There are a huge number of choices to be made when considering how to best reach and communicate with your ideal customer.
None are disconnected from the others, but like anything, all have their ‘sweet spots’.
Each has its place, and the better you know the habits and motivations of your ideal customer the better able you will be to make informed choices about when and how to reach them. You also must choose how much of your limited budget should be allocated to the various options, and what resources are required to optimise the choices.
Referral.
The original and still by far the best way to engage with a customer is to have someone they trust refer you to them.
Referral is the gold standard, leading to the challenge of how you make yourself ‘referrable’.
Website.
These days not having a website is like not having a phone in earlier times. You must have one even if it is just to capture the opportunities that emerge. However, not all websites are created equal. Many I see are next to useless. You can spend a lot of money on a site, and get little or no traction. However, done well, it is your digital ‘Home base’, the place where people find you and see if you might be an option for them, usually before you even know they are in the market.
Content creation & marketing.
This is everything from a comment on a Facebook or LinkedIn post to long form e-books, webinars, and courses. The objective of this material is to drive people back to your website, or directly to you, and to establish your position as an ‘authority’ in your field. Those looking for information, reassurance, or just a bit of help would usually prefer it came from someone with the authority derived from knowledge and experience, rather than cliches and blather. Your website is your digital home, you own it, you make the rules. The ‘rented’ platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn and all the rest, are not yours, you do not own the relationships built there, and the platforms can change the rules any time they like. These changes are made in their interests, not yours.
It is also true that the ease of posting to these rented platforms ,means they are filled with stuff that is fed back to you by algorithms, rather than by your choice. They record every click, measure the time spent on every page, and capture what you do with it, so they can sell it to people who want to reach you. It is a two-edged sword. It is too easy to load up rubbish: a dog crap on the footpath is just a pile of dog crap, but somehow, once someone photographs it and uploads it, that pile of crap becomes ‘Content’.
Analogue.
Never forget the power of analogue tools. TV is still a hugely potent means to reach customers, despite the claims that TV is dead, it is not. Neither is radio, magazines, books, catalogues, and all the rest of the analogue communication channels. Too often analogue communication is dismissed as no longer useful, usually by those who have never used them to know. How often would you not open a personally addressed ‘snail mail’? Never I suspect, which compares well to a personally addressed e-mail coming from a source you do not recognise. The e-mail open rate hovers around low single figures, testament to the power of analogue, when used well.
Social Media.
Social can be enormously powerful, which is another double-edged sword. It is often the ‘glue’ that holds the other pieces of the puzzle together. The downside of course is that it can chew up resources faster than a plague of locusts will consume a field of wheat, and have about the same impact on the unwary.
Imagine you sell engineering services to renewable energy suppliers. You are unlikely to be able to communicate what you offer to the buyers you need to speak to on Tik Tok.
However, that same person may watch Tik Tok over the shoulder of their 16 year old kids, but when they do, they will not be looking for engineering information.
It is called ‘Social Media’ for a reason.
None of these work independently, all have their own ‘sweet spot’ all cross fertilise and compound, but are next to useless in the absence of a specific target. Your media choices must come after the work to build a strategy, the assessment of your current situation, and the plan that defines your message, and who you need to reach and engage in order for you to be commercially successful.
