Audience Growth, Simplified: 5 Ways to Consistently Connect with Your Audience to Increase Growth and Revenue

Welcome to the Small Business big mindset Podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast. Let's do this. Hi, Erin here. Welcome to the mall Business big mindset odcast. This week, we are alking about audience growth. nd we are simplifying it with ive ways to consistently onnect with your audience to ncrease growth and revenue, I hink all of us can agree that ncreasing your growth in evenue is a win all around. So do want to talk a little bit bout why consistent ommunication with your udience. And you know, one xample is through email is so ritical. So connecting and ngaging, whether it's your ollowers or email subscribers, embers on your Facebook group egularly, is so important. So ou want to complete create and omplete your content and xecute it on a regular basis, lmost like having a set chedule for posting or istributing your new content. o if you're not consistent, ou're not taking advantage of ll the opportunities, you have o connect with your audience.'ve talked about this so many imes in different podcasts, and rainings that you know, specially with what's happened n 2020. And in 2021. So far, t's a, it's just incredibly rucial to have that connection. o creating a few pieces of ontent here and there might elp someone understand a topic etter, right, your audience ight tune in and learn omething. But it won't help you o hit our all the touch points etween your brand and your udience, it's not going to help ou build a meaningful elationship with it. So to do hat, you're really to need to reate content consistently. And each out to your audience in hat manner as well. Because onsistency, it boosts ngagement. It increases your rand reputation and your trust, ot to mention it's algorithm riendly, right? So I hear from eople, they're like, oh, like he algorithm changed. Now I'm ot getting, you know, as many ikes on my content, or as many omments. And it's almost like eople feel like the almighty lgorithm is out to get them and t's not. So it's like if you do ertain things like post content egularly, it helps you make riends with the algorithm. It's lso SEO friendly. Because earch engines, they like ebsites and pages that have new ontent, it's going to help you ank higher, right. So I've done here's a podcast, if you look ack about copy station, so it's ll about, you know, talking to our audience, as if it's a onversation, right is if it's n ongoing conversation, they eel a part of it. And it's, hey feel like involved. And so hat is huge as well. So Episode 3 is that one where I go over opy sation and my triple p trategy of like what I do efore I sit down write any ontent. So that's why it's so mportant to consistently reach ut to your audience. That's hy, like, I send out an email very single Tuesday, I post in y facebook group every day, I o trainings at a certain time. o I'm going to go over five hings for you a list of takers ut there, of how you can use his to your advantage, right se this to not only grow your udience, but to increase growth n your revenue as well. So the irst one is to make sure your ontent aligns with your goal. o you got to meet your audience here they're at. So you might now like, Okay, my audience eeds XYZ. But your audience may ot know that yet. That's not here they are. So if you come t them with that, then it's ike, their eyes are gonna glaze ver and they're not gonna isten to you. So you really got o see, okay, where are they at, nd then gently guide them, uide them forward to where you now, they need to be okay. So ou're gonna ask yourself who ou're trying to attract. Right? o I've talked about your ideal ustomer avatar, your ICA. So we ind of think sometimes that we an be everything to everybody. ut no, and I've talked about iching down as well. So you got o kind of like narrow it down o your ideal ICA. And then ou're going to create content pecifically for them. Okay, you ot to be really intentional bout this. And you also have to rite like as if you're talking o one person, so if you ubscribe to my email, you'll ee that I always it's ersonalized. It's like, hey, my, hey, Sam, you know, it's ike, it's not like, Hey, guys,'m not talking to a group. I am alking directly to one person nd my emails are pretty ersonal as well as far as what speak about and how I orrelate it to what's going on. In, in business, so you don't want it to sound like you're shouting out to the masses, right? Just focus on the one person, if you think about your ideal customer Avatar and what they want to hear, and how they are more best, best athlete to receive it, that's kind of like the sweet spot, right. And then I always suggest to people that you know, you you reach out every week on your email, such as we do, if that's realistic for you. But I also say, if reaching out to your audience, consistently on the same day and time every week is not realistic, then don't do it. Start out with maybe it's quarterly, maybe it's monthly, whatever is realistic to you and your schedule, that time. That's what you do. And you can like maybe reaching out weekly is a goal and you work toward that. I always suggest like, depending on your business, and depending upon your skill level, you know, choose one of three content types, which is typically the written word. So blog, it's audio podcast, or a video series. Okay, so which one of those fits you best, like, if you're like, terrified of being on camera, maybe don't start out with a video series, if you like to write, maybe start out with a blog. And then you can not rely on like the same video every week. But it's something that you can dabble in to try to get over that fear. But you can rely more consistently on something with like a blog, or you're comfortable with writing. And you're gonna want to keep some content ideas going right. So I always kind of call it like a content ideas bank. So you jot or type ideas as they come, you can use the the audio on your phone to record things if you can't type or have a pen or paper. And don't overthink it. Like you don't have to know how you will use ideas as they come to you just jot them down. And then when you're looking for content ideas, you go back to this kind of bank of ideas that you've you've gathered, and you'd be like, Oh, I had no idea when that happened to me two months ago now is actually going to become part of my blog posts, you know, but it's kind of cool to jog your memory there. So number two, kind of, you know, it's a good segue that life is content. So if you're first starting out, like I was saying, like in blogging, or, or podcasting, you look at your life. So if I'm out somewhere, let's say Well, before, when we used to be able to go to conferences, or speak at different places, I would take photos of what I'm doing even today, I'll take photos throughout the day, pop them in as a story that's so what's great about Facebook and Instagram, is that it can be kind of, since they disappear in 24 hours, it could be more casual. But it could be a kind of quick snippets of your life, you know, so I might just post stuff that I'm doing. Sometimes it has to do with my business, and sometimes it doesn't. And so I'll share that stuff about my life as well. And some things like might inspire you, right, or moments of inspiration that you want to share with your audience can be really, really powerful. I always recommend to people look back in your photo bank on your phone, or all old archives for inspiration, looking back at those old photos. I mean, I know I have tons of photos 1000s probably that go back a couple of years. And so I will I'll scroll back and I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember when that happened. And I can share a kind of an old photo and you know, kind of what it inspired me to write about that day. And also you could brain dump. So brain dump, like your favorite memories growing up or experiences you had in college or stuff that had that happened in your professional career or with your family? Because you might be surprised how many of your experience can actually be tied to supporting your audience and where they are at that moment. And then number three is do a content audit. So what content Do you already have? So even if you're just starting out, you might have like a few social media posts you did, maybe you wrote a white paper. Or if you've been doing this for a while you might have tons of content to choose from, to kind of go back and look at what worked or didn't work when it got really good engagement. What didn't? What can you repurpose, maybe if you repurpose it in a different way, it'll land differently with your audience, and they might get it right. So you could edit videos into shorter videos, for reals. You could edit blog posts for social media posts, you can edit podcast audio for like a quick, quick tip engagement ads, there's so much that you can do with the content that you already have. And like I said, if you put a new spin on it, even content that's older that maybe didn't land well or how you expected could have a new life moving forward. The fourth one is to create a system to use each time and I know like some of creative people like me, we kind of cringe at systems, right? We kind of just fly by the seat of our pants. It's kind of like oh, we'll just go do this right now. But really creating a system to use each time is really integral. So I do have a content process for the podcast. I have, especially when I'm reaching out to guests, I have a whole system of my outreach. And what I say to them. When I'm when I'm inviting guests on, I have bullet points that we cover. And then with like on Mondays is my podcast production day. So that's when I write the show notes page, I create the page for the podcast, I will create the email for the next morning that's going to go out, I create the social media posts, all of that stuff I have a certain day. And I actually have a time frame on my calendar, when that happens. And like on my Facebook group I go live now is every Thursday right now, and that might change in in the future. But I have a set time. And if it changes, life changes, so be it but I try to set it you know, if it changes, I try to have that same day and time moving forward. And then create a checklist of what needs to be done. So Joey is really, really good at this. And he has a checklist for podcast production. So before we go live, whether it's just me or we're speaking to a guest, he has a checklist of things that he goes over and it has saved us I know if we didn't have that checklist, we probably would be like forget to press record or like something else would happen, that we would be like, Oh shoot, if only we had a checklist that would that would help. Because a lot of times when you get down to it, even if it's a well oiled machine, you start doing something and you're like, oh, like Has that ever happened to you where you're like, I've done this a million times? Why do I need a checklist? And then you do it? And then you forget one crucial step and you're like, Oh my gosh, I've done that so many times, how did I forget that step Fianna checklist, you wouldn't have that problem, right. So you're gonna want to document the process. So you can follow it each time, no thinking effort, it's all there for you. And then also, if you need to delegate right as your team grows, then you have the process already documented, if you need to hand it off to somebody else. And like I mentioned earlier, you want to commit to a consistent cadence. So what's realistic for you, so we put our podcasts out every Tuesday, and our newsletter or email goes out every Tuesday. And at the moment, I'm speaking on Facebook every Thursday, you know, so see what's realistic for you, whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly, what have you. And then also part of the system too, is pick a font and pick color. So I use Canva. And you may have noticed that I've updated our website. So the logo, the font, the colors. Now we you know, it's basically more of a brand guide, right. And so whenever I'm creating collateral, I make sure that it's this, those colors, and that same font and that sort of thing to make sure it's cohesive along the brand. So it's great to kind of include that within our system as well. The fifth thing of the five for you note takers is time blocking your calendar to get it done. So if you have a system, but you don't ever execute on it, what's the point? So like, for social media, I was leveraging some scheduling tools like there's Hootsuite flannelly later, I mean, there's a ton of them out there. But you might get dinged, okay, because like Facebook and Instagram, for instance. They want engagement, and their whole thing is like, they feel like you're not really engaging if you're scheduling things on a third party app to go live on their platforms. So they may not show your content as much if they can tell that it's coming from a third party because they're like, well, you're not actively engaging with our platform, you're just kind of like phoning it in or you know, scheduling the stuff to go live. So I have recently started to use the scheduling tools that are native to the platform, such as for Facebook and Instagram, they do have scheduling tools, so I've just started using those. So if that helps you. If you're like you know, I need to do things in advance because there's no way that I can just sit and write a social media post every day then use the scheduling tool. I will say though, that there are many times when I don't plan out my social media because I want to feel in the moment. And I do want to be like okay, what's going on in my mind that morning? What am I hearing from my audience what's going on in the world? What do they need to hear what would be more helpful? So there's plenty of times where I don't schedule in advance and you know, what you're getting for me that day is what's kind of flowing through me that day. And then of course, there's planners like I'm using the full focus planner that Michael Hyatt has out, do I use it every day? No, but I use it more often than other paper planners. I I've mentioned it before that I wanted to be a paper planner person. I was like oh cuz some of them are so beautiful and so tangible to like, you know, write something down and you can feel it, you know, you can pick it up. But I am just a digital person because I've every time I've tried a planner, I'll fill it out for a few days and then it just starts to collect. So the full focus planner though Yes, I might go days without putting something in there maybe even a few weeks. But I always come back to it because it's more goal oriented and performance focused rather than kind of like planning your day. And then if you can plot out your content for the month or their quarter, whatever is realistic for you, but be flexible. So when we first started this podcast, you know, I was like, we're going to do this, right. And we're going to, you know, batch some episodes, and we're going to launch with the view, and then we're going to have a few in the pipeline. And then COVID hit right before we were going to launch. And I'm like, nobody cares about what I'm talking about these batched podcast episodes, so we had to shift, right. So sometimes you can plot stuff out. But then you got to be flexible, because then something might happen in the world. And you're like, this does not make any sense. If I publish this content, I will come come across as tone deaf. So plot it out loosely, you know, so you can be flexible, if that happens. And just outline your content. Like for these podcast episodes, where I'm teaching, I'm not writing down every single word, I'm going to say I just kind of bullet point of the stuff that I want to make sure that I that I get across. So you could do that. Whether it's a video series, a blog, social media, that sort of thing. And consider batching, I think it helps a lot of people, I do it at some some times. Today, we're recording a few podcast episodes, so we're cool for the next few weeks. So you might want to consider that, like, sit down and do the first step of, you know, if you're writing a blog, then maybe, you know, you're like, Okay, this day, I'm going to brainstorm a bunch of blog post ideas. And then the next day, you know that you batch your pot, your blog staff, maybe then you're, you're outlining all of the different posts, and the next day you're writing, right, so you're kind of like doing the same steps for a few different blog posts. So that you're kind of batching it up so that at the end, you have like six weeks of blog posts ready, and track your time to see how long it takes you. So you can plan accordingly. Right? So then you're going to know, okay, it takes me X amount of time to write six blog posts to cover me for six weeks, right. So then you can better plan your your calendar. And your content calendar can look however, like works for you. A lot of people do it monthly or quarterly. But a few things you might want to look at is like if you're launching something like a new service or product, then you're going to want to outline what promotions you have during this time. So you're going to schedule and content that complements the topic, or you know what your your service or product covers, and kind of leads into it so that your content during that period, if you're launching something, it's like, Okay, that makes sense. There's a correlation between your content and the new service or product that you're launching. And then you can have like, some themed content, sometimes I'll look at like, those National Day of like it's puppy day are, you know, that sort of thing, if they make sense. And then also, for social, typically, I do this and I recommend others do it. Look for like four to eight topics that you're going to be focusing on that fit your culture and your brand. So what is going to be on your Instagram feed business tips, recipes, meditation guides, like pick four to eight things that you're going to kind of cycle through at any given time, so that when people go to your feed, it's cohesive, and it's not like I don't know, sometimes it's recipes, sometimes it's pictures on a beach, sometimes it's this, like, I don't know what I'm gonna get, because then people aren't gonna know what to go to you for right. And then you're going to want to schedule and maybe some guest posts are featured contributors. So we obviously we do have guests a lot, and so can take the pressure of review a bit, it gets some fresh content going. And then they're excited about helping promote your content as well. And it just works for everybody. And like I said earlier, you can share your content again, look back at what you've done, update it, and then you can re reuse it if it if it makes sense. And you know, I mentioned the algorithm before, so chances are, your audience didn't see it the first time around, or a good chunk of them. So if you reshare it, then it could be new for a lot of people. And if you're kind of like, okay, like what, you know, help me, how do I know what to share with my audience, like you can do keyword research, right? So it should take only a few minutes. So you can like, you know, enter your initial keyword into Google, like in this podcast, we're going over creating consistent content, right, and then scroll down you're gonna see Searches related to and you're gonna pick up different keywords there that you can use within your content for SEO, and it might phrase spring springboard for more ideas for more content for you to create. And of course, for any of these ideas, you're going to want to track performance, whether it's pageviews, conversions, likes, comments, that sort of thing. And I have also trained on having a feeling week, right. So there's some weeks where it's just like, just like don't worry about planning everything right. Don't stress yourself out about it. Just have a feeling week. Take a break. reward yourself and you Though just every if you want to post every day on social media just be like, Okay, I'm not gonna have anything planned this week, I'm just gonna feel it, see what comes to me and kind of go that way. So you're like, Okay, what are what is my audience talking about? What do they need to hear from me what's going to be helpful? And just do that just for a week and don't stress yourself out about planning everything. In some people, especially for email, like, it's like, I know that it's so tough. You're like, How the heck am I going to fit all this in? So this stuff on the podcast episode and other trainings that I do, it's this, it's some of the stuff I teach in email ally, which is my brand new membership, although I will go deeper into it right. So email ally is currently it's only open for enrollment for my VIPs you might ask Who the heck is a VIP. So it's those that are subscribed to my email list. Follow me on social media are a member of my facebook group. So an email ally every month, members get four customizable emails that they can plug and play to their audience and industry. They get 10 email subject lines to catapult their open rates and engagement, which equals increase in happy customers and revenue. And every month a video training is uploaded into their account. So I teach both a tried and true and the latest in online content creation and the copywriting. And on top of that, they get access to Q and A's master classes and they get accountability to hone their skills. So like imagine having simple tools to email your list consistently and really in less time than it takes to order your groceries every month. It's like having a private email assistant and copywriting mentor at a fraction of the cost. So go to Muscle Creative comm slash email ally. For more info and to enroll there. I hear countless times from small business owners. I know I need to reach out to my list consistently I do not have time. I do not know what to say. When I hate writing when I write it sounds awkward and salesy so email ally to the rescue. So again, go to Muscle Creative comm slash email ally. I hope this podcast episode was helpful and we'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Business big mindset podcast. To keep the fun going. Check out our Facebook group start and scaling online business For even more free trainings and resources from fellow entrepreneurs. If you haven't already, head on over to Muscle Creative calm and click subscribe. Join our email list for weekly updates. And if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, check us out on your favorite podcast platform to follow us and give us a review. As always be authentic bring an insane amount of value and keep crushing it