If you’ve got a business you’re trying to grow, and I know you do or you wouldn’t be watching this now, then the odds are good that you could benefit from having a bigger audience.
Because a bigger audience means a bigger impact, and a bigger impact tends to lead to a bigger income.
And who doesn’t want that?
Which is why in today’s article, we’re covering a 5 step strategy to grow your audience so you can grow your income, impact, and influence.
Before we dive into the 5 step strategy, we need to cover something vitally important both to your business, and to your sanity.
You see, despite what you may see when checking out the profiles or websites of celebrities, athletes, fortunate 500 companies, or even some of the larger competitors in your space, you don’t need a massive audience of millions, hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, to build a solid 6 or 7 figure company.
So if you’re just starting from scratch, or even if you’ve been at this game for a while and still aren’t seeing the numbers you want, don’t be discouraged.
By going through the following 5 steps and focusing on building a core audience of loyal and interested people, you really can’t go too far wrong.
So let’s get to them!
Step #1: Give Without Expecting Something Back
The first step in growing your audience is to be seen as a Giver by your industry.
Not a giver who expects something back –those people are called Traders – but rather a giver who gives freely with no expectation of return, or reciprocity.
When your focus is on giving, serving, and providing value you become an audience magnet and will start to naturally attract more people to your brand and business.
You also become a lot easier to refer, share, and to pass your name along, which will only further fuel your audience growth.
Step #2: Give Consistently
Like all things in business, marketing, and life to a certain extent, consistency is key. This is because it takes time and consistent effort to build up a loyal, large, or highly engaged audience.
Growing your audience isn’t a one-and-done type of deal but rather a long term strategy that will come as the result of consistently providing value, proving to your market that you really do have their back, and showing up every day willing to do a little bit more.
Growing your audience is a marathon, not a sprint, and nothing destroys trust or damages your following like starting to give and then disappearing off the face of the planet after only a month or two.
Step #3: Give Something People Actually Want
Giving something people actually want sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how many businesses totally miss the mark on this one.
The best way to avoid this is to:
- Ask your audience how you can best help them, or what information they want most
- Test this by creating a short blog post, video, lead magnet, or podcast, and seeing if anyone responds. The last thing you want to do is spend time, money, and energy creating something to give away that nobody even wants.
Step #4: Give To The Right People
As I mentioned at the beginning, you don’t need an audience of millions to build a really solid business. In fact, in most cases you’re far better off ignoring the masses in favor of a smaller tribe.
When you narrow down your targeting and who it is you’re trying to reach, it allows you to really focus on serving a smaller portion of the population which means you’ll be able to dial in your message a whole lot better and really connect with your audience on their level.
Not only that, but it’s also a whole lot less expensive and far more effective, as you can target, retarget, and then retarget some more for pennies on the dollar.
Step #5: Make It Easy To Take The Next Step
This last step has less to do with growing your audience and more to do with what to actually do once you have an audience. Which is pretty important, and where so many entrepreneurs leave a lot of money on the table. And that’s the reason we need to talk about it now.
The key here is to focus on strategy and begin with the end in mind right from the very first moment you begin building an audience.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What action do I want my followers to take?
- What stage of my marketing funnel are people joining?
- Is it clear and easy for them to take the next step to do business with me?
When you’re clear about your products or services, the value you provide, and how you can best help people, it makes it a lot easier, and more profitable, to not only grow a larger audience, but also better serve and therefore profit from the audience you grow.
