If you’re a business owner, you probably want more clients. Period. Hundreds of blogs and marketing advisors list ways that you can get more clients, but to be completely honest with you, nothing will work unless you make yourself visible to potential customers.
To increase the number of clients who choose you for their needs, all potential clients (at least those who fit the profile of the type of client you’re looking for), need to know who you are and what you do. Not only do they need to know you, but they need to trust you — if they’re going to choose your business over all of the other noise out there, they must believe that you are a leading expert in your field. This is called visibility.
Visibility means creating an online presence so that potential clients to see you often enough in their day to day lives to they remember who you are and what you do. This means that when they need an expert who does what you do, they’ll immediately think of you. 
Contrary to what many business owners may think, the best way to prove your expertise is not through your day to day work, reviews, and customer satisfaction (although all of this is important!), but through consistent, relevant, and engaging content. 
 
Good online presence and consistent content creation are the bread and butter of visibility. If you aren’t creating and sharing content, you’re missing out on clients because they don’t know that you exist. If you are only creating and sharing content periodically, you won’t show up often enough in their feeds to be seen as an expert, or, in some cases to even be seen at all. Again, your potential clients won’t know you exist. So what makes content “consistent, relevant, and engaging?” 
Check out our 10 tips for content creation below.
  1. Establish your online presence. If you don’t have a website, you should. Check out our blog for why a website is essential to today’s businesses. Determine how you will use your website to reach your clients and what other methods of establishing an online presence will help you achieve the greatest visibility. You don’t need to be on every social media platform, but it may help to consider being on one or two.
  2. Determine who you are trying to reach. What type of person needs your specific services? What type of person is the perfect customer? Get specific and really dig deep on what they need and want. Doing your research and knowing your clients will help make content creation less overwhelming, because you will have a better sense of what type of person most needs your services and who you can best help, which will help you know what type of content you need to make to attract those people.
  3. Be human. Wonder why Wendy’s has a twitter account with 3.7 million followers? Part of it is because Wendy’s is visible — they are a million dollar national franchise and their customers are satisfied with their services. But the other part is because whoever runs their social media is, frankly, hilarious, offering roasts, sharing funny memes, and interacting with their followers. People love engaging with other humans, and don’t just want to see a list of services every time they check out your social media. Make your content human.
  4. Include your clients. Have a client with a really cute pet? Ask their permission to share their testimony on your page. This establishes you as someone that is trustworthy (after all, that client trusted you enough to not only go to your business, but to allow you to share their experience), and someone that is human and values their connection with their clients. Ask your followers questions and promote conversation, highlight standout members, and find ways to interact with your clients that emphasize human connection, not just business.
  5. Share what you’re doing that is unique. If you are offering a cool new service, are finding a way to give back through your work, or are doing anything that differentiates you from other providers out there, SHARE it.
  6. Share information that helps. Establish yourself as an expert by sharing information that is useful to your clients, even though they are not paying you to make a social media post. Think about answering some common questions, sharing an interesting fact, and including useful tips with your posts. Your clients will appreciate it, and trust that you are the person they should turn to when they need services you offer.
  7. Experiment with different types of content. Not every post needs to be a blog, and not every post needs to be a gif. Some people are more likely to remember a meme, and others are more likely to remember a conversation you facilitated. Some people prefer video over anything else, but some people (like me) prefer to read information rather than listen. Different types of content attract different people, so make sure to vary your content to reach the widest audience.
  8. Collaborate. Team up with another pet care business that is adjacent to your business (not competitive — for instance, a groomer could collaborate with a pet sitter). Both of you can reap the benefits of each other’s networks when you work together. Consider writing guest blogs, appearing in each others’ livestreams/podcasts, etc, setting out business cards, establishing a referral bonus for each other, etc. Get creative and make sure that it is a symbiotic relationship that will have concrete benefits for your business.
  9. Utilize ads. Using Facebook or Google ads are one of the fastest ways to ensure that more potential clients become aware of your business’ existence. This is particularly helpful when you are running We recommend creating a marketing plan that utilizes both short (ad campaigns) and long term (SEO) visibility tools to help you get and keep visibility online. With the internet being such a necessary forum for modern small businesses (check out our blog on that here), it’s not only vital that your business have an online presence, but essential that your business takes steps to ensure people know about it! (If you need help creating your marketing plan, we got your back, so feel free to reach out for your FREE 30 minute strategy session.)
  10. Be consistent. Without regular content, the algorithms of companies like Facebook, Google, and Instagram will not show your page in the feeds of potential clients. Additionally, lack of consistency can put doubts in potential clients’ heads about whether you are credible and reliable. Think about it — a company that is sporadic with their content creation seems less dedicated and less hardworking than a company that puts the effort in to regularly share the news about their content and services.

By starting with these 10 tips for content creation and basic marketing, you will have the perfect basis for beginning a marketing campaign — and your ads and SEO will link back to an online presence that is strong, consistent, and reliable, and that establishes you as an expert at what you do. Bingo — new customers!