Tips for growing your audience
Mar 5th 2019
Growing an audience is arguably one of the most challenging things when starting your business.
Build it and they will come, is a lie. Well for the most part. 🤔
In this article, I'll share some lessons I've learned along the way selling digital content across multiple projects; CG Cookie, Blender Market and now Mavenseed. Granted, being a part of an awesome team along the way helps. 😎🍪
Understanding who are you trying to help
When you think of your business, it's normal to imagine the hundreds, if not thousands of people logging into your site, supporting you and if you're lucky giving you money for it.
I'd encourage you to instead think of that one person you can help. Like a real person. Are they a neighbor, family member or friend?
Focus on helping one person succeed using your widget. In doing so you will scale appropriately while absorbing critical feedback if your widget is providing value.
If you're successful, that person will become your cheerleader, and you'll have confidence to find another person. <-- Repeat this cycle over and over...
I'd encourage you to instead think of that one person you can help. Like a real person. Are they a neighbor, family member or friend?
Focus on helping one person succeed using your widget. In doing so you will scale appropriately while absorbing critical feedback if your widget is providing value.
If you're successful, that person will become your cheerleader, and you'll have confidence to find another person. <-- Repeat this cycle over and over...
Share your experiences and knowledge
While this may seem counter-intuitive when starting an online training business, it is the one thing you MUST do to gain trust, establishing you as an authority on the subject.
It's sort of like an Aunt or Uncle constantly bringing over those warm tasty Cinnamon rolls. Those gooey, warm flakey things which are quickly consumed. Now imagine if they opened up a Cinnamon roll shop, would you buy them, or recommend others to go check it out?
Sharing bit-size nuggets from your brain will go a long way when building your audience.
Build a plan to how you're going to do it, THEN DO IT.
It's nice to set a lofty goal to gain 10,000 followers, or Newsletter subscribers. But how will you get there?
After creating your goal, begin walking it backwards to today. Ask, "If I wanted to have 10,000 new newsletter subscribers by the end of the year, what would I have to do? ".
This will get your brain working on the challenge. You'll start to realize that you'll need to gain around 28 new followers per day to achieve this. This is likely not going to happen to you just putting the goal idea out there.
Start breaking it down tasks you'd need to do per month, and finally what is something you could do today to get your closer to this goal?
After creating your goal, begin walking it backwards to today. Ask, "If I wanted to have 10,000 new newsletter subscribers by the end of the year, what would I have to do? ".
This will get your brain working on the challenge. You'll start to realize that you'll need to gain around 28 new followers per day to achieve this. This is likely not going to happen to you just putting the goal idea out there.
Start breaking it down tasks you'd need to do per month, and finally what is something you could do today to get your closer to this goal?
Example things to do:
- Get busy drafting 50 or so tips, renders or bit-size knowledge to share out weekly,
- Research influencers in your industry, connect with them to see if they'd be interested in cross promotions,
- Create a launch page, offering a digital PDF guide in exchange for a newsletter email signup,
- Connect with your local library to offer a free workshop to those that may be interested in learning what you know,
- Build up a daily plan, write it down on paper the night before of things you can do each day to get you closer to the goal,
- Publish your Mavenseed content on the Mavenfeed. A global feed showcasing all the published content on Mavenseed.
In the end, avoid sharing empty content.
The internet can sniff this out, don't do it. Be honest, real and speak from your ❤️ when sharing your content. If it's a single tweet to a long form blog post, they both should provide value.