To roll out really kick-arse marketing you need an engaged audience: A group or list of people who want to listen to what you have to say.
For many businesses, this is the hardest piece of their marketing puzzle. If they focus on this part and solve it, the rest is pretty easy.
What Does Your Audience Want To Hear?
One thing is certain in this life: People want to hear what they want to hear.
We see this used nefariously in political media. It’s an entire industry built on catering headlines and stories to help feed people’s ideology and emotions. It’s borderline unethical. But it works. And it makes money.
But in business, this is an important distinction when it comes time to create content for your audience to consume. Keeping your audience in mind will help narrow down the content ideas that’ll have an impact. It’s also a good test to see if you’re really coming up with the most addictive ideas.
Here’s a simple four-step recipe for creating and disseminating your content:
Step 1. Make A List Of Topics Your Audience Wants To Hear
Bust out a spreadsheet. Start listing ideas. Ask other people for ideas. Asking for ideas might be even more important. Getting more brains on this part can multiply the impact and results.
During this process, keep repeating the question: What does our audience want to hear? It can be solutions to their most pressing problems. Why their favorite sports star is the GOAT. How someone kicked a chronic disease. How to save $20,000 on a home remodel. Give the people what they want.
Step 2. Create A Column For “How Addictive Is This?”
You want to set a threshold where you know you have content ideas that are definite winners. We’re going to call it “addictive content”. Content that’s so compelling, people will stop what they are doing to listen to it (when they should be doing something more important).
One way to do this is to rank the ideas 1 through 5. 5 being a golden content idea. Anything that’s a 5 you run with.
Step 3. Create Content Around These Topics
Content can come in various forms:
- Blog Posts
- Flyers (Direct Mail)
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Videos
You know how your audience likes to consume content so pick the format that will deliver.
Step 4. Disseminate Your Content To Your Audience
The final step is to get this content in front of your audience. This can be done through:
- Direct Mail
- Paid Ads (videos or link to a landing page)
- Radio Commercial
- Social Media
- Weekly Podcast
- YouTube Channel
What If You Don’t Have An Audience Yet?
Perhaps you’re a brand new business and you don’t have an email list or a social media following. That’s O.K. because that’s how all businesses start. The most important thing to do is to start creating content AND start building lists.
To build an audience, here are some things you can do:
1: Create an email subscription form on your site
Put this form on your addictive content that lives on your site. If your content is good, people will want more of it.
2: Build an email list as you network
As you network and build relationships while doing business, ask people if they’d like to be on your list. You can also just add people without asking, we’ve seen both approaches work. Just think about it carefully.
3: Add people to your Linkedin as you network
Every person you meet, every business card you collect, connect with them on Linkedin.
4. Run paid ads to a landing page with a subscription form
When you have great content to share, you can run a Google Ads campaign or other paid ads to build your list. It’s not always everyone’s favorite way to build a list, but for some businesses it’s worth it.
5. Have an email sign-up sheet at your business
For example, if you run a restaurant, you may want to have a tablet where people can sign up for birthday discounts and other news. It’s really a no-brainer.
We could probably go on and on with list building ideas. The important thing is: ALWAYS BE BUILDING YOUR LISTS. “The money is in the list”. It’s the oldest marketing advice ever. Do it!
Need Help With The Above?
This is what we do. We help businesses with their content marketing. If you’d like help in this area, then schedule a time to talk below:
Image Credits: Featured Image Source, Ear, Empty Room