People want to know your business before they do business.
Helping potential clients understand your business, how you operate, the products you produce, or services you provide can go a long way to helping them make the first step towards actually engaging with your business.
In fact, sharing knowledge can help build your credibility as an expert in your field. Sharing something about your business or your speciality area can sometimes resonate with a potential client and encourage them to take the next step. It might lead a potential customer to come into your shop, to pick up the phone for a quote or to book an appointment with you.
Being open and transparent about your business can also build trust. By sharing honestly what you know and how what you do can help your target audience a level of trust is built.
There are a lots of ways you can share your expertise. You don’t have to love writing and want to write a blog (although clearly that is my thing!). There are multiple ways to share your expertise, knowledge and passion for your business:
YouTube Videos
You could create videos and load them to YouTube for sharing. For example if you search for a way to resolve a home maintenance problem, you’ll often find multiple maintenance type people who answer this question in a very simple and easy to understand manner.
They aren’t “selling” on the platform, they’re establishing their expertise. Yet, they do still have their contact information available in case someone wants to call them.
Start a Podcast
Podcasts are a very popular medium for education, self-help and shared interests. You can start a podcast for a relatively low fee per month and build your library of resources as you go. All you need is a microphone and a voice. A decent podcasting microphone can be purchased for around $300.
This is a very low start up cost for a tool which can help you to share your brand, your personality and build trust and rapport with your audience.
If you love chatting about your business, then this may be the perfect way to get the word out (literally!).
Write a Book
Providing your target audience with a free or low cost book is another easy way of establishing authority in a marketplace. It could be a short book or a full length tome of knowledge. If you choose to produce an eBook, there are lots of sites available to help you sell your ebook or you could use it as a free download in exchange for prospects’ email addresses.
Alternatively if you prefer the look and feel of a real life book, you can have small print runs done (even one at a time) through Amazon or Smashwords.
While this is a slightly pricier option, it does put your brand physically in the hand of a prospect and keep you on the top of their mind while they read your book.
Create a Digital Product
Anyone can create a digital product – it could be a helpful checklist, a guide, an MP3 recording, a video or a template to help your target audience solve their problem. Think about the type of problems that your audience suffers from and which problems you can help them solve.
Digital products can be quick and easy to create and cost very little to produce. Ideally, your digital product will deliver value quickly, so that the customer gets an immediate return on their investment. It might only be a small problem, but helping them solve a small problem helps them to understand that you can be trusted.
Develop a Course
Creating a course is a time investment – whether you intend to deliver that course on line or face to face. It’s not a short process and you can put a whole lot of work into it with very little return.
When done well, with materials and content produced online, you can gain repeat sales for little future effort. It is a great way to share your knowledge and build trust with your target audience.
It can also be an opportunity for you to create a revenue stream that earns for you while you are busy doing business somewhere else. Online courses represent an amazing opportunity to expand your business and impact with e-learning, an industry expected to be worth $374 billion by 2026 [https://www.shopify.com.au/blog/digital-products].
Building your brand and your reputation with your target audience takes time and energy, but your efforts will reward you with great leads and clients who already feel they know you and trust you. This can go a long way in building your business to the next level, gaining referrals and providing your products or services to those that will really benefit from them.
And of course, promoting your free digital products on your website ensures that visitors spend longer on your site, learn more about you and come back to find out more when they are ready to purchase!
Get in Touch
If you need help getting a digital product started, want to brainstorm some ideas about what might be suitable for your target audience or think you might like to record your first video for You Tube and link it to your website, then get in touch!
P.S.
Found a spelling or grammatical error in this post? Then contact me as soon as possible and let me know. In return for your super proof reading, I will offer you a free 30-minute review of your digital presence and some fresh ideas you can try out for free.
Digital Marketing | Online Marketing | Web Designer | Website Devleoper | Victor Harbor | Willunga | McLaren Vale