While some of us love the idea of using a blog to attract clients, there’s that select few who wish the word never existed.
Really, why do I have to put up content on a webpage every week in the name of attracting clients? It doesn’t even look real.
And I understand. That’s why today, I chose to explore 2 other ways to attract clients without tagging yourself as a blogger.
Blogging requires a ton of patience, attention to detail and the ultimate — longsuffering.
And with the kind of work some of us have to put up with, taking the blog off our backs is a huge deal.
But guess what…
And this is a shocker…
The two methods I’ll explain in this post require similar effort.
You need to put in the work. If you don’t you won’t see any results.
It’s just a simple law of life.
So if you thought I’ll be showing you ways to get clients to fall on to your lap like magic, you’ll be disappointed.
However, these methods also make up parts of a good content marketing strategy.
Here are 2 ways to get clients, without having a domain name to yourself.
1. Build Thought Leadership In Communities
For this point, I’ll use LinkedIn as an example. Yes, LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. According to stats, 1 in every 3 professionals is on LinkedIn.
Even though it’s a social network, it also doubles as a community because of the groups, and their content marketing platform.
But the reason I chose LinkedIn is because if you’re looking for an ecosystem of people actively trying to solve problems or looking for solutions to their problems, it’s LinkedIn.
With a social network of almost 300 million users, how do you build thought leadership?
Josh Turner, founder of LinkedSelling helps professionals generate leads from LinkedIn. He has helped some of the top people in industry like Neil Patel of QuickSprout. I’ll be taking a few cues from his marketing course so you know the basics.
- Build an awesome profile. I don’t think I need to stress on this point. Build a profile that would attract clients to you.
- Connect with the right people. Just because LinkedIn is a hub for professionals doesn’t mean you should connect with every one of them. Why? Because you want to make sure that the updates you make on LinkedIn get in front of the right people.
So who should you connect with? Your target clients. People you don’t mind working with. People in your industry.
- Join the right groups. If you’re a designer looking to get business owners as clients, you should spend more time in entrepreneurship groups than design groups.
- Contribute value. This is a no brainer. And this is where the work is too. The rules of blogging also apply here. You have to be consistent in what you say. You have to develop a unique voice. You have to help the group members solve their problems. But ensure that in all your contributions, lead back to the sale. Talk about what you do and how people can benefit from it…in a non-salesy way of course or else you’ll get banned.
- Use LinkedIn’s content marketing platform. A couple of years ago, Pulse was opened up to the general LinkedIn audience. Now, for people who are more active on that platform than anywhere else, the ability to publish posts and share with your network has become priceless.
People who also blog have taken advantage of the platform as a content syndication method. This way even if you have a blog, you can republish your posts on the platform freely. That exposes it to another audience.
2. Be A Problem Solver In Forums
Quora has become one of the biggest forums on the internet. I’ve been on it for a pretty long time, but I must confess, I haven’t been active at all.
While LinkedIn happens to be the social network for professionals, Quora is a forum for the same category of people.
With over 500,000 users (as of January 2011), it’s no wonder that even some of the top people in industry are on this forum.
And with the ton of questions people ask daily, I believe proving your problem solving abilities should be easy here.
Bamidele Onibalusi stated on his blog about someone who got two client offers on Quora. As a freelance writer, providing answers to questions in that area seems like the right thing to do.
Now imagine if you did that consistently…
The same rules for LinkedIn apply on Quora as well.
You need to have a good, attractive profile. Also connect with the right people. On Quora, the word isn’t connect but you can follow specific people in your industry. While Quora doesn’t have groups, you also have the ability to follow specific kinds of questions. The good thing about this is that when you consistently provide answers to specific set of questions in your industry, people notice.
Contribute value. You could start up your own discussions, invite people to contribute to it (that’s another cool feature on Quora too) and get people involved.
But as always, put your service at the front and centre. Hint on your creative service. Ensure your tagline screams I’m a professional. That should get you started.
While it seems as if I’ve removed blogging from the picture, you’ll realize that these two methods are similar. It’s all still content marketing — sharing valuable knowledge to build an audience for your business.
Thought leadership on LinkedIn and problem solving on Quora are two methods I plan on integrating with my overall strategy. They’re promising and with the results others have gotten through them, they’re worth exploring.
So if you’re not on LinkedIn or Quora, go sign up. That’s the next step I want you to take. But if you are, go work on your profile. Then build the momentum. Let me know how that goes for you.