? What is the one thing you wish you knew when you first started marketing your business?

Looking forward to reading all your insights!

[DinaLRosenberg]

AT question.

The first steps for us were:

create social media handles/pages: Facebook & Instagram (TikTok was later- but now so important to our biz)

We created google business page, Bing business page, Yelp business page (this helps with google SEO)

we created a website (first just informational then we added e-commerce)

[maxpete]

Nicely done on getting all of the tools and accounts set up from the beginning. Where would you say that you're focusing most of your time now in marketing your business?

[DinaLRosenberg]

you know my answer is going to be:

Social Media

More specifically Instagram & TikTok

Our focus is there and it works really well for us.. I'd love to teach a retail class on this 🙂

[maxpete]

Hmm maybe a future event here in the community 👀? CC: @isabelle 

[DinaLRosenberg]

Also.. don't underestimate the importance of in-person events, networking at trade events, etc. 

We are always putting ourselves "out there" in our industry..

[JUYBoutique20]

I started out by creating social media pages first.  I then began doing in person events to establish myself as a business with potential customers.  

[maxpete]

What social channels were big for you to start with?

[JUYBoutique20]

Facebook has always been my most active channel.   I'm now doing IG and dabbling with TikTok.  

[LePucciBijou]

Facebook, TikTok and Instagram

[tranguyen]

How was your experience with in-person events @JUYBoutique20? Was it mainly local fairs and markets, or other types of events 👀?

[JUYBoutique20]

My in-person events were and still are very successful.  I love interacting with others so once I get them talking, they are definitely buying from me. Yes, I did lots of family events like local fairs, wine tasting, etc.  Since we opened our anime store, we also do Comic-Cons.  I want to get into doing wedding expos next year for the boutique and some health fairs as well.

[doc_choc]

@tranguyen I started promoting through wedding fayres, it was hard going to start with but then the other suppliers at the fayres got wind of our products and they started promoting to their customers which was great as it required minimal effort for us and allowed us to tap in to a wider customer base. So finding a way to leverage other established businesses to market your products to their customers can be a helpful way to gain traction.

[tranguyen]

That's a great reminder @doc_choc! At the beginning, did you have to attend many fayres? Are you still working with any of the suppliers who you met at these fayres?

[doc_choc]

We still have some great relationships with a few of the suppliers some 10 years later, alot came then vanished with Covid as the wedding scene was somewhat crushed during lockdowns.

[CareyJo]

When I first became self-employed - at the age of 19, social media didn't exist.  It was all door to door or cold calling on the phone.  Back then we had 'territories' to cover that no one else could cover.  It's a good thing that being kidnapped wasn't so rampant back then, because I spent many hours walking the streets alone at the age of 19-20 going door to door to cover my territory.  A few years later, I was in a different business, no territory and spent most of my time selling from home, cold calling was a way to get new customers without leaving my baby daughter.  I rarely got a yes but I'd also spend hours reaching out to every person I knew - on a landline, to tell them about my new venture.  With a lot of dedication and hard work, it paid off.  I was top salesperson out of more than 200 consultants my second year and I promoted to manager the third year.

In 1999, I had five different businesses and models under my belt, so when we moved to a new state and I knew no one, I knew where to start.  Face to face is everything!  We didn't have social media and I knew better by that point than to go door to door, but I made every effort to network.  To reach people, in any way I could, that were within my target audience.

Fast forward to 2006, we opened our first HVAC business.  My husband took the time to go door to door in every mobile home park in our immediate area and we hung flyers on every bulletin board.  I didn't join FB until 2009 and it wasn't being used as a business platform at that time.  We just kept plugging away at the networking.

In 2017 when we opened our current business, I did it all immediately.  Google page.  FB page.  Newspaper blurb about this new business.  Posting, sharing, networking.  Anything and everything to get in front of people, for as little cost as possible.  Everything I did in the beginning was free.  Even the newspaper blurb.  You just have to ask.  Now I only do FB because I cannot show client's homes on IG and there's not really a lot that people want to see in our field.  I refuse to use TikTok and Twitter.  I do most of my FB posting as scheduled content, so I don't have to monitor it daily.  I usually do about a week's worth at a time.

I wish I knew that radio spots were not going to be worth it and shouldn't spend the money.  We invested over 20k in 4 years and got ZERO ROI on it.  Radio only works when you have a very large disposable marketing budget and you're a big enough business to support daily traffic.  You have to be a brick and mortar or be so visible in the service industry that you've got a fleet of vehicles.  It didn't matter how many spots we did, it never helped.  People we knew would tell us that they heard us on the radio but we never got new customers from it and I know that because I ask every new caller how they heard of us.

[maxpete]

What a journey! Appreciate you sharing this, Carey and great advice around radio ads too. 

[tranguyen]

You really have tried everything @CareyJo! Thank you for sharing this ❤️

I love your advice on radio ads as well — I think it's important to try new things but also be able to calculate how that effort is paying off and whether you are getting new customers from it. 

I'm curious, what type of content do you find people tend to engage with the most on Facebook 👀?

[CareyJo]

Personal.  Food, family, recreation.  None of which have anything to do with my business LOL... but in adding fun content to my page, ALWAYS with a photo, I get a lot more hits.  I ask questions and sometimes get answers but in between all of that fun content, I post content that is educational and informative and adds value for our customers.  I just want them to remember us when they pick up the phone.  Engaging with them helps them remember.  🙂

[LePucciBijou]

I have found that remembering and calling people by their first name makes them feel more significant, like they matter to you. When engaging on social media, I use their first name when available. When I save client's numbers to my phone, I put their dog's name, (dog groomer) their first name, then last name and when they call I will answer "Hi, Pam!" they love that you remember them and it creates a personal bond. I truly believe that building relationships of trust is the key to continued loyal business. I would like to add here because I forgot it in my original response, that my Google Business listing has been really the best platform for gaining new clients as well as subscribing/registering to Google Voice Search. Most people search by voice anymore like "dog groomer near me" or "Steak restaurant near me". I strongly recommend registering your business with Google Business Listings, Google Voice Search, and make sure your business is on Google Maps.

[VanKalkerFarms]

We have done basically no marketing.  Back in 1961 when our company started obviously there was no Social media, so it was just word of mouth, we really didn't do any newspaper either.  As years went on there wasn't any reason to even try to advertise as demand was more than we could handle already.  Now it is just Facebook for marketing which is so hit and miss.

Even now I still think word of mouth is 80% of how people find out about our businesses.  10% is people driving by, and the rest is social media.

[tranguyen]

Word-of-mouth is definitely underrated!