Good news. The playing field is level.
It’s no longer true that the company with the most money wins. The bully does not always come out on top. Brand names need not always be the go-to destination of choice. Large corporations do not have an advantage over the social entrepreneur. As wise Solomon of old said, “The race is not always to the swift.”
The little guy has a chance. The solopreneur need not throw up his/her hands in defeat. The social entrepreneur can beat out the “other guy”, make the world a better place, and make money. There’s a simple strategy that will allow the social entrepreneur to gain the visibility for their cause. I cannot promise your cause will succeed. The truth is, I don’t know whether your cause is any good or not. But, I can promise that if you put your head down and apply the following strategy, you can accomplish one of three goals.
- Find your target audience.
- Find out if your cause is any good, or not.
- Find out if your would-be users are a match.
I know this to be true. There once was this grandmother in a blended family (she brought in kids, he brought in kids, and they had a kid of their own) and her retired cop husband who took on several major brands and beat them in the marketplace, at Christmas. Their niche? Making good use of discarded waste = a social cause.
There is empirical proof that the social entrepreneur can determine the viability of their cause if they employ the following strategy.
The Strategy for Social Enterprises
One: Find your story.
Find your story. Determine in clear terms who it is you will serve. How old are they? Where do they live? What industry are they in? What gender are they? What’s their family status? Education? And so on… Next, list their desires? What is it they want? Then, move on to obstacles. Why can they NOT see their desires fulfilled? List up those obstacles as well. Now, articulate the solutions you provide. Tell them why and how you can be their hero. Don’t be shy. If you know the solution — speak up. Write out what happens in your target audience’s’ lives when you solve their problems. How does your solution work? Where can your solution be provided? Think of specific places. Name them. The more specific and clear you are, the better.
Two. Tell the story a lot.
Tell the story a LOT- On your website, or blog, tell the story. How can you fulfill the desires of your customers? How can you overcome obstacles in their lives? How do their lives improve for having known you, used your service, or product? Keep sharing your story. The number one reason someone does business with you today is that you got personal. You thought about your target customer, anticipated their needs and found a specific solution.
Three. Tell the story well.
Tell the story WELL – Search engines are stupid. They cannot make subjective determinations on what is good and what is not. Search engines, however, can count. They can count the number of characters you have in your title, the number of images you have in your blog post, the number of words in your caption, the number of links going to and from and within your article. Get those parameters right when you tell your stories and your readers and the bots will be pleased.
Four. Tell the story often.
Tell the story OFTEN – Check out a competitor’s site. Count how many articles they have and compare that number to how long the site has been around. Example – 365 articles on a site that is a year old. One article/page/day. Do more than that. Update your site more than your competitor and you will outrank them. You will get more visibility. Search engines do simple math well. You should, too.
Five. Keep telling the story. On repeat.
Keep telling the story OVER and OVER. Make no mistake, everybody gets tired. Life gets in the way and people, including your competitor, gets tired and backs off from time to time on their site. When your competitor gets tired, DON’T get tired, and you will beat them.
It is that simple. The social entrepreneur can win … against anybody.
If your site doesn’t have a blog the question is NOT do you need a blog, but why haven’t you started one yet?
Blogs done well will outperform all other sites. The research is in. The data is overwhelming.
Do you have a cause that the world should know about? Will it make the world a better place?
Why aren’t you telling the world about it?
Just yesterday I was asked for the 100 and umpteenth time, “Give me the single most important tip to be found by real people and search engines.”
My reply, “If you want people to find you, give them more reasons (content). Online, more will beat less. The more quality content you have, the more likely it is you will be found.”
My question is, “What are you going to do when they show up? Are you ready?”
This article was written by Bill Belew and originally published in the first edition of Change Creator Magazine.
