Getting the word out about your business is always a challenge – particularly at the very beginning. And with limited budgets to play with, small business owners have to make sure they’re getting plenty of bang for their buck when it comes to marketing their brand.

When Mohamed El Idrissi set up his environmentally conscious grocery e-commerce business Ümain, he knew that he would have to create as much awareness as possible to give it the best chance of success.

Ümain, which won the France People’s Choice Award in the 2021 FedEx Small Business Grant contest, sells organic and ethically produced groceries, including packaged foods, toiletries and household goods. It also offers customers a subscription model, where they can pay an annual fee to access discounts of up to 50%.

Here, he shares his advice for getting the word out and creating excitement about your business.

Lesson one

Bringing Ümain’s e-commerce store to life was a lengthy process, which involved finding the right mix of products and building relationships with brands and distributors. However, El Idrissi also used the time to start building a community around the business. He started posting on Ümain’s social media in spring 2020 – more than a year before the e-commerce store launched in late 2021.

His advice to business owners? “Test [your ideas] with the community, because that is the best way to understand if you are really answering their needs,” he says. Whether it’s launching a new product or marketing the business on a new platform, don’t wait until everything is perfect before getting started, he says.

Instead, try things out with your audience early on and listen to their feedback. “It’s better to stick to what the community is telling you than to force an idea that is not going to work. A brand is not something that is static – it’s something that grows and you need the feedback to understand [if you’re getting it right].”

Whatever market you’re in, speaking to your target audience early on can help you build brand recognition and anticipation at the same time as providing crucial feedback to help you refine your idea.

Lesson two

All the products sold on Ümain have health benefits, are good for the environment and offer a great experience, El Idrissi says. But there’s one more important factor he looks for when deciding which brands to stock, which helps to keep growing the audience.

“When we started, because we were not known in the market, we had to try and make some noise. So, we selected brands that already had a community on social media,” he explains.

As well as being strategic about which brands to work with, El Idrissi also ran social media competitions to build a following for Ümain – for example, offering users the chance to win products from a popular sustainable brand in exchange for following both Ümain’s and the brand’s accounts.

“That was our way to make ourselves visible. It allowed us to build our own community on social media and now we have reached about 100,000 people in total,” he says. The added benefit? El Idrissi estimates that 98% of this audience growth has been organic, saving on costly advertising.

Working in partnership with established businesses could be a smart way to gain followers quickly while also building credibility with your target market. Plus, it could provide further insight into what performs well with this audience.

Lesson three

A large social media community doesn’t necessarily mean booming sales. So as the launch of Ümain’s e-commerce store grew closer, El Idrissi had to consider how to turn the brand’s followers into paying customers.

He used the opportunity to build awareness of Ümain’s subscription model. For an annual fee, customers can access discounts and save around five times the upfront costs throughout the year, depending on what they buy, he explains.

He published a simple form online to show customers how much money they could save on their groceries over a year with Ümain’s discount subscription. “We wanted people to actually see the benefit of using our website,” El Idrissi explains. “People answered some questions like, ‘how many times do you buy your groceries online?’ or ‘do you expect to buy more of these kinds of things?’. And the answers helped us to define how much the potential consumers could save.”

This also allowed El Idrissi to collect customer email addresses, which enabled him to send emails promoting the subscription to potential customers ahead of launch. That marketing helped to build further excitement and encouraged a small proportion to sign up, ensuring Ümain had some committed customers – and some revenue – once it officially launched.

Finding creative ways to connect with your audience and show the tangible benefits you offer could help convert followers into paying customers.