Audience Development

Within four years, David Waring and Marc Poser have grown Fit Small Business from nothing to 800,000 monthly visits (1 million page views). They are now well on their way to double this as part of their next milestone goal. How did Fit Small Business grow their audience? Fit Small Business isn’t a typical B2B online publication for small businesses; they began to cater to an underserved niche within that segment: existing small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. “While many publications write for aspiring entrepreneurs or VC-funded companies, there was a lack of resources for owners of companies with 50 or fewer employees,” says Marc Prosser, Publisher, FitSmallBusiness.com. “We strived to be the destination for small business owners to turn to when making decisions in areas where they don’t have expertise. From the start, Marc and David hired writers and researchers who are experts in the following key categories: small business financing, sales, marketing, human resources, office technology, accounting, law, retail, and E-commerce. Fitsmallbusiness.com then used SEO and content marketing practices to consistently write long form, in-depth how-to articles for people who came to them to have a specific question answered. After approximately one year they started to see traffic to their articles and from other referring sites. They then took it to the next level by expanding their team in a horizontal approach where they are trying to answer all the questions that are relevant to a wide variety of different small business. 45 full-time staffers are now apart of this publication, and the team continues to expand. What were Fit Small Business's challenges? Long form and in-depth articles require expertise, finding and hiring the best staff. Fitsmallbuisness.com have addressed this by hiring field experts and then training them into becoming writers, as they have realized that while writing takes a relatively short period to learn, it takes years to acquire the necessary knowledge in developing a small business. Paid social was a lack of focus (and expertise) that could have also brought them to their first milestone sooner than later. Using advanced targeting available through paid social, David Waring, Co-Founder, and Editor-in-Chief, has said that actively engaging with potential customers by marketing content (instead of pushing offers), has now helped them take advantage where others aren’t. Finally, it also took time to devise the optimal revenue streams to achieve the right balance between advertising and user experience. “We don’t bog the business owners down with relentless banner ads since we primarily rely on native text advertising for our revenues,” David Waring adds. What’s next for Fit Small Business? In looking ahead, Fit Small Business is doubling down on what is already working, that meaning continuing to put out content that answers the questions business owners have better than anyone else on the internet. User-generated reviews around individual product and service providers and combining this with more paid social will taking on a new expanding role to attract visitors to engage with new customers. While Inc. and Entrepreneur.com have had a head start and targeting a broader segment, being new entrepreneurs, Fit Small Business believes in the potential of the niche they targeting and will continue to carve this out to reach their 2 million monthly visitor milestone. What do you think about Fit Small Business's efforts so far and it’s ambitions to double their audience? What would you have done differently? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at vahe@stateofdigitalpublishing.com.

Audience Development

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