Are you trying to figure out how to get your business noticed and grow your audience?
We can help.
If you've got a great product or service, but your customer base isn't growing as fast as you'd like…
And you’re tired of spending sleepless nights trying to crack the code to more conversions…
This is for you.
Many small business owners struggle with the challenge of getting noticed in a crowded marketplace.
Keep reading to learn 10 actionable marketing tips on how to get your small business noticed and build an engaged audience.
The Building Blocks of Audience Growth
As you focus on getting your business in front of new eyes, you need to make sure there’s a plan behind your methods.
Implementing strategies with no focus will lead to wasted time and a lot of frustration.
Part of planning a growth-focused online marketing strategy includes:
Reviewing your buyer personas and ensuring they truly reflect your potential customers’ challenges, pain points, activities, and buying preferences.
Setting realistic, measurable goals for your marketing strategy, so you know what you’re working towards.
Making room for experimenting with new tools or promotion techniques and taking note of the results they generate.
Monitoring the analytics for every part of your strategy – blog posts, emails, direct mail (don’t knock it), etc. – so you can identify what’s working and what needs to be improved.
Remember, audience building — like entrepreneurship — is all about the long game.
Achieving consistent growth for your startup or small business will take time – but you need to get started, first.
10 Ways to Get Your Business Noticed and Build an Engaged Audience
If you're struggling to find the best ways to get your business noticed, this list of ten, actionable tips can help:
1. Build a Professional Website to Impress Your Visitors & Build Trust
Think of your website as your digital storefront. It sets the tone for the rest of your potential customers’ experience with your brand.
Your business website should also be the main place you direct traffic from social media and other platforms to, since this is where people can learn more about you and purchase your products.
To create a great first impression with your website, you need to use the right tools.
If you’re a new business owner who’s struggling to find the best plugins to start their business site, we recommend using Thrive Suite.
Thrive Suite is the best WordPress plugin bundle to build an impressive website that generates leads and conversions.
When you purchase this bundle, you get access to all the tools you need to create an engaging online platform for your business:
- Build a clean website design with our intuitive theme builder
- Create attention-grabbing landing pages and SEO-friendly blog posts
- Grow your email list with our library of 400+ opt-in forms
- Design engaging quizzes to generate leads & segment your audience
- Build an impressive membership site, online course platform – or both
- … and so much more.
Build your online presence the right way and give Thrive Suite a try.
2. Leverage Social Media Marketing
Social media is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels for business owners.
It’s a great way to establish your brand and connect with your target audience.
But don’t overstretch yourself by trying to be on every platform. Start with one or two platforms – the ones you choose will depend on your audience.
For example, if your target audience is under the age of 20, you don’t want to throw all your effort into publishing content on LinkedIn.
Focus on starting small and achieving consistency – one post a day on a dedicated Facebook page is better than struggling to post several times a day on multiple platforms.
If you’re building on a budget, don’t dive into influencer marketing or paid advertising (e.g. Facebook ads or Google ads) yet. Spend time building an audience organically and forming your brand’s voice, first.
3. Run a Giveaway
Giveaways are a great way to grow your email list, increase social media followers, and drive more prospective customers to your website – which can lead to more conversions.
Most giveaways are hosted on social media, but did you know that you can run one right from your WordPress website?
RafflePress, the best giveaway WordPress plugin, handles the technical aspect of running a giveaway and leaves you with the fun.
This plugin provides a drag-and-drop builder, stunning pre-built templates, and seamless social media integration to help you set up your first giveaway or contest fast.
Once your giveaway is live, you can focus on engaging with your audience and getting more eyes in front of your business.
4. Lean into Content Marketing
Content marketing is a powerful strategy that focuses on providing value in your content, positioning your business as an authority in your niche, and driving organic traffic to your website.
Key tips for running successful content marketing campaigns include:
Understanding what type of content your audience is searching for
Creating relevant, well-researched content to solve your audience’s problems – high-quality content earns trust and prompts shares
Promoting your content across multiple channels to reach a wider audience – social media, email marketing, newsletter platforms, webinars, podcasts, etc.
Repurposing content to get maximum value out of it – e.g. turning a podcast episode into a blog post and vice versa
5. Optimize Your Website for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tried and tested digital marketing strategy.
It’s one of the most effective ways to get search engines to notice your content and drive the right traffic to your website.
Key tips for an effective SEO-driven content strategy include:
Conducting keyword research to identify the terms and phrases your target audience are searching for in your industry. Use a tool like WPBeginner’s Free Keyword Generator, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner to pinpoint the right keywords.
Optimize one-page elements like your H1 title, headings, and meta descriptions by naturally adding your focus keywords where possible.
We also recommend using a WordPress SEO plugin like All in One SEO to help you identify other important on-page elements to optimize.
This plugin can also help you take care of the advanced, technical aspects of SEO (e.g. backlink analysis) , so you don’t have to spend hours stressing over it.
Make your website mobile-friendly. A large portion of your site visitors will view your content from their mobile devices. Ensure your site is optimized for all screen sizes to enhance your visitors’ user experience.
Improve your site speed by compressing your images and removing unnecessary animations and design elements. We also recommend installing a site speed tool to help you identify areas of your website that are slowing it down.
List your business on Google My Business if you offer products or services to your local community. That way, when people run a Google search on local businesses in your industry, they’re more likely to find your website.
6. Run a User-Driven Marketing Campaign
Word of mouth is one of the oldest and most effective ways to grow your audience and get your business noticed.
Your customers are your original influencers and if they love your business, they’ll spread the word to their friends and family.
Creating a user-driven marketing campaign helps you tap into the power of word of mouth and adds an authentic voice to your content.
Building a successful campaign looks like:
Collecting user-generated content: encourage your customers to share photos, videos, or written testimonials of their experiences with your business
Including real stories: customer success stories are a great way to show your potential customers what your products and services can do for them.
These stories are more relatable than a polished ad or story and are more likely to resonate with your target audience.
Sharing reviews from third-party platforms: Search for testimonials on spaces like Google Reviews and Yelp and share them on your website and social media platforms
To encourage your customers to be a part of your campaign, offer them an irresistible incentive like a discount or even free merchandise.
Don’t forget to display your testimonials on your homepage, sales pages, and other key landing pages.
7. Dive into Affiliate Marketing
Here’s how affiliate marketing works:
Content creators or business owners, known as affiliates, use their platforms to tell their audiences about a company’s products or services.
If someone buys a product because of an affiliate’s promotion, the affiliate receives a portion of the money from the sale – known as a commission.
When done right, an affiliate program can help you generate significant revenue for your business. However, business owners tend to shy away from this strategy because they don’t know where or how to start.
If you’re a business owner with a WordPress site, we recommend using AffiliateWP to build and launch your first affiliate program.
This powerful plugin helps you create and manage an affiliate program for your online business right from the WordPress dashboard.
With this tool, you can easily track referrals, payouts, and your affiliates’ performance.
8. Form Partnerships with Like-Minded Businesses
Team up with businesses that complements yours.
For example, if you’re a yoga instructor, you could look for a wellness practitioner or holistic nutritionist to collaborate with.
You can find potential collab partners at networking events — online and in-person.
Host live or online events together, share each other's social media posts , or offer joint promotions to grow your audiences and boost your brand awareness .
It’s a win-win situation for both of you.
9. List Your Business In Local Directories
When you list your business in well-known directories like Google My Business Profile, Yelp, or the Better Business Bureau (BBB), you increase the likelihood of being discovered by potential customers who are actively searching for products or services like yours in the area.
This is a great way to boos your online presence and improve your search engine rankings, making it easier for customers to find you on platforms like Google.
Local directories also provide valuable backlinks to your website, which are key for your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
10. Offer Limited-Time Promotions or Discount
Who doesn’t love a good discount?
Take advantage of holidays and special days (e.g. World Teacher’s Day) to offer a limited-time promotion to your audience.
Share the news through email, social media, and other platforms to encourage more people to visit your site or eCommerce store to make a purchase.
11. Install an Analytics Plugin to Monitor What’s Working
Running a growth marketing strategy without a reliable analytics tool is like going on a big adventure without a compass – or Google Maps.
How will you know what’s working?
If you need a beginner-friendly WordPress plugin that takes the stress out of Google Analytics, we recommend MonsterInsights.
MonsterInsights helps you set up Google Analytics in minutes.
You also get access to a user-friendly dashboard to track your site data (e.g. pageviews, new vs. returning visitors, demographics, conversion rates) with ease.
Use this plugin to track your website’s performance metrics so you can identify the growth strategies that are bringing in the most traffic.
12. Join a Local Directories to Increase Your Business's Visibility
When people in your area search for services like yours, local directories help them find you. When you list your business on these directories, you increase your local visibility and make it easier for customers to discover what you offer.
Getting started is pretty easy.
Start with well-known platforms like Google Business Profile and Yelp, then look for local options specific to your area or industry.
As you create your listings, keep them consistent across all platforms - use the same business name, address, and contact information everywhere. Create engaging descriptions of your business and highlight what sets you apart from competitors.
Don't forget to encourage happy customers to leave reviews, to help increase your business's credibility.
Over time, track which directories bring in the most leads, so you can focus your efforts on the most effective platforms.
Next Steps: Create an Engaging Quiz to Generate Leads
As more people start to notice your business and visit your site, you don’t want to leave without leaving their details.
Online quizzes are a fun, innovative way to engage your audience, gather valuable insights, and grow your mailing list.
You can even use a quiz to point your audience to a blog post, sales page, or product page based on their results.
But, you’ll need the right quiz-building plugin to make this happen.
Enter, Thrive Quiz Builder.
Thrive Quiz Builder is a great tool to use to create engaging quizzes for your audience.
This plugin provides a drag-and-drop interface, stunning pre-built templates, and integrations with popular marketing tools like ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and HubSpot.
You can purchase Thrive Quiz Builder as a standalone plugin, or with 9 other powerful tools when you buy Thrive Suite.
Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Your Marketing Efforts?
Now that you have the key tips you need to level up your marketing and grow your online audience, it’s time to focus on other parts of your business that could be stopping you from landing sales and leads.
If your website lags or loads slowly, is hard to read, and doesn’t communicate your business’ value – you’re going to lose more conversions.
Here are four free tutorials to help you build a website your potential customers will love:
- How to Build Your Perfect Personal Branding Website
- 13 Copywriting Tips for Beginners (How to Write Like a Pro)
- How to Create a User-friendly Website with the Right Tools
- How to Create a Clean, Conversion-Focused WordPress Website
And if you’re still looking for the right tools to build or improve your business website – you should try Thrive Suite.
Thrive Suite is the online toolkit you need to create a professional WordPress website that will stand out from the competition and show your potential new customers that you mean business.
If you've been thinking about taking your business to the next level and want to use high-quality tools for a crazy reasonable price - this is the plugin bundle for you.
