Six Ways to Grow Your Audience

So you've created your brand and launched your new product or service. The hard part's over, right? Now you're moving on to the next step in your branding journey: delivering your brand to your potential customers, fans, and members.

Consider who would most likely enjoy the product or service that you’re offering. How old are they? Do they live in cities or suburbs? Are they married or single? What kind of jobs do they have? What are their interests?

Once you have defined the specific traits of your target audience, you can find the platforms and communities that they are a part of and introduce your brand to them in a meaningful way. Show how your offerings solve a problem they have, and use creativity in your delivery in order to stand out against the competition.

Below, our friends from .xyz have outlined six different ways to promote yourself. Carefully choose the marketing opportunities that make sense for your audience – it may be all six or just one or two. Strategically selecting which marketing activities to engage in will help to ensure that your time and money are well spent.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Virtually everyone who uses the internet also uses search engines to find what they need. One of the basic ways to attract an audience is by gaining organic traffic to your website through visibility in search engines.

Keyword research is a vital part of ensuring that your website ranks highly for the terms your audience is searching for. Look up keywords or phrases related to your niche in top search engines and pay attention to the suggested searches. This will tell you what people are searching for when researching your topic, so you can then be sure to include these keywords in your website’s content.

Google suggested searches for “app maker”

Your domain name can be an important factor in your search ranking. A keyword that is part of your domain can act as a relevancy signal and can boost clicks on your site in search results. As a generic extension, .xyz is recognized and indexed by Google the exact same way all other generic domains are, including .com, .net, and .org, which Google has verified.

For example, a mobile application builder would want to target the keyword “app maker.” The domain name that AppMaker.xyz uses is a very wise choice that surely helped to land them on the first page of Google’s search engine results page for that keyword!

Our favourite tools to boost your SEO:

Copyscape

Not sure if what you’re saying has been said before? Working with freelance writers you’re not familiar with? Copyscape allows you to quickly check if any of the content on your page is plagiarized. This isn’t just about being original—duplicate content is bad for SEO. No download required, just enter your URL and cross your fingers for no results.

AMP Plugin

Slow load time = bad SEO, especially on mobile. It’s also just annoying, and you tend to lose a lot of traffic if your site takes a million years to load. Speed things up with the AMP WordPress plugin (AMP = accelerated mobile pages). It lightens up pages so they load more quickly.

Mozbar

This handy browser plugin can help you quickly dissect page elements. Get it to highlight links, show page elements and keywords, share social metrics, and more—all important on-page SEO factors you need to keep an eye on.

Want more effective search results in Google? This Rich Snippets plugin produces smart page summaries for Yahoo, Google, Bing and Facebook. Instead of just defaulting to the first few words on the page, it’ll share the info that actually matters—star ratings, authors, etc.—so you rank higher and people actually click.

Rich Snippets Plugin

Rebel.com SSL Certificate

Getting hacked is expensive, embarrassing, and a giant pain in the ass. Having a secure site is also a huge boost for SEO. Our SSL certificates protect and secure any information exchanged on your website between you and your customers, such as names, addresses, and credit card details. Having HTTPS in your URL automatically boosts your Google ranking, too.

W3 Total Cache

This well-respected caching plugin has been around for ages. It helps reduce the load time for your website, which boosts SEO. And faster load times = everyone’s happy.

Akismet

Got bots crawling all over your site, leaving behind spammy comments linking to unpleasant things? Clear the infestation with Akismet, a great comment blocker plugin.

Quicksprout

Wondering where you went wrong? Enter your URL in Quicksprout, and they’ll send you an analysis of the SEO errors on your site and how to fix them. They’re also a great resource for learning more about SEO and digital marketing—check out their informative blog and the videos in Quicksprout University.

Woorank

If you want to avoid downloading every tool out there, Woorank is a good comprehensive option. They can do a complete SEO analysis of any web page, including telling you what keywords your competitors are using. Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t worry—they’ll make you a prioritized checklist, so you know what to tackle text.

Yoast

No list of SEO tools would be complete without Yoast, the most well-known name in the industry. Their SEO plugin lets you edit meta descriptions and snippets, check SEO scores, analyze readability, clean up permalinks and more. They also offer online SEO training and ebooks. If you really want to get serious, you can also hire their team as consultants.

Social Media

The versatility and cost-effectiveness of social media marketing makes it another popular way to reach a target audience. An individual, business, or organization can spread their message by posting relevant content on social media platforms at just the cost it took to create it. Be sure to use hashtags and engage with other users in your target audience’s community in order to increase visibility of your post and updates.

Keep in mind that different social media channels attract varying types of people. For example, if you have a health food blog, then sharing recipes on Pinterest may garner a lot of traffic to your website. If your startup helps small businesses, then you may want to focus on making contacts through LinkedIn.

Instant, 140-character updates make Twitter the best platform for sharing breaking news, and so it is popular among avid followers of current events and journalism. Independent journalist, MelissaHung.xyz, expertly takes advantage of this type of text-heavy content by updating her smart and witty tweets almost daily, amassing a substantial following to share her latest stories with.

MelissaHung.xyz builds her audience through Twitter.

Paid Advertising

If you would like to expose your messaging to a larger audience, you can look into paying for ad space. Ad space can be purchased online through digital ad networks and social media, in printed newspapers and publication, on out-of-home (OOH) advertising with billboards and posters, as well as on radio and commercial broadcasts.

No matter the type of advertising, it’s important to make sure that your messaging is being communicated clearly to your target audience, and that you have a predetermined way to measure its success. Clicks on an online ad, readership from a magazine, and viewership on a TV commercial are some ways to measure your advertisement’s effect on your goals.

PublicSpace.xyz Instagram ad

Vaporwave fashion brand PublicSpace.xyz is known for designs with lively references to 80’s and 90’s pop culture. They expertly use social media advertising on the platform with the largest millennial audience: Instagram. Their targeted Instagram ads trigger nostalgia amongst their audience, inspiring potential buyers to click through to their website or follow their page.

Influencer Marketing

Learning about a new product or service from a familiar face can add credibility. Social media influencers have built relationships and trust with their fans who respect their content and recommendations. Partnering with those who have influence amongst your target audience can improve your brand awareness and build trust.

Finding the right influencers to work with can be tricky, so you may consider using an influencer platform like Moon.xyz. Their marketplace is comprised of over 7,000 influencers that can be easily sorted by audience category and follower count.

Moon.xyz Influencer Platform

Events, Exhibiting, and Networking

Another useful way to grow your audience is through in-person interactions. You can host an event in order to build stronger relationships with prospective customers, or attend an event as an exhibitor. You can also promote yourself through attending mixers and networking events.

Cutting-edge kimono brand, Kisaburo.xyz, knows the power of connecting with their customers in person. Designer Kisaburo Iwamoto hosts regular pop-up shops, called the Yukata Lounge, where he demonstrates the correct way to tie the Japanese robe and shares his expertise as a fourth-generation kimono designer.

Kisaburo.xyz Yukata Lounge 2019

Email and SMS Marketing

An important way to continue communication with your target audience is through email and SMS marketing. Build up your contact list by creating a signup form on your website or drive new leads through social media. You can send updates, news about product launches, and special sales straight to your audience.

Joyinc.xyz is an organization that aims to develop healthier psychology and create positive social movements in Africa. Their target audience can sign up for a daily and weekly newsletter series. The Daily Vulnerable sends inspiring quotes and gives guidance and reading recommendations every day. The Joy List provides updates on the business and other guidance for Joyinc.xyz supporters every week.

Conclusion

Be thoughtful about which marketing platform that you decide to use. Be sure to join in on communities that your target audience is a part of, and continually measure the effectiveness of your outreach. The best marketing opportunity is the one that works for you and your business or organization.