Your business has a digital presence, right? Right? If not, what are you waiting for?! Having a presence on the internet is like having a storefront on the busiest shopping street in town. It’s essential for any new business owner to have an online presence — specifically, website and social media pages — in order to build an audience and generate sales.

With our three steps formula you will be able to grow your business quicker and have a plan that will guide you on your journey.

1. Find your audience and reach out to them

When you're first creating a digital presence, focus on two broad categories of your target market: where they go to learn about new things and where they go to buy them.After you have identified a target audience and their problems, the next step is to brainstorm possible demographic segmentation for your customer persona. What is demographic segmentation, you may wonder. 

Demographic segmentation—or putting your customers into different buckets based on their age, educational history, income, gender and more—is the first step toward content creation. Before you start creating, you need to know who you’re creating for.  This can include:

• Age

• Gender

• What they do for a living

• Income

Geographic segmentation can help you create ads targeted at specific locations. This is great for reaching people in your local area who might be interested in what you're selling, but it doesn't work for everyone.

Once you've identified your ideal customer profile, you'll want to dig a little deeper. As part of your personas development, consider answering the following question: “My business helps people who have X pain points. In other words, what challenge is your business solving?”

This exercise can help you better understand why people might buy your product or service — and how to address their pain points more effectively in your marketing and advertising.

2. Research the competition’s target audience

The internet is a big place, with millions of people and hundreds of thousands of websites out there vying for eyeballs. Don't spread yourself too thin! Figure out who your audience is, where they hang out on the web, and how to engage with them effectively.

If your product or service does not yet exist in the market, it is likely one of your competitors has built something that is close to what you are planning. Take a look at how others are doing things online and use this as inspiration for creating your own digital strategy.

Competitor product research allows you to see who your competitors are targeting and what they offer. Use this information to guide your own marketing efforts.

When you plan your digital marketing strategy across multiple channels, you need to know how your competitors are reaching their audiences. If they’re creating ads on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, it could be a sign that those channels are important in your industry. Do your homework ahead of time and start testing depending on what has been proven to be effective for your competition.

3. Choose the social platforms where you’re going to develop an online presence wisely

With over 3.6 billion users globally on both mobile and desktop, social media has become one of the best ways to communicate with customers and grow your brand. By creating a presence on different platforms and utilizing the available tools, you’re able to set yourself apart from competitors.

If you're new to the social media world, you'll want to start by identifying which channels you want to go after first. To do this, identify where your target audience spends their time and get them connected right away. First, determine what type of personality your company has—that's the foundation of your brand voice. Then, figure out where your customers are hanging out online and get your message in front of them through their preferred channel.

When you're looking to grow your business, it's important to think big. Social media offers a great way to get your word out there and connect directly with potential customers. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram have the highest reach of all social media platforms, with 2.9 billion monthly active users (MAU), 2.2 billion MAU, and 2 billion MAU respectively. Start by choosing one or two of these popular platforms and build a strong base before branching out into smaller communities.

Finding out what works for your brand is something that you will learn through trial and error, you should prepare yourself and expect highs and lows as social media growth is not a linear process.

If you want people to engage with your content, make it interesting and valuable. This is especially important when it comes to social media platforms. Think about how many social posts you see on a daily basis; don't just post about your company's products or services, but also post about current events that are relevant to your industry. It's all about finding what works best for your audience; join groups and follow customers who would be interested in your business, share their content on your platform, and comment on their posts."

The biggest tip we can give you is to be consistent and have patience – and don’t forget to have fun and enjoy the process.

All in all

Right now, you might be thinking, "I'm a small business and don't need to worry about this!" But that’s not true.

Creating a digital presence is important for all businesses trying to grow online. If you think you will not be able to find your audience online, you couldn’t be further from the truth - as long as you put in the hours and don’t give up quickly, then you will be able to reap great results, just trust the process!