The other day someone said to me, “of course social media is the easiest way for new clients and customers to discover a business”.
I hear that a lot.
And I disagree.
Because for many small businesses, social media is not the easiest way in which we get discovered at all—especially when you factor in the work it takes to keep posting on social media.
But if you’re considering marketing your business beyond social media, you might wonder, how does that even work practically? Without social media, how do new clients and customers discover your work?
In this post, I’ve collected all the ways in which new clients have found me over the past two years. It turned into an inspiring list that I hope will empower you to consider marketing beyond social media as well.
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How new clients discover my work
Guest blog posts
I occasionally write guest posts for other people’s websites, like this one on 4 ways to market your book without social media for Katie Sadler’s blog, and this one on marketing for social media for Sarah Robertson’s blog.
Writing is one of the things I enjoy the most in my business, so writing these guests posts feels easeful and aligned to me. Katie asked me to write a post for her, and I pitched my idea for a post for the series of guest posts Sarah runs on her blog. Both of these posts bring new people to my work, to my website, my newsletter and my group programme Marketing without social media.
Podcasts
A year ago Alice Sheridan interviewed me for Art Juice. Of all the outreach I’ve done over the past couple of years, this has made the biggest impact and it brought hundreds of new subscribers to my newsletter, as well as several new 1:1 clients—and continues to do so.
We are so used to large companies and brands being everywhere that we assume that as small business owners, freelancers and creatives we, too, need to be everywhere.
For many small businesses, social media is not the easiest way in which we get discovered at all…
Google/search engines
Several new email subscribers and people who signed up for Substack for small business owners found me through Google—especially through the blog posts that I wrote as a response to the questions I was getting about Substack.
It’s a really pleasant surprise how much these have taken off!
My current top 3 most popular pages in terms of click-throughs (past 28 days):
- Substack 101: how to use and enjoy Substack as a reader (424 clicks!)
- Should you move your newsletter to Substack? (60 clicks)
- How I quit social media for my business and what happened next (30 clicks)
I get these insights through Google Search Console.
My website, and especially the blog posts on it, are a key part of how I market my business. The blogs work together organically and easefully with my newsletter on the one hand, and Pinterest one the other.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Optimizing our website is one of those things that many of us feel we should do, but have no idea how to approach it. Although I’m not an SEO-expert, I have learned a lot about it over the past years.
The most important things I’ve learned about using SEO:
- You can take it gently and incrementally. There’s no need to work on all your pages at once, or to maximize them.
- Use tools that come with your website builder (my website runs on WordPress, and I use their free Yoast-plugin for help with SEO, especially selecting keywords for blogposts and writing search engine snippets).
- This will become second nature. For me, the bulk of SEO-work I do is done through blogposts, where I think explicitly about engaging titles and using keywords. I don’t do regular, extensive keyword research though.
SEO is one of those things that you can just have ticking along in the background of your business.
Some of my favourite resources are:
- Studio Cotton’s blog posts on SEO
- Word by Word: SEO basics and blog posts and SEO
- Intuitive SEO, by Sophie Caldecott
Substack
In a recent post for my paid Substack subscribers I wrote a little about the Substack “network-effect” and the extent to which I experience it. While I’m sceptical about the stats that Substack offers, there’s no doubt that a considerable portion of new subscribers finds me through Substack: either through recommendations or referrals, or through shares or Notes. It is very rare that a new client is not a newsletter subscriber: my newsletter is the number one way for me in which readers become clients and customers.
Although I’ve been using Pinterest for years, I often find it hard to grasp its effect. It certainly draws new visitors to my website and blog posts, which I want it to do. But does it bring in new clients? I wondered about that, until just last week a new client reached out about working together. She’d found me through Pinterest. Marketing success!
Which of these marketing channels and strategies have you tried, and are there any you are now inspired to try out? I’d love to know!
Please feel free to share it with business friends, in your newsletter or on social media. 💛
I’d love to support you in all phases of your business. Providing clarity, focus and next steps is something that my clients tell me I’m really good at. If you’re curious about how we can work together through 1:1 mentoring, check out what I offer or send me an email–no strings attached. I have payment plans available, and flexible options for mentoring calls (30 or 60 minutes).
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