Finding new ways to share your communications can help you add to your prospect pipeline. You just have to make sure you’re reaching the right audience.
“It’s okay to have a zillion people reading your content,” says Richard Heft, communications director with Ext. Marketing Inc. in Toronto. “[But] it’s more important that [your readers] actually are people who are prospective clients.”
Here are three ways to ensure your communications reach the right people:
1. Have clients share your content
Add “share” buttons to your online newsletters and blog postings. It’s an “organic” way to grow that requires little effort on the part of clients, says Andrew Broadhead, communications manager at Ext. Marketing.
You can use this strategy through programs such as AddThis or AddToAny. These apps allow free registration and provide you with an “html” code that is added to your email newsletters. This code produces a “share” button when your client receives the email.
A less technical way of sharing content is simply to type out the suggestion that your clients share the email’s contents if they appreciated the information.
Sharing is an effective way of marketing your communications. Your clients’ friends and family members are likely in a similar demographic and socio-economic status and therefore would fit your market. Also, your clients’ contacts are more likely to take your content seriously if it comes from someone they know.
2. Share it yourself
You can easily share your own content through social media. It is just a matter of finding ways to target that content.
For example, the practice of adding “hash tags” to turn keywords into links is very popular on Twitter. It allows online users to click on the link and see a collection of tweets from the entire “Twitterverse” under that heading.
For example, if your market is young families, you might tweet the news that some Canadian banks are lowering their mortgage rates. By adding #homeowner to that tweet, anyone searching for that keyword will see your content. You may also add the name of your city with another hash tag, so that those searching for that keyword are more likely to be within your community.
Another effective way to share content on social media is by joining a LinkedIn group. Look for groups whose members would fit your market, such as small-business owners and professional organizations.
3. Share through your professional network
Join forces with your centres of influence (COI) to distribute content. Contribute to each other’s newsletters and provide copies in both offices. If you and your COI share a common market, it is an effective way to introduce yourself to new people.
Your COI’s clients will be reassured that the content you provided has been approved by someone they trust. Also, by contributing articles to each other’s newsletters, Broadhead says, you reducing some of the pressure to produce new material.