To be successful in your business, you have to be able to effectively market yourself. The elusive world of marketing can be confusing and you may be wondering where to start. Our simple guide to online marketing can help you create a strategy that fits your schedule and budget! Whether you’re a caterer, guitarist, or face painter, these steps can be modified to work for you.
Social media marketing
Social media is an integral part of your marketing efforts. It’s also a great way to connect with your community, share your values, and listen to what people are saying about you. Your brand should stand out among all the other brands that people are flooded with every day.
Choose your outlets
Before you dive in and try and juggle Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter – remember that quality over quantity is better. Don’t spread yourself so thin that you aren’t doing anything effectively.
As you’re deciding what outlets to choose, think about what is most manageable for you and your business. While it’s fairly easy to send a Tweet, keeping up with a weekly YouTube video might not be doable. Your social outlets should work as a team rather than independently, so use each of their strengths accordingly.
One of the easiest things you can do is create a Facebook business page to house things like media, reviews, and contact information. Having a business page also helps establish you as a credible business. It’s also necessary to have if you’d like to explore paid marketing options on Facebook and Instagram, which we’ll discuss in a bit. Facebook has created an easy guide to get started with a business page.
Instagram is a great place to share visual content like photos or short videos from your gigs. We like to use our Instagram feed to highlight our members with their stunning photography and personal stories from those who have booked them. Get started with your Instagram business page with this resource guide.
If you like to test your creativity in confined spaces, Twitter is the place to be! It’s great for sharing small snippets of information, but remember a Tweet’s lifespan is only about 15 minutes. You probably won’t be able to build an entire social media strategy on Twitter alone, but it’s a great supplement to keep your online presence strong and share bite-size content. Get started with the basics of using Twitter.
One of the best things about LinkedIn is the ability to connect with other professionals to begin a network. The time may come where you can’t take a gig but you’ve met someone you can recommend – and someday they may return the favor! Set up your LinkedIn business page with these best practices.
YouTube and Vimeo
Most of our GigSalad members need video on their profile to show potential clients what to expect when they hire them. The two biggest platforms are YouTube and Vimeo. Creating amazing video content is not only good for your online presence, but it gives you more to share on your social media outlets. Be sure to set up your video channel with as much care as your other outlets – these best practices from The Daily Rind are a great place to start!
Find your audience
Think about your audience and where they’re likely to be surfing. If you’re a children’s party entertainer, Facebook and Instagram may be best for you. For a motivational speaker, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are probably better places to find potential clients. If you only have time for one social media outlet, a safe bet is Facebook. According to Pew Research, 69% of adults use Facebook, and 51% of them use it several times a day.
Learn more about social media outlets and their demographic data with this comprehensive guide from our social media scheduling tool, Sprout Social. This will help you figure out where to focus your efforts!
Post your content
There are various opinions and studies on how often to post, what to post, etc. Our own experience (and things we’ve learned at various marketing conferences) has led us to an easy strategy.
First, let’s look at the 3 types of posts:
- Lightly-Branded: These are simple “how-to” posts. For example, GigSalad lightly-branded posts would be things like Plan a Pirate Party in 3 Easy Steps or How to Prepare for Outdoor Gigs. If you’re a saxophone player, you might post something like “10 Instrumental Songs You Need at Your Wedding.” If you’re a face painter, you might post an easy tutorial on a face design or just some nice photos of your own designs.
- Moderately-Branded: These are posts that offer interesting content but show how your brand makes something easier or better. In other words, they’re “how-to with your brand” posts. For example, a moderately-branded GigSalad post would be “Get More Wedding Gigs with These 4 Ideas.” In this case, we’d discuss how having a GigSalad profile can help with this effort.
- Heavily-Branded: Lastly comes the heavily-branded posts that are more of a sales pitch. For example, we could share 10 Reasons to Join GigSalad Now.
In general, you want to present content that meets your audience’s needs without constantly pitching yourself. Being at the forefront of your audience’s mind is the key to getting booked when they’re ready to host an event. Your content calendar could look something like this:
We follow this rule fairly closely when scheduling our posts, too. Mixing in helpful articles while also highlighting our awesome members helps keep things interesting!
Curated content
What if you need more content to fill your calendar? What if you’re not creating a ton of your own content? The answer: curated content. By looking for other brands that offer the same type of content that your audience wants, you can start to build your reputation as an industry expert. Think about industry leaders and start following them. If you need new ideas for who to follow and interact with on Twitter, try Followerwonk.
Be sure to tag the company in the post to help build new relationships (and give credit where credit is due).
Pro tip: Unless you would claim a piece of content as your own, don’t post it. Facebook does not allow link preview editing, which means you’re stuck with whatever the content creator used for photos, link descriptions, etc. Be sure you read through the article thoroughly and that it is useful to your audience before posting.
Hashtags and photo sizing
Once you’re ready to start posting, don’t forget about the science of hashtags and photo sizing! Each social media outlet has its own nuances on displaying photos and hashtags. You don’t want to upload a photo on Facebook that gets cut off on Instagram. This handy photo sizing guide from Sprout Social can help you with the best size for each outlet.
Hashtags are a great way to draw attention to your posts, especially if you make sure they’re relevant to current discussions, events, or trending hashtags. Sprout Social comes through with another great post about using hashtags effectively. Before you can use them, you have to find what’s trending! This article from BrandMentions.com has a ton of ideas for finding those trendy hashtags.
Email marketing
No matter how many new types of social media outlets spring up, good ol’ email is still a great way to market to clients. While you don’t want to hound people, there’s nothing wrong with a few reminders each year that your services are available.
There are lots of email software out there, but we’ve been using Mailchimp for years. It’s easy to set up an account, and the drag-and-drop email designer!
Rather than reinventing the wheel, Hubspot has created an amazing guide to help you get started with your email campaign. Here are a few of the highlights to consider when beginning your email marketing:
Subject Line: Use clear, actionable, enticing language that is personalized and aligned with the body of the email.
Copy: The copy in the body of your email should be consistent with your voice and stick to only one topic.
Images: Choose images that are optimized for all devices, eye-catching, and relevant.
CTA: Your call-to-action should lead to a relevant offer and stand out from the rest of the email.
Timing: Based on a study that observed response rates of 20 million emails, Tuesday at 11 AM ET is the best day and time to send your email.
Responsiveness: 55% of emails are opened on mobile. Your email should, therefore, be optimized for this as well as all other devices.
Personalization: Write every email like you’re sending it to a friend. Be personable and address your reader in a familiar tone.
We like to look at Really Good Emails for inspiration and to learn what does and doesn’t make a good email. For example, here’s an email from Fender inviting guests to an upcoming show:
If you find yourself adding flash animation, multiple fonts, or fuzzy images – take a step back and simplify your email strategy!
Paid social ads
If you have a budget for paid ads, they can be an effective way to gain some new leads or build brand awareness for your business. There’s a good chance that your audience is on social media, so paid social ads may be the place to start.
Facebook and Instagram Ads
According to Facebook, they boast 1.13 billion daily active users. That’s a lot of people you can potentially reach! And with most people spending at least an hour every day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, you’ll likely have no problem reaching them. The ads you create on Facebook can automatically be integrated on Instagram, so the strategy is pretty similar.
The world of Facebook ads is a bit complicated, so we suggest checking out this guide from Buffer to learn how it all works. Learn about how to select your audience, set your budget, and create your ad!
Here are a few quick tips from the guide:
- Keep your information short
- Include an offer or price
- Include keywords
- Include persuasive or interesting imagery/video
- Include your URL above the image/video in the text section
- Use taglines and hooks to draw your potential customers in (i.e., “Make This a Year to Remember”)
Gain some inspiration from Adspresso with their examples of great Facebook ads. In general, a great photo (nothing fuzzy), catchy headline, succinct information, and a call-to-action are all you need!
Here’s an example of a carousel ad that we ran last year, aimed at recently engaged Facebook users:
Tools and Resources
We’ve sprinkled resources throughout the article, but here’s a quick list of our favorite marketing tools!
Canva: Simple graphic design tasks.
Sprout Social: Scheduling social media posts.
Mailchimp: Email design.
HubSpot: Sales leads communication and organization.
iStock: Stock photos.
👉 You might also like: Marketing Tips to Stand Out From the Competition
Having a successful marketing strategy means orchestrating lots of moving parts, from your social media posts to your email marketing to paid ads. After you take a little time to learn how each part works, you’ll start to see returns on your efforts. Happy marketing!
Megan is the Director of Customer Experience at GigSalad and has gained 9+ years of insight on what makes a great event on both sides of the booking process. Her favorite things include books, true crime podcasts, coffee, hiking, puns, and making people laugh.