How to Get Started with Marketing as a Solopreneur

The following is adapted from The Aspiring Solopreneur: Your Business Startup Bible.

When it comes to marketing yourself as a solopreneur, you want to get your business name and service in front of the people who will value your product or service. The right marketing will drive the right clientele. Depending on the situation, some of your best marketing may be to attend networking events, or to speak with people directly on the phone or in person. Whatever endeavors you proceed with, make sure you spend your time, energy, and focus asking, “What do I need to do to drive sales?”

It’s easy to become overexcited about the wrong marketing. Many solopreneurs get wrapped around the axle creating a logo, letterhead, and a great website before they’re even clear on what their clients want. This is often insecurity or ego-based and instead they could have gone online, purchased a good quality logo for $300, and made a hundred phone calls in the same time they wasted on a logo.

This is a prime example of needing to put on your manager hat and block out your time to focus on what you need to do first and foremost. You need to define the activities that give you the most bang for your time/buck and drive business development.

So, how do you get started with marketing that actually drives sales? The first step is figuring out your audience. Past that, here are some pointers to get you started.

Cover the Basics First

Once you know your audience, it’s time to come up with a brand. You’ll need a basic name and logo, a domain name (or URL), and a simple website. Spend an hour or two on the logo. Anything more than that is likely better spent making calls with people who can result in real-life sales. You can always rework and improve your logo in the future if needed. (The exception to this is if your business is creating logos, in which case your logo had better be damn good!) Once you have a first draft, ask potential clients for feedback and get their thoughts, use it as an excuse to get in front of them.

If you’re a tech company or plan to conduct your business online, you should invest in a decent website. Include basic messaging, contact info, and anything needed to display your competency. Less is more, but that bare minimum needs to be high quality.

You’re ready to move into marketing and advertising once you have a brand. I consider advertising to be a potential part of marketing. If you are a professional, LinkedIn ads may be a great place to start for your industry. These ads can be focused and specific.

If you plan on going to networking functions, trade shows, and trade associations where you meet people face-to-face, you may need business cards. If you don’t like to attend these functions, if your target clients don’t attend these functions, or if your industry doesn’t use cards, don’t waste time or money purchasing them.

Work Within Your Budget

The simplest, and I believe most effective way, to market and develop your business is simply finding a way to get yourself in front of the right people and start talking to them. Once you have a small client base, and you’ve determined the itch you’re scratching, you can begin to build a business development budget.

Start by looking at your cost of acquisition, which is the amount spent in marketing and business development dollars to bring in a new client, and the lifetime value of a client. Don’t limit your ideas to traditional advertising. Maybe your target clients happen to be members of the same country club, and so the cost of acquisition of three new clients would be worth a membership to that same club.

I knew an attorney who chose to leave his large firm and create his own private practice in general law. He knew he had to figure out where the clients he wanted hung out. It seemed that most of them played golf, and he liked to golf, so he decided to join a country club and play three times a week with people he didn’t know.

He would call the pro shop and say, “I’m a single and I’m looking to join a twosome or threesome.” Once they got on the course, he now had three full hours to simply chat with two or three other golfers in a stress-free, recreational environment. He didn’t sell them, rather he got to know them. Eventually they would ask what he did for a living and a conversation would result. He built his entire practice within a couple of years.

Start Small with Social Media

I used to own a company that handled content marketing and managed daily social media for clients all over the world. I had a wealth of writers, social managers, and strategists on staff. Based on this expertise, I’d advise most solopreneurs that if your target market is on social media, focus on one or two platforms only and do them extremely well. Avoid the rest. By that, I mean don’t even create an account!

It’s easy to set up Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts and then do nothing with them. This can be counterproductive and even harm your business if you’re not staying on top of social media engagement and complaints. Whatever you start with, you must stay consistently engaged and have a business-focused strategy.

If you naturally love Twitter, spend time on Twitter. If you happen to enjoy connecting with people on LinkedIn, spend a little time to learn it well and use it. If you sell a visual product, join Instagram and Pinterest. As with all marketing, meet your clients where they spend their time—online and off. Realistically, are you going to sell specially subcontracted engineering on Facebook or Pinterest? Probably not.

It’s important that you know your tribe, where they live, and what matters to them. If you aren’t on a particular platform, there’s a good chance potential clients aren’t either. But if you sell jewelry online, absolutely set up an Etsy account and use Pinterest and Instagram to showcase your images and influencers wearing your products.

Pro Tip: Stay On Top of Your Accounts

As mentioned above, you need to stay on top of every social media account you create. I speak from experience, having gotten clobbered in this area before. Your business and reputation can suffer if you don’t check accounts regularly and respond to them.

Schedule an hour bi-monthly in your calendar to check social platforms. People do read online reviews, and you don’t want a negative comment to sit like a red flag, driving away business. Search your name on Google at least once a month to see if reviews have been written about you. If they are positive, use them in your marketing!

If they are negative, make sure to address them. In many cases you can’t change any comments, but you can ask your tribe and existing clients to go out and provide positive feedback or comments that will push a negative comment further down the list.

You can also balance or bury bad reviews by asking clients to post positive reviews. There’s nothing wrong with sending a steady, happy client a request for a review.

Build a Community

It’s important to begin reaching out and building your network and your community from the early stages. Staying top of mind is one of the reasons I send out a weekly blog post and a weekly newsletter. It’s a weekly tap on the shoulder to remind somebody, Oh, yeah, that’s what Kris does. He helped me with that. Remember to always include a call to action to encourage further interaction, such as, “Call Now For …”

A mortgage broker I know found it highly effective to mail out postcards each month. They were printed with sporting-event calendars, seasonal tips, recipes, and were the kind of thing you might think would be frequently thrown away. Some were tossed, but a lot were tacked on clients’ refrigerators so that everyone who came over saw them.

The postcard served as a constant tap on the shoulder that this person was a trusted advisor who had provided their mortgage, and when they needed a new mortgage, or someone asked for a referral for a mortgage professional, that’s most likely the person they contacted first. People can forget who helped them with a professional service, but they are reminded with newsletters, postcards, Facebook posts, and so on.

If you do choose to engage on social media, there are a variety of online software tools that can help you, such as Hootsuite. They can be affordable social media networking tools that can help you publish campaigns, monitor interactions, and schedule posts ahead of time. This way you appear engaged and to be regularly producing content.

Be careful when signing up for anything you won’t be personally involved in, such as free Twitter services. People who choose to engage with you will be able to quickly tell if your feed is automated, and your online image will suffer as a result.

Thought Leadership

If you are in an industry where your thought leadership and this thinking will be valued by others, having quality content can be a differentiator. Thought leadership involves two components: you have something to say and you have a network to say it to.

For example, I keep a list of potential blog topics to write that are pertinent and of value to my audience. I write them and distribute them to my audience via a weekly email newsletter, on LinkedIn, and across my social media accounts. The information is broadcast to my followers and hopefully they choose to share the content. Ideally, the combined body of work ends up creating value for people, showing me as an expert in my space, and helping to keep the services I offer top of mind.

Maintain the Right Focus

With these tips in mind, you’ll be well equipped to get started with your own marketing efforts. As you move forward, remember to implement marketing efforts that make sense and work within your budget. Also, make sure your marketing is focused on the itch you’re scratching. Business development is what really matters!

For more advice on marketing as a solopreneur, you can find The Aspiring Solopreneur: Your Business Startup Bible on Amazon.

Kris Kluver is a seasoned solopreneur who started his first company at age nineteen in Omaha, Nebraska. Since then, he has been directly involved in the creation, operation, growth, and occasional sale of more than twenty successful businesses ranging from commercial real estate development and management to content marketing and daily social media operations. A former business broker and mentor, Kris has seen the inner workings of hundreds of businesses, some good, some ugly, all interesting. Through his many experiences he has gained a unique understanding, appreciation, and love of solopreneurship.