Do you know how to reach your audience? Do you know what they think about, what they respond to, and what they want to see?
Knowing how to reach your audience means knowing what they need and what they respond to. This also means breaking through a ton of clutter from the many other companies competing for your customers’ attention. So how can you get your audience to do a double-take? Or a double-click? Be original. Read on to see how to reach your audience in 32 unique ways.
32 Unique Ways to Reach Your Audience Online
To know how to reach your audience you must first understand them. Get data on who they are (age, income, gender etc), what they do (social media, tv, radio, print) and what similar products or services they use. A great way to start is with buyer personas.
Innovative Social Media Strategies
1. Targeted Ad Campaign: Millions of businesses use social media, but not all use it effectively. With the widest user base and highly targeted ad campaigns, Facebook is the best place to start a paid social strategy.
2. Live Post: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and others allow you to post video content live. Try live posting a convention, local event, interview, panel discussion, or a walkthrough of your business.
3. Twitter Hashtag Event: Make a certain day of the week or a particular time frame #YourEvent. Encourage followers to ask questions, share stories, or share pictures. Get inspired with favorites like #MotivationMonday or #TipTuesday.
4. Start a LinkedIn Group: Smaller groups will have less competition, and may generate more lively interactions. Target just your local area or a specific niche to reach your audience.
5. Try A New Channel: There are many social sites, each one catering to certain demographic. Find where your customers are and get connected.
Creative Picture Ideas
6. Tell A Visual Story: Make a photo series that inspires joy, love, excitement or devotion to see how to reach your audience with emotional imagery.
7. Before and After: Display a drastic transformation where your business or product made a big improvement. Try this in your ads, social posts, or blog.
8. Visual How-To: If it’s hard to describe a process, use pictures. A step-by-step how-to with pictures and captions will reach your audience on your website, blog or social channels.
9. Combine Text and Pictures: Overlay eye-catching text on an attractive image to create a post or blog header that inspires, gets noticed, and gets shared.
Helpful Text Formats
10. Make an Infographic: Do you have a lot of helpful data, but it’s too long to read? Make it into an infographic to turn data into shareable, helpful marketing content.
11. Top 10 Lists: When you know the best products, strategies, or techniques in your business, tell others. You can reach your audience with this information, and build links by contacting your top 10 list winners.
12. Long Lists: Sometimes customers want a lot of options. Gather up all your knowledge and provide a long list. (Like a list of how to reach your audience!)
13. Life Hacks: Do you know an industry shortcut that saves you time, energy, or money? Explain it, share it, and help your customers emulate you.
14. A Template Or Example: Share a template or example of a design or document to make a process easier. This could be anything from a tech spec to a law document to ideal image dimensions and more.
Make An Impact With Video
15. Customer Testimonials: Find your best customer and ask them for a review. Make sure you ask the right feedback questions, find a customer who exemplifies your target market, and post everywhere you can.
16. Product or Service Demo: Show your product or service in action. Don’t be afraid to add personality or humor to reach your audience.
17. Instructional Webinar: Solve a common industry question in an step-by-step webinar.
18. Company Culture: Shrug off the suit and tie and take your customers inside your business to show what you’re really about.
19. Video Advertisement: Video content gets more attention than text or pictures. Make it short, sweet, high-quality, and use targeting to reach your audience specifically.
Work With Affiliates
20. Business Partners’ Promotions: Work with a related business serving similar customers and sweeten their promotions with your free products or service package. For example, a landscaping company might work with a lawn and garden store, or a beauty products retailer might work with a spa.
21. Guest Posting: Can’t think of what to put on your blog? See if your business partners, colleagues, or customers have relevant content, and feature them.
22. Connect With Influencers: Social may not be your specialty, but there are social experts, AKA influencers, in every industry. Find an influencer and see if an affiliate marketing partnership would be cost-effective.
Start A Contest
23. Selfie Campaign: Ask customers to take a selfie with your product. The most inventive or popular selfie wins a prize!
24. Photo Contest: Your customers don’t like selfies? No problem, ask for unique photos featuring your business instead.
25. Art Contest: Take inspiration from Starbucks’ cup art contest and feature your customers’ best product-related artwork. This is a great way to reach your audience and cultivate user-generated content.
26. Pick a Winner: Lay’s “Do Us A Flavor” contest garnered over 14 million votes in 2012, and has now created four new, consumer-approved chip flavors. Conduct your own consumer contest and call on your customers’ imagination to suggest a new product, event, logo, or something else.
27. Caption Contest: Post a picture and challenge your customers to post their funniest captions.
Optimize Digital Marketing
28. SEO: Give your blogs, website, ads and other digital assets the best chance to reach your audience and hone in on the right keywords.
29. Automation: Sending out promotional emails one by one is a waste of your time. The right marketing automation software can save you time on many tasks and reach a wider audience in less time.
30. Start a Blog: Start or rekindle your blog with a new blogging business strategy that’s focused on how to reach your audience best.
31. Ads: If you haven’t used digital advertising before, now’s the perfect time. Dive into social ads, display ads, PPC ads, remarketing ads or all of the above!
32. Analytics: Put data behind your website, blog, ads, emails, and all your digital marketing efforts to make sure you really are reaching your audience.
Reaching your audience doesn’t have to be a chore; call on your talents and your knowledge to deliver helpful, creative content. Ask your customers what they’re looking for, and use your strengths and ingenuity to deliver it in your own unique and personalized way.