Kristen Doyle 0:01
One of the hardest things to do in online business is also one of the most important, and that is building an audience. And here’s the thing, building an audience is not just for total newbies. Maybe you’ve been in business for a long time, but you’re pivoting to serve a new audience, or maybe you want to add a whole new segment to your existing business.
0:26
Either way, building the right audience plays a huge role in how successful your business is, and that is what today’s episode is all about.
0:36
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place.
0:52
Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
1:16
Hey there! Building a new audience from scratch, even while maintaining an existing one is actually something I have done multiple times in my own business, and it’s something I get asked about a lot. So today I’m going to walk you through exactly what I would do if I were starting to build a new audience right now.
1:35
Before we get into the strategy that I would use, let’s talk about what not to do, because I see the same mistakes over and over, and it all comes down to that old saying about throwing spaghetti at the wall. You know what I’m talking about, throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks?
1:53
Well, a lot of people, when they are trying to build a new audience, they start just throwing everything out there, trying to be everywhere, all at once. They’re posting on Instagram, they’re creating tiktoks, they’re starting a YouTube channel, they’re writing blog posts, and none of it really sticks when you are spread super thin.
2:12
So there are two problems with this throw it all out there and just see what happens approach. First of all, it is random. It is not planned out, and there’s not a strategy behind it, and that can feel pretty chaotic for you, but also for your audience who’s trying to follow along.
2:29
But the other problem is that it can be overwhelming for you to try to do so many things at one time, and that can lead straight to burnout, especially if you feel like you aren’t getting results from the work you’re putting in. Something else that nobody really talks about when it comes to throwing spaghetti at the wall, is that unlike actual spaghetti, the problem is that most people don’t wait long enough with the strategies they’re trying to see if anything actually sticks.
2:56
They try something for a week or two. If it’s not giving amazing results, they switch gears without really giving it enough time to take off. It’s really important that you set some realistic expectations for how long it’s going to take to build a new audience. Whether this is a brand new first audience for a new business, or you’re adding a new audience to an existing business, either way, building an audience takes time, and we’re talking months, not weeks or days, especially if you’re trying to do this organically, meaning you’re not using paid ads to grow your audience.
3:31
So it’s really important as you start to build your audience, that you are being consistent and that you’re giving your strategies enough time to start working. Another thing to keep in mind is that quality of your audience members is a lot more important than quantity. In fact, having 100 Perfect Fit followers for your business is so much better than 1000 random ones who aren’t perfect.
4:00
It’s really important that when you are building your audience, you are actively trying to attract people who will actually want to buy your paid products. Sometimes, in our efforts to just grow our audience as much as possible, as fast as possible, what we end up doing is building a giant audience full of maybe people who only want our freebies and aren’t willing to purchase anything.
4:25
Or even just people who aren’t the right fit for our freebies or our paid products, but maybe they liked a Tiktok that we made, or they thought our Instagram reel was funny. So you really want to focus on trying to attract people who are actually going to want to purchase the things that you’re trying to sell them.
4:43
Okay, now that we know what not to do, let’s talk about what actually works. If I were starting to build a new audience tomorrow, here is exactly what I would do. The very first thing I would do before I created a single piece of content for this new audience is some serious audience research. And I don’t mean just creating some ideal customer avatars based on what you think you already know.
5:06
I mean really digging in and getting to know this new group of people that you want to serve. One great place to do that is to look in Facebook groups or other Online Communities that these people might be hanging out in and paying attention to what’s going on in there, joining those groups with the goal of learning about people, of being helpful, so that you’re building a positive reputation in those groups as someone who knows your stuff and is willing to help other people, but not as a place to start selling anything just yet.
5:41
First of all, it’s pretty sketchy to start trying to sell your products or services in someone else’s Facebook group. But also, you just don’t want to be that person who comes in and immediately starts trying to sell without ever serving. So show up in those Facebook groups, but use them primarily for audience research and just to build a reputation at someone who’s helpful.
6:02
Use those groups to find out where people are hanging out online when they share content to the group. Is it coming from Tiktok? Is it Instagram reels? Do they share Facebook posts? Are they sharing blog posts? Find out where they are hanging out online, and that can also help you understand what kind of content they prefer. Are they reading or are they watching videos, or are they listening to podcasts?
6:26
You can also use those groups to pay attention to the kinds of questions people are asking so that you can figure out what kind of problems they’re trying to solve, and make sure that your offers are addressing those problems as well. And don’t just limit yourself to free Facebook groups. I have found some of my best audience insights and connections that I’ve been able to make have actually come from paid communities.
6:51
Now that might be a mastermind group that you have to pay to join, or coaching program or some other type of membership community. In those groups, you might find customers, since paid groups tend to be filled with people who are serious about whatever topic, and they’ve shown that they’re willing to spend the money to join this group. So you know that they’re not just freebie seekers. But the other thing that you might find in those groups is some really great people to potentially collaborate with in the future.
7:20
So if you are looking for guests to come on your podcast or your YouTube channel, or you are looking for someone who might refer clients or customers over to you, those are some great places to find those as well. Once you really understand your audience, then it is time to create something free that they actually want. But here’s the key, and this might be different from how you’ve thought about your freebies before.
7:47
Your freebie needs to be super specific. You want to make sure that it attracts your ideal audience, but only your ideal audience. See, what you don’t want to do is create a freebie that is so great but also so broad and applicable to so many people that it attracts people who really aren’t ideal for purchasing your products or your services.
8:12
So let’s talk about some examples of the types of freebies you might want to create. If you are a teacher and you’re thinking about creating something like a lesson plan template as a freebie. Well, if you create a generic lesson plan template, literally any teacher in any grade level or any subject could use it. But if you only want to attract high school science teachers, then filling your audience or your email list up with any teacher who wanted that lesson plan template really isn’t going to help you.
8:45
In fact, it’s going to be a disservice to your list, and it might end up costing you money in the long term, because those email lists typically charge per person who’s on your list. So you really don’t want to fill up your list with people who aren’t interested in your offers, even if you’re on one of the handful of platforms that charges a flat rate and not per audience member.
9:05
You really don’t want people who aren’t interested in your offers on your list, because that will drive down your open rates and your click through rates, it can eventually hurt your deliverability for your emails. So you want to make sure you’re filling your list with the right people.
9:19
So if you are that high school science teacher, and that is the group of people you want to attract to your email list and to your audience, then create a freebie that is a lesson plan template specific to high school science lessons. There would be things you include in those that say an elementary teacher wouldn’t want to include, or things you might include as a science teacher that a math teacher or a reading teacher wouldn’t include.
9:45
So make your freebie more specific. Another example, let’s say you are a service provider or a course creator who wants to help online business owners with their finances. Well, instead of creating an freebie for your email opt-in that is a generic maybe a to do list or a planning template, a day planner for business owners, create a checklist specific to business finances, or create a business budget worksheet. Something that is specific to the services, courses, products that you offer to your target audience.
10:22
That will help you to build an audience full of people who want only what you’re going to offer. I have another episode that I did a couple of years ago specifically about freebie creation and how to create the right freebie to attract your ideal audience. So if this is something you would like a little more help with, check out Episode 22 of the podcast. You can find it at the link in the show notes, or you can go to Kristendoyle.co/episode22.
10:50
Now, once you’ve created your freebie, you are going to need to get your freebie out there. I am a web designer, so of course, the first thing I’m going to tell you is put it on your website, use your email platform to create a really nice pop up. My recommendation for that is that you do an exit intent pop up. These are going to pop up only once someone is finished reading your page and they go to hit the back button or close their browser window.
11:15
Make sure your opt in. Is there visible and prominent on your website. I would put it on your homepage as well as putting a pop up across every page of your site. But beyond that, you want to be sharing it in places off of your website as well, because if you haven’t built an audience yet, chances are you’re not getting a ton of website traffic, at least not from this particular audience.
11:37
So there are three places I would encourage you to share your freebie. The first one is to put those opt ins on Pinterest. Create lots of different images, different descriptions, and put your landing page for your freebie on Pinterest, on relevant Pinterest boards, share them out on a somewhat regular basis, and try to get them to build some traction there.
12:01
If you have social media of any kind on any platform, definitely share your freebie there on a regular basis. Don’t just share it once and walk away. Make it a goal to share that freebie at least once a month on your social media, if not more. You can make videos about the freebie. You can create static image posts about the freebie, lots of different things that you can do, depending on whether you are posting on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, or anywhere else.
12:28
And then the last strategy is one that costs you a little money, but it doesn’t have to be very expensive. I really do recommend running some low cost ads on Facebook and Instagram to build up some interest and start getting people onto your email list.
12:45
These can get started as low as $5 or $10 a day, and can bring in the right people, especially if you are targeting your audience for those ads, to the exact group of people that you want to get into your personal audience and onto your email list.
13:02
All right, so you’ve done your research. You’ve created your freebie. Now let’s talk about what comes next. As you are working on building this audience, you are going to continue creating the same types of content that you’ve been creating all along for your business, whether those are blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, Facebook Lives, whatever it might be.
13:23
But when it comes to that content, it is important as you are working on this new audience, that you make the content you’re creating relevant to and maybe even focused on that new audience during this audience building phase. There’s a couple of reasons that you want to do this. First of all, you’ll be sharing that new content on your social media and to your email list. So as those new people are coming in, you want to make sure that what they’re seeing on your pages is relevant and related to the reason they got on your list in the first place.
13:58
So for example, if you’ve always had a teacher audience, and now you’re trying to reach parents of students the same age. If the only thing people see when they come to your website is teacher focused content, or when they look at your social media is teacher focused content, then they might get a little confused, or think that maybe you’re not really creating content for them.
14:19
So you want to make sure that your social media followers that you might get from this audience building phase, your email list subscribers and your website visitors are seeing relevant content to them. Keep up the same rhythm of creating content that you’ve had all along, whether that’s weekly, bi weekly, or something else, continue keeping up that same rhythm of putting out consistent content, but shift your focus on that content to that new audience that you’re trying to reach.
14:47
Even if it’s just temporary, and at some point down the road, maybe you start alternating that content so that your old audience is still seeing relevant content from you as well. And definitely take a little while to focus on putting out content for the new audience.
15:02
Now, if you are a more established business, I do want to share what I’m going to call a power move for you. If you are in a place where you can create and run more ads, you might want to consider creating some educational video ads to reach that new audience.
15:18
Some of the things that you might be talking about in those blog posts or podcast episodes, you could create a little bit longer ad, maybe it’s five minutes, and really teach something super helpful in that video. If you can get a person to watch more than 25% or so of a five minute video about your topic, they are telling you something really important.
15:40
What they are telling you is they like you enough to stick around and listen to you keep talking, and they are interested enough in this topic to spend their time on it. If somebody will spend more than a minute listening to you ramble on about your topic, then they’re a great fit for your audience.
16:00
Once you’ve had those video ads running for a while, you can then take the video view data from those ads and you can use it to create warm audiences, meaning audiences of people who’ve already shown an interest in you and what you offer, and you can run additional ads to those warm audiences.
16:19
Now I’m not going to go into all the details right now, because this episode would get really long and technical if I did, but if you need some tips or direction on how to do that sort of thing, let me know, and I’ll be glad to point you in the right direction to some resources that can help.
16:35
All right, now that we’ve talked about it in big picture, let’s break this down into some actionable steps. If you are working on building a new audience, here is what I would encourage you to do this week. Today, pick one platform where your ideal audience hangs out, that you are going to put your focus on, and then at some point this week, start doing some audience research, gathering that Intel, getting to know them, and figuring out how you can best reach that audience and serve them.
17:08
And then your next step to work on, maybe starting next week, would be to plan out and create that perfect freebie. Here’s how you’ll know that you are on track. You’ll want to watch your numbers, watch your data. Look for your follower numbers to be growing, even if it’s not huge growth, slow and steady growth is just as good.
17:33
Watch for your follower numbers on social media to grow. Check Google analytics to see if your page traffic to your website is growing. Another thing you can look at in your Google Analytics would be the traffic to that new content that’s for the new audience to make sure that you are attracting people who want to see this newest content you’re putting out.
17:56
That gives you a sign that you’re attracting the right people to this audience if they’re engaging with the new content. Keep in mind, building this audience is not something that’s going to happen overnight. It’s going to take, like I said earlier, months, not days or weeks. And it’s not always about getting the most followers or subscribers either.
18:15
It really is about connecting with the right people who actually want to buy the things that you are selling. So start with these steps that I outlined today and focus in on building a quality audience over quantity, even if that means that the audience building process is going a little slower for you.
18:34
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. If this has been helpful for you and you know someone else who’s working to build their audience, then screenshot today’s episode and share it with them. Talk to you soon.
