Welcome back! If you’ve already read Parts One & Two of “So You Wanna Start An Online Business?” series, then you’re ready to take it to the next level.
Just to go back for a moment, the image above shows a logo/brand I completed for an artisan gifts business – Potz & Petalz. It’s a bit of a moodboard/presentation template showcasing how the brand would look on business cards, packages, tags & promotional materials. Assuming you have your basic brand together (which may or may not include all the elements above) you should now be able to use it on various aspects of your own work. At the very least, you should have your social media accounts set up with your new brand…the business cards and such (if/when needed) can come at a later time.
So let’s recap on what we have discussed so far:
- You have your chosen online business.
- You have done some research on where to market/promote yourself.
- You have your business name & brand.
- Now you need to gain an audience – YOU ARE HERE NOW.
Ahhh, gaining an audience…not as easy as it sounds. Well it’s not that difficult either. What you need now is what is commonly referred to as a digital ‘lead magnet’. This digital lead magnet will help you recruit folks interested in your product/service. So where do you start?
First, think about what your product/service is. If you’re business is selling tangible products this might be a bit more difficult for you, but definitely doable. If you’re business is services (or digital items) it’s a little easier.
Let’s use a wedding stationary business as an example for both. Your product could be either tangible (printed invitations, thank you cards, etc) and/or digital (templates for invitations, thank you cards, etc.).
So you have a few options:
- If you’re selling digital templates for wedding stationary then creating a digital freebie will be easy for you. Just create a simple template (‘save the date’, invitation or both) and offer those templates as a freebie. You can showcase one of your designs to wet the whistle of prospective customers, enticing them to buy more.
- If you’re selling tangible wedding stationary, you could offer something helpful; a timeline/checklist for sending ‘save the dates’, invitations & thank you cards OR a guide offering suggestions/tips on proper etiquette for writing ‘thank you’ cards, maybe even including some examples. Whatever you decide, it should be something that the bride-to-be finds helpful. You don’t have to go too crazy here…remember it’s a freebie…just be creative with your freebie offer.
Once you’ve decided on your lead magnet freebie, you now have to 1. create it and 2. market it.
Creating your lead magnet freebie: If your product/service is creating digital templates then you already know how to create the freebie template, so I won’t go into detail here. If, however, you are offering a guide of some sort and have no experience with software applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator etc then I suggest using Canva. Canva has both free & pro options available, but you can still do plenty with the free version.
You’ll need an account which requires an email but it’s simple to set up. And once you have access, Canva offers a variety of templates you can use to put your lead magnet freebie together. If you’re not familiar with Canva, I would suggest a few things; first see what others are offering in terms of lead magnet freebies. Go on any social media site you use and typically these promotions will start showing up in your feed. Also, do a Google search “how to create a lead magnet in Canva” and a whole slew of resources will pop up. In no time, you’ll be pretty knowledgable on how to create one for yourself.
The concept here is that you create your lead magnet freebie to use as a way to gain an audience. You’ll need some tools for that which I will talk about in the next post. In the meantime, work on your freebie idea and start playing around in Canva.
Until then….
