Being afraid of showing up in your marketing isn’t an excuse for hiding behind your website. Online marketing in many ways has done two things, made the introverts hide and the extroverts be loud and in your face!
We need a website to attract our ideal prospects and provide them a way to learn from the content on our site building trust and credibility. Even though we are not dealing face to face initially, we are creating relationships with real people.
Building Connection
Building an emotional connection between you and your audience is essential – WHY? Because we do business with people we know, like and trust.
Have you landed on an outdated website where there are no, nada, zero people’s faces anywhere on the site? Even the ‘About’ page talks about the company in general but none of the people in the company. People do business with people and our challenge online are to use the newest tools that make it simpler to build that emotional connection.
My two favorite ways to build online connection is via:
• Video – a personal introduction from the owner is great, or from other key people within the organization that a visitor might want to know more about. To actually hear their voice and put a face to a name is so essential in making a human connection.
• Images – show the faces and behind the scenes images of the business. If you are a small company, think about how your prospect may want to envision you – that could even be a nice photo of you at your desk. The more fun you can make the images the better
Time to Get Over Yourself
When I suggest to clients that we create video’s many use the excuse “I’m not good on camera” or “I Don’t Know What to Say.” These are common objections but can be overcome with a little practice.
If you are a solopreneur you are the only face of your brand, so at some point you want to get over yourself and as Nike states – “Just Do It.”
The great thing about living in this online world is because it has gotten more casual than 10 years ago. In fact, people prefer less scripted, more natural, off the cuff images and video’s as long as you are delivering some value.
What Do You Stand For?
A great video clip talking about why your company exists, why you do what you do and why you are passionate about. When you attract people who believe in what you believe they are more likely to become customers. Share your story and start building fans which means pay attention to the likeability factor. We all have one – let yours out!
One of my favorite companies with great likeability factor is Southwest Airlines.
Promote Your Products or Services
I love the idea of creating a short video to introduce your service. It offers you potential customers a chance to hear the enthusiasm in your voice as well as you sharing with them the benefits and results they can expect from the service.
Create an educational video series as a way to promote your services. First, this is a great marketing strategy to start people in a funnel to experience you and your expertise. The bonus for your prospect is they get to experience you and learn what you would be like to work with should they buy a service. Obviously, the key is to make the video’s so helpful that they will wonder what your paid content is like if your free content is so fantastic.
Get Social on Social Media
I admit, I have a pet peeve about people hiding behind social media versus taking connections off-line especially when it comes to business. I do think people drop their personal fears on social when it comes to sharing their authentic and mostly unfiltered activities with the public. Professionally when companies pull back the curtains and share what is happening with employees, products or simply showing how they do things – we like that! Humanizing your brand is what will endear people to you.
How to Stand Out
So how do we stand out in today’s digital world when we have seconds to attract someone’s attention?
Be helpful.
Share Resources.
Provide referrals.
Personalize how people experience you.
These simple four steps and not only will you stand out but you will earn trust and a return in business. You see when you invest in people they will invest in you.
Here are some tools you might want to check out that help your brand come to life:
https://www.hotjar.com/incoming-feedback – find out what works on your website and what doesn’t by getting feedback.
https://lumen5.com/ – Turn Your Blog Posts into Engaging Videos
