Being a solopreneur in the modern world is very exciting and liberating.
Suddenly, everything is within your reach: your clients, your platforms, and even your marketing channels are all online.
And when it comes to digital marketing, you can manage and promote your speaking business by creating and executing your own strategy, without needing to hire-in.
But if you are having trouble getting started, don’t worry, this article will help you create your own digital marketing strategy and give you helpful tips on how to improve your content marketing.
Sounds exciting, right? So let’s get started.
To some, strategy may sound complicated and intimidating, but really it’s just careful planning in order to reach a certain goal.
In this article, we will cover the basics on how to:
Define your audience
Identify the digital platforms where you can reach your audience
Determine your focus and goals
Put your plan into action
Hustle digitally
First, determine the following:
The first thing that you need to determine is your target audience.
Who are your ideal clients?
What demographics do they fit?
What are their interests?
And most importantly, which social media platforms do they usually hang out on?
These are essential steps in figuring out what you should be saying, and on which platforms.
Knowledge base. What do they already know about your topic? Are they industry experts or the general public? This will frame what kind of content you create and share, and determine things like whether you cover a broad overview of subjects within your topic, or whether you can get into specifics and trends.
Content expectations. What can you offer your potential audience? What would help them? Inspire them? Educate them? Ensure you understand what most audience members hope to get out of your talk. Do they need motivation, political insights, or practical advice on where to invest their savings? Figuring this out will help you meet their needs.
Challenges and issues. Understanding the problems and setbacks your audience members are facing is vital to creating content that will engage them. For example, are they struggling with a management issue about workplace productivity? If you can directly address and offer them solutions to their problems, you will hook them and keep them interested.
Appropriate tone. If you want to attract the right audience, you need to use a tone that is natural and suits the needs of your audience. Avoid cracking an inappropriate joke when you want to be seen as a political expert, or using heavy statistics and corporate jargon when you are looking to attract a general audience. If you are looking to attract a more professional, more established audience, using slang and hashtags would not be appropriate. Think about the tone that will attract the kind of organization you want to work with.
Additional articles for defining your audience
Make a list of social media platforms where your audience has an online presence and use it as a reference to identify the digital tools that you will need.
Ideally, you would need to have your own website, or at the very least, your own blog in order to execute these steps.
You will also probably need a(n):
email marketing tool to automate your email communications
an editorial calendar to keep track of your content
analytics tool, like Google Analytics, that can monitor your online activity and show you what’s popular and where your online visitors are coming from
Finally, there are tools that can automate your social media posting; that allow you to schedule your posts and upload them to a single site where they will then be distributed to all your specified social media sites. These tools will prove helpful as you build your social media presence.
Research and list all the tools you need so that you can refer to them later.
Study the many resources online on how to get the best out of your chosen platforms and tools.
Here are some additional articles for finding the right digital platforms
World of Speakers E.52: Using Twitter to make more connections and get hired
World of Speakers E.58 Interview with Ted Rubin: How to use social media to get more bookings
Now it’s time to determine your business goals.
Why are you launching a digital marketing campaign?
Is it to make your brand more well-known?
Do you want to increase the number of followers of your social media accounts?
Do you want to attract more visitors to your website?
Each goal requires a slightly different focus. For instance, increasing your social media followers would require you to increase the quality of your posts, and perhaps change the frequency too..
It will also get your website more visits for sure, but the growth of your followers is going to be more apparent.
Obviously, you can juggle multiple goals at a time, but as a beginner, we suggest for you to focus on a single goal for now, and then treat your first campaign as “on-the-job” training.
By now, you should have put together a document that’s brimming with notes, bullet points, links, and more.
The only thing that’s left is to work on implementing your ideas.
Create those accounts, start writing your web content, and schedule your social media posts. Speaking of which. here are some tips on improving your content marketing and becoming a solopreneur social media star:
Try out different article formats. Don’t just write lists, but create how-tos, faqs, compilations, and more.
Know your audience’s schedule and time the posting of your social media posts accordingly, so you can get maximum user engagement.
Create an editorial calendar for both your content and social media posts and stick to it. Post regularly and build trust with your audience.
Experiment with various content. Written words are not the only way to convey information. You can create infographics, videos, photos, and more. Most importantly, find the appropriate social media channel for each of these types of content.
Finally, if you can’t write or create graphics to save your life then there’s no harm in hiring a freelancer. Being a solopreneur doesn’t mean that you can’t get help and hire other people. Sometimes delegating tasks to others can give you extra time to work on projects, and can free-up time to focus on other important matters.
Marketing has changed significantly over the past decade and we expect that digital marketing will continue to develop. Today, marketing specialists and solopreneurs need to continuously develop their knowledge and upgrade their skills to keep their businesses competitive. They also explore innovative ways to make money but also recognize the importance of financial stability. By embracing cutting-edge financial tools and trends, solopreneurs can optimize their financial strategy and leverage the benefits of a savings account to achieve long-term financial success.
Try to stay on top of trends in digital marketing. Look out for new tools to make your marketing more measurable, allowing you to adapt your strategy and tactics to achieve the best results and be more competitive.
As a solopreneur braving the business world, it is your responsibility to yourself and your business to learn the tactics necessary to hustle digitally and build a successful brand. It is important to understand that your target audience, your customers, and your competitors are online. So do your best to reach them there using the various tools and channels available in the digital world.
40 ways to use social media before, during and after the event to engage your audience
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YouTube, Canva and SlideShare: How to repurpose your presentation as marketing material
World of Speakers E.63 Mastering Facebook Live with Mari Smith
World of Speakers E.52: Using Twitter to make more connections and get hired with Sam Kelly
World of Speakers E.48: Level-up your speaking business with Josh Linkner
World of Speakers E.58: How to use social media to get more bookings with Ted Rubin
About the Author: Mike enjoys helping entrepreneurs and startups succeed through smart and innovative marketing strategies. He’s partnered with CEOs and executives to grow businesses from the ground up. Mike believes that the customer is a company’s most valuable asset. When he’s not traveling for work, he enjoys reading adventure and science fiction novels.
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