Or alternately titled:
Keeping your business in front of prospective clients
Do your prospective new clients / potential to-repeat clients remember you?
Maybe its been a while since the season, or you’ve had something to ‘say’.
But you need a way to keep yourself in the mind of potential clients (or potential repeat clients) so that when that urge to go fishing hits again, you’re at the top of their mental list.
One way to keep yourself at the forefront of their minds is to be regularly out and about on social media, the internet in general and in the magazines.
But it’s not always that easy, when its the off season so you have nothing to blog or social media share about, or when you don’t have the budge to advertise.
Well why not try some of these ideas to get yourself and your business out there?!
- Share a fishing tip. I mean, that is what you do right? Duh! 😉
- Throw back Thursday (hashag) #tbt is the perfect opportunity to dig up one of your best pics from the past and have people admire it.
- Share someone else’s content (key word share. Not take.) Using appropriate share tools of course.
- Share a look behind the scenes… gearing up for…, boat spring clean, annual out of water lift.
- Answer a question. Do you have something that people commonly ask you when communicating about your services? Why not answer it on your blog, website as an FAQ or/and with your social media. I’ve written plenty of ‘a typical day on board…’ entries and find them very useful tools when responding to enquiries as well!
- Ask a question. Off the top of my head, a great question for our industry would be “what’s your favourite fish to fish for, and why?” Why not share a pic of your favourite catch and ask your followers to share the same.
- Share a rave review.
- Lead with a joke?
- Share a shout-out to a service provider who did a great job for you recently.
- Write a press release announcing a new charter option or vessel, or even how a government proposal will affect the industry etc etc. Submit to the fishing magazines, fishing websites and your local newspapers (local news are always looking for local stories). If it doesn’t get picked up, you can always run it on your own site!
Just remember that the significant difference between a press release and an ‘ad’, is a press release is not supposed to be a sales pitch, it’s about telling a story.
No post would be complete without tips of what not to do however. Right?
Question: What not to do?
Answer: Negativity. Of. Any. Kind.
As an aside: I saw an awesome post from Sydney Flyfishing’s Justin Duggin a couple of days ago. As you might know, Sydney and the rest of Central NSW has copped a flogging this week with what would essentially be a mini-cyclone in the north. Instead of complaining about the weather and cancelled trips, Justin rallied his local clients for some ‘dry’ (or not so dry!) land fly casting classes instead.
Learn how to cast in the wind, he said. Windy it sure is!
Anyways, a fantastic idea!