1. Use Facebook for Business

One of the first steps to establishing your business’ online presence should be setting up pages with the major social media and review platforms. In addition to providing potential clients with a landing page to find out more about your business, Facebook has an incredible wealth of information about its users that any entrepreneur can access through the use of their Audience Insights tool.

With the tool, you’re able to slice and dice the demographic information that Facebook keeps on all of its users. This information is invaluable as you craft your marketing campaign, allowing you to tailor your approach not only to cater to your current customer base, but to attract new clients.

2. Become a Thought Leader

As an entrepreneur, you dedicate some serious time to researching trends in your industry and following relevant news and information outlets. You can bet there are potential customers out there doing the same thing, so why not leverage this existing network of influencers to get your company’s name out there?

If you own a clothing boutique, connect with a prominent fashion blogger and see if they’ll let you guest blog for a day. If you’re in the automotive industry, reach out to someone who runs a car podcast and ask them to invite you on as a guest for an upcoming episode. Connecting your business with thought leaders who your potential customers already trust gives you instant credibility with a whole new audience.

3. Speak Their Language

You may have the greatest product in the world, but if your potential customers never hear about your business, it won’t matter much in the long run. Using language on your website that your customers use when searching for goods or services online is a key component to finding new business, but sometimes their search habits might surprise you. Let’s say you run an amusement park, but your potential customers are searching for “theme park” in their queries. If you’re not aware of this, you’ll continue to inadvertently exclude your business from relevant searches.

Google Keyword Planner allows you to explore search terms that are relevant to your business, and to design your own advertising campaign in a way that’s targeted to how your potential customers search online. The tool is free to use, even if you don’t decide to advertise through Google.

4. Create Partnerships

When your company is new to the scene, it can be valuable to team up with more established brands to get your name out there. But you need to find the right company to partner with, so think strategically about ways your company’s goods or services might overlap with theirs. If you sell tea, reach out to a coffee company or bakery to see if they’d offer a deal where their clients get a sample of your product or a discount code on your website when they make a purchase.

Teaming up with another business allows you to tap into their network of customers. If your brand is truly an unknown, you might need to sweeten the deal by offering the owner of the more established business a commission or to cover any related marketing costs.

5. Focus on Existing Customers

Sometimes the best way to find more customers is to focus on converting one-time customers into repeat clients. If you have someone who’s used your business once in the past, add them to your email list, offer an exclusive first look at new products or offerings, or send them a discount code.

When you can bring a one-time customer back again and again, they’ll be more willing to become a vocal advocate for your brand within their network, introducing you to a new swath of potential clients.

The internet is a big place, and it can be difficult to know where your customers hang out online. But if you’re smart about it, it’s possible to open up your business to a whole new set of customers you would have never been able to reach before the internet age.