Now more than ever, there are simple (yet powerful) tools and platforms available to help you expand your audience and reach new customers.
From the many social media platforms to more traditional communications like email, the strategies are endless. But with all these options, it can be hard to know where to start and how to craft the right advertising campaign for your business.
Here are some of our best tips to help you fast-track your audience growth and expand your customer base.
Why Audience Growth Is Essential
Many people think that growing an audience means simply getting new paying customers. Expanding your customer base is only one part of the equation.
Growing an audience is the first step to building a profitable business.
It focuses on improving your engagement with current and potential customers.
By staying in front of your audience with organic and paid content, you’ll continue to stay top-of-mind, keep them informed of what you have to offer, help them solve a specific problem, and create a positive relationship when they’re ready to work with you in the future.
Strengthening the connection to your audience is linked to another important part of audience growth: retention.
Given the proven links between customer retention and profits, there is nothing more valuable than a repeat client who feels a sense of loyalty to your business.
It’s not enough to simply bring new customers into your sphere and ensure they have a positive experience with your product or service. You also need to make them feel valued enough to come back…again and again.
How To Fast-Track Your Audience Growth
There are many ways to grow your audience. Here are our best tips for helping you boost your engagement.
1. Set Manageable Goals
When developing a marketing strategy, think about the specific goals that would indicate progress.
- Are you looking for a certain amount of traffic?
- Do you have a live workshop that you want people to sign up for?
- Are you looking for a certain amount of profitability?
Spend time brainstorming what progress looks like for your business and build your ad campaign accordingly.
While it’s important to aim high, make sure the goals you establish are manageable, especially at the beginning of a new advertising strategy.
Once you hit your first set of goals, you can repeat the process, measure your audience growth, and adjust your campaign accordingly.
2. Make Your Campaign Specific to the Platform
It’s essential to make sure your approach to advertising is adapted to the specific platform you’re using.
You can use multiple platforms to reach your audience. But kind in mind that each platform is specific and can require different kinds of ads.
For instance, the visual component of your campaign is more significant for Instagram than it might be for Twitter. And video content that feels organic is most important on Tiktok.
Be intentional when creating content, visuals, and messages so they will perform best on each platform. But creating similar content that ideally can be shared on multiple platforms will save you time and energy.
3. Lean In to Visuals
Visuals are consistently ranked as one of the most effective ways to drive engagement on social media platforms and other forms of communication.
Graphics convey important information in a quick and engaging manner, holding up well against fast scrolling on social media pages.
They’re also easily repurposed for diverse platforms, giving you great bang for your buck and helping you spread your content widely.
4. Put Your Customers First
Remember that your audience growth is ultimately about your customers, so your ad campaigns and marketing strategy should reflect that.
Think about crafting your communications, be they ads or other social media posts, according to your audience’s interests and needs. Is there a specific issue that your business can alleviate for your customer? How will you change their lives?
Keeping your audience in mind isn’t just a good strategy — it’s why you got into business in the first place!
5. Use Lower-Cost Ad Objectives
When most businesses start running ads, they tend to focus only on selling. When they do, they quickly lose the interest of potential customers who aren’t yet ready to buy (and end up spending way more than they need to on ads).
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to easily (and inexpensively) use ads to add value to your audience, grow your authority, and build the know, like, and trust factor. That way your audience is primed to want to work with you when they ARE ready to buy…even if it’s sometime in the future.
Be sure to run a variety of ads with the objective of Engagement (encouraging people to like, comment, or share your ad), Video Views (which puts your video content in front of those most likely to watch your video), and Traffic (send people to a popular blog or the show notes on your website to a helpful podcast you produced).
Using these inexpensive ad objectives will help you effectively reach more people and bring them into your ecosystem.
6. Build an Email List
Keeping in mind that you want to reach potential customers in as many ways as possible, don’t neglect the importance of email.
While social media networks might be center stage in the realm of advertising, you need to use that stage to build a robust email list. As mentioned, growing an audience is the first step in building a profitable business. The second one is turning those audiences into leads.
Email allows you to connect directly with your audience and works in tandem with a social media campaign to increase engagement with followers.
Paired with social media ads, email allows you to bring new customers in the door and have a direct line to them for follow-up.
7. Hire a Professional
Hiring an expert is one of the best ways to turbocharge your audience growth.
Advertising specialists can help you reach a wider audience and significantly increase your impact. An excellent one will meet with you to listen to your needs and craft a unique strategy that aligns with your vision for your business.
Aside from their extensive expertise, they will also free you to run your business so you can focus on doing what you do best.
With so many ad managers available, it might seem intimidating to search for the right one. Look for an ad manager or boutique agency that works with businesses like yours and aligns with your values.
Some agencies offer a free consultation, which is a great way to see if one’s a good match. Professional help might just be the difference you’re looking for, especially if you want to revamp your marketing strategy.
Boost Your Audience Growth
With these tips in mind, you can take the next steps to drive your audience growth. Learn more about how Delightful Ads can help you design the right strategy for your unique business.