Audience, Audience, Audience: Proven Tactics For How To Grow Yours

Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the importance of building an audience for business success.

So if you need some actionable insights to help you grow your audience, then this is the episode for you!

 
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

The key to building trust and a loyal following in any industry
Practical ways to retain your audience and keep them engaged
Strategies to transition followers to an email list


 

I want every business owner to hear today's episode, because if you do nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful.

So please share this week's episode with all of your business friends!

 
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

 
Transcript
How are you doing? So recently I've been in some quite short and sharp episodes, which I'm doing because sometimes these things don't need me to talk a long time about it. And sometimes you just need a reminder of some of these things.

And also I mentioned last week that I've decided to bring back interviews. There was a good reason why I stopped them. And, and I will talk about this maybe when, I bring the interviews back, but I, you know, stop them because it didn't fit with the business anymore. And I've decided to start them again because I've had a little rest and actually now I'm ready to have some conversations with people again.

And it just means that I, if I don't interview people, I can't talk about things proficiently about things I don't know. So let's take Facebook ads. I do know Facebook ads, but I am not an expert in it by all means. So if I get a Facebook ads expert on, they can talk about it and you can get a lot more decent content from them.

So I've had fun having some episodes on my own, but now I'm ready for guests. So they will be coming soon, but until then, we're going to be doing some short, sharp, quick episodes that you can listen to on the fly. So today. I want every business owner to hear this. Okay. So if you know anybody, if you have any business friends, you need to get them to listen to today's episode, because this is the one thing that if you did nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful.

And today we are talking about building an audience. Now I know I've done lots of episodes on different audience buildings and why you need them and things like that. But actually I was having a discussion the other day and everything comes down to audience, everything. Now, even if you have a high end service that you don't need many clients for, you still need an audience for that service.

If you have an online business, that is the absolute key and audience is crucial and trying to sell something when you don't have an audience is impossible. And I know there are lots of experts out there who give examples and case studies of they only had a list of this size or they only had X amount of following on social media and they sold X amount.

That is not the norm. That is not what happens. The...

Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the importance of building an audience for business success.

So if you need some actionable insights to help you grow your audience, then this is the episode for you!

 
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

The key to building trust and a loyal following in any industry
Practical ways to retain your audience and keep them engaged
Strategies to transition followers to an email list


 

I want every business owner to hear today's episode, because if you do nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful.

So please share this week's episode with all of your business friends!

 
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

 
Transcript
How are you doing? So recently I've been in some quite short and sharp episodes, which I'm doing because sometimes these things don't need me to talk a long time about it. And sometimes you just need a reminder of some of these things.

And also I mentioned last week that I've decided to bring back interviews. There was a good reason why I stopped them. And, and I will talk about this maybe when, I bring the interviews back, but I, you know, stop them because it didn't fit with the business anymore. And I've decided to start them again because I've had a little rest and actually now I'm ready to have some conversations with people again.

And it just means that I, if I don't interview people, I can't talk about things proficiently about things I don't know. So let's take Facebook ads. I do know Facebook ads, but I am not an expert in it by all means. So if I get a Facebook ads expert on, they can talk about it and you can get a lot more decent content from them.

So I've had fun having some episodes on my own, but now I'm ready for guests. So they will be coming soon, but until then, we're going to be doing some short, sharp, quick episodes that you can listen to on the fly. So today. I want every business owner to hear this. Okay. So if you know anybody, if you have any business friends, you need to get them to listen to today's episode, because this is the one thing that if you did nothing else in your business, this is the one thing that is going to help you be successful.

And today we are talking about building an audience. Now I know I've done lots of episodes on different audience buildings and why you need them and things like that. But actually I was having a discussion the other day and everything comes down to audience, everything. Now, even if you have a high end service that you don't need many clients for, you still need an audience for that service.

If you have an online business, that is the absolute key and audience is crucial and trying to sell something when you don't have an audience is impossible. And I know there are lots of experts out there who give examples and case studies of they only had a list of this size or they only had X amount of following on social media and they sold X amount.

That is not the norm. That is not what happens. The people who are the most successful, the people who I have had the most success with, who I've worked with one to one or in the club or in the executive club, they have been able to achieve what they've achieved because they've built their audience, because they've shown up consistently and provided for their audience and therefore they have won.

Now, what tends to happen is in business, we sometimes think if we build it, they will come. So, If you get a website, the website gets put up and then you wonder why people aren't giving you inquiries. If you start a social media page, so I started a new social media page a while back because I have a new project coming that you will be able to see and listen to because it's a new podcast that's completely different from my business stuff.

And I created a new Instagram page just because I wanted to make sure I'd got the name. And I created it, I put up the logo, which has now changed, FYI, but anyway, I put up a logo, put nothing else up, and I've got no followers, right? And that makes perfect sense. And it's been months now that that's been up.

It makes perfect sense that I've got no followers because I've done nothing. I've put no posts up. I've done no interaction. I've done no engagement, but we often think as business owners, if we just put it up, then suddenly people will come to us. So having that audience is the most crucial thing in your business.

I would almost argue more important than having a product or service to sell. And I know that might sound crazy, but I would much rather you had an audience and been working that bit out than have all your products and services set out, laid out brilliant, perfect website, perfect sales page, and have not built a single audience.

So you really, really need to consider and think about what are you doing every single day to build that audience? I want you to ask yourself at the end of each week, what have I done today to help build my audience? So it might seem like a weird thing to say that you've got to build an audience. Like, what does that actually mean?

It's the same thing as you need to be visible. What does that mean? And it's not as simple as just post on social media. Now, don't get me wrong. And Becci would shout at me about this because she does my social media and she does social media. It's really important. However, it's not just that there is so much more to it than just maybe putting a post up on Instagram or Facebook or Linkedin.

You've got to work a bit harder. So it's about using every opportunity you can to bring people into your world. In an ideal world, you want to bring them straight into an email list. Fine, they can follow you on social media, that's lovely. In an ideal world, you need them on that email list because, and I, it was really sad.

One of my members recently lost her Facebook page and her Facebook page was like where she had all her customers. Now, thank goodness she has worked with me for a long time and she has an email list as well. But obviously there were still people on there that weren't on her email list and it got hacked and therefore it had gone, like she literally had to start from scratch.

So, you need to be trying your hardest to bring people into your world to then get them onto your email list. Now, when you are a smaller business, or when you're starting off, or if you are sat there thinking, I'm just not getting people on my email list.

The beauty of being smaller is that you can do things that are more impactful. So for instance, you could go onto Instagram and direct message people or have conversations with people. Now, I don't direct message people saying, please come on my email list. That is not how I do it. But you could have those conversations that opens up those things.

You could have coffee chats with people, you can join networking things where you share who you are and what you do. But the idea here is if you are sat in your office at home or if you are sat in your shop or wherever you might be, and you're not getting people come into your world, then you need to find a way in order for them to do that.

You need to build that audience. So the other thing about building an audience is they need to trust you. So one of the ways in which they're going to trust you is consistency and knowing that you're still there. Okay. So I have said many a time that I have done similar sort of content for about the whole time I've had my business, which is over nine years, almost 10 years.

So the fact is. I still show up. I'm still here. They can trust that I'm not going to take their money and run because this is who I am. This is what I keep doing. Now. I'm not saying you've got to wait 9, 10 years before you get that, but you can show trust by showing up authentically. And by authentically, I mean, don't pretend to be someone you're not feel happy to show up as you are knowing that not everyone's going to like you.

Not everyone is going to agree with what you say. And that's okay. Because you won't want to work with those people anyway. So you'd be more than happy to have the customers that agree with what you say, or have the customers who are open to listening to what you have to say. So showing up as you, showing up as your authentic self, and not being afraid to show who you are.

So that's the kind of being visible. That's the kind of step of starting to get them to trust you. Follow through on what you say. So if you are saying, I'm going to email you every week, then email them every week. If you are saying that you are going to go live on a Tuesday, go live on a Tuesday. So whatever it is, make sure that you follow through.

Make sure that you're doing what you say. Care about these people. You know what I nearly said then? I nearly said make sure you act like you care about this, but that is absolutely not what I mean. I mean genuinely care about these people. I have done things recently where I've not had as big a numbers on things as I would have liked and my big number compared to someone else's big number can be completely different.

So don't take that as it's got to be a certain amount of numbers. But for me and what I'm used to, it was less than I would like. But do you know what I did after I had a little pity party to myself for five minutes. I loved on those people. I made every effort to go look at their social media, comment on their stuff, make sure I was commenting in the group, having conversations with people because I could, because it was smaller numbers and being genuine about it, not just using as a sales strategy.

It's not a sales strategy, but I want people to, in any interaction they have with me, whether they buy or don't buy, I want them to go away and be like, she's really cool. I really like her. She actually is very authentic. She is exactly. She says she is so. That's what you can do when you have those lower numbers, you can put that extra effort in, you can have those extra conversations with people.

But like I said, knowing that you say what you do, you know what you're talking about, you're showing up authentically, you're showing up consistently. So you're not suddenly going to pivot next week into something else. Those are the things to help you understand or help them understand, sorry, that they can trust you.

So consistent and aim for longevity. I can't say that word, longevity. That's the word. So, consistency and longevity are key. So when you look at some of the biggest people in your industry, or when you look at the people that you aspire to be, they haven't been in this industry five minutes, even if you only discovered them five minutes ago, they have been in a long time.

So again, you might be looking at their audience thinking, I'll never get an audience the size of them. Well, how long have they been doing that? So again, it's that kind of being consistent. Knowing that this is not a short term game, it's building it over time. And then, giving them a reason to be in your world.

So, last week, was it last week? No, it was the week before. I talked about content and why you need content. And that's the reason you need content. Because you need to give them a reason to keep showing up in your world. No one's going to come and follow me on social media if I don't add some value. And that value doesn't necessarily have to mean I share my brain 24/ 7.

It could just mean that... I entertain them. I talk about my garden. That's what I talk about. My vegetables that I grow. But like even that, that's fine. That's something they can relate to me on if they want to. So give them a reason to keep coming back. And then, like I said, make sure that you're getting them on your email list.

Make sure that whatever you can do, you are encouraging them to come from wherever you found them and join your email list. So let's say you're doing a talk, put a QR code to a lead magnet in your presentation. If you're going to something physically where you're handing out leaflets, put a QR code on the leaflet to a lead magnet.

If you are on social media, share your lead magnets on your social media, maybe put some money behind them. There are lots of different things that you can do in order to try and get them onto an email list. But again, it's that consistency thing. As you know, I am a big fan or you may not know if you're new welcome But I am a big fan of a habit tracker.

So Have almost a habit tracker for work and almost remind yourself, okay, what have I done today? Even if it's like, I'm going to put up a post or I'm going to share something on my stories, at least you're doing something to try and encourage your audience to join your email list. And one thing I want to add is.

You may have seen people doing affiliate marketing, and if you're not entirely sure what I mean by affiliate marketing, basically, it's when people sell someone else's product or service and they get a cut of it. So, for instance, people who are in the club, if they bring someone into the club and they join, they get a cut of what the person pays me.

Because they've done a bit of the hard work for me in the sense of they've brought them along to join the club or they've told them about the club and then they've paid to join the club so I'm going to reward them by paying them. I've done a whole episode on affiliate marketing specifically how it is in my business but there are some people and I get served ads for them a lot which is irritating but there are some people who just do affiliate marketing so what they do is they just sell other people's products and services. They have no product and services themselves.

And this can feel and be sold like a very easy way to make money. Like, I just sent out an email and I made X amount of money. Or I just put up a social media post and I made X amount of money. You know why? Because those people had an audience. It only works if you have an audience. And if you don't... It's not going to work.

So you could only sell things if you've got people to sell them to. So, like I said, I've talked about audience loads of times. Take this as your reminder, take your, this one action point of put it on your to do list every week, put it in your diary to review every week. What have you done this week in order to help you build that audience?

And in an ideal world, how have you got them onto your email list? Or how have you encouraged people to join your email list? There is a ton of content in these podcast episodes around email lists and, growing your list and that sort of thing. So do go check out that as well. But have a wonderful week.

And I will be back next week to talk about what if you're not happy in your business? What do you do then? See you then.