This article is part of my "Marketing for Mompreneurs" training, which teaches moms how to grow their crafting business. Check out the link for more mompreneur articles!
Your Attention, Please!
Have you already read my article about what I think is the most important thing a crafting mompreneur needs? The answer is: you need to gain the POSITIVE, INTEREST-BASED ATTENTION of a lot of people. But how do you do that?
I’ve got a lot of ideas to help you out!
Before you dig in, be aware that growing the right kind of audience takes time. I HIGHLY encourage you to do it so your business will thrive, but it’s a lot of work!
Tactic #1: Run a contest
Try running a contest to grow your audience. Consider giving away one of your products for free in exchange for help growing your presence. Make a contest where everyone who shares your business gets an entry into the contest.
I found it best to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity rather than rewarding the person who shares you the most. You can get more sophisticated by giving higher odds to those who spread your business more effectively.
Tactic #2: Cross pollinate
If you’re managing more than one social media profile (I don’t recommend this!), consider asking the audience from one platform to join your other platform.
As always, make sure all of your profiles on all social media platforms (even those you don’t post often on) encourage people to visit you on your main platform.
Tactic #3: Join groups built for building each other up
Depending on which platform your main focus is on, you should consider joining a group of people whose sole purpose is to build up the audiences of each other. This is a good tactic to use early on when you don’t have any audience at all.
Warning: Be super cautious about which groups you join. Make sure it is somewhat related to your niche, and take a little time to evaluate the quality of the group before participating. Avoid scammy groups.
Tactic #4: Produce content
This is one of the hardest ways to grow your group, but it can have the highest payoffs in the long run.
You can build your own content and crank it out to your channel. However, this is one of the most difficult things to do for busy mompreneurs with no time. If you think you have the motivation, time, and enough content to write about for a year (one content per week) – do it! Otherwise, skip this one.
Ideally, you should create your content on a platform that lives for a long time and can show up in Google search results. For example, a blog or a YouTube channel. If your platform doesn’t meet that criteria, I recommend you create a blog or YouTube channel and put your content there – but immediately post it to your main social media platform.
Tactic #5: Become vocal
Choose 2 or 3 other related groups and join them. Start adding value to those communities. Picture yourself in the position of the owner of that group – what could a member do that would absolutely delight you? The answers are:
- Be a conversation starter
- Provide meaningful engagement / responses to other conversations
If you’re a natural introvert, you’ll have to step out of your shell a little bit. Take baby steps to get there. Start by providing meaningful responses to conversations started by others. Here are some tips on how to create engagement:
- Avoid the one or two word responses like “super cute!” or “love!”
- Be thoughtful and create responses that are super relevant to what the person you’re responding to wrote
- Ask questions that encourage responses and show genuine interest in their story.
Tactic #6: Pump up influencers
Find influencers in your community. These are people who already have a large audience and are constantly putting out interesting content. Share their posts and content, and give them credit openly. Tag them as an expert on a given topic to pull them into conversations.
These influencers are a great marketing channel for you and your products.
Tactic #7: Be creative with your inserts
Not all customers who buy from you are a part of your audience. With a product insert, you can use the opportunity to speak to the person and get them to join your audience! And you’re a creative mama – get creative with your product inserts!
Conclusion
Here are the tactics in case you scrolled to the bottom and skipped all of the above:
- Tactic #1: Run a contest
- Tactic #2: Cross pollinate
- Tactic #3: Join groups built for building each other up
- Tactic #4: Produce content
- Tactic #5: Become vocal
- Tactic #6: Pump up influencers
- Tactic #7: Be creative with your inserts
I’ve got several other super-secret tactics to share, but I don’t yet share these publicly. I give these to my inner group. To join my waiting list for this group, make sure to join our FB group and listen for announcements!
I hope you got some nuggets out of this that will help you in your business! If you have more to share, please let me know on FB!
Homework Assignment
Based on what you have learned in this article, create one action item to do something new for your business and write it down in your MOMPRENEUR JOURNAL! Then do it! Focus on one little action item at a time and soon, your business will be booming!
What's the next thing to learn? I cover it all here - browse through and find an article to read!
You got this, mama!
