People ask me that often. “How do I reach my audience?” First, I tell them gently, it’s not your audience. Second, I tell them that reach is only part of it. Once they’ve seen you, they have to care enough that they’ll take a next step. From there, it only gets more difficult. But that’s okay. Challenge is good. Let me give you some thoughts.
Before You Try to “Reach Your Audience”
Let’s convert that to “reach out to people who might care” or just “reach out.” But before you want to do that, you’ll want your primary website, your place of conversion, to be ready to receive these people. Because reach, as it turns out, is an invitation. To reach is to extend your presence out such that someone else might choose to become aware.
Step 1: Build a strong and solid home base. This site, [chrisbrogan.com], is built for people to come and get involved. My goal is to help owners grow their business. I do that by offering courses. Everything about my site guides people to learn more and welcomes them to take an action that benefits us both.
Know Who You’re Trying to Reach
There’s nothing less sexy than a somewhat drunken man at the bar saying to every female in sight, “You’re sexy. Want to go home with me?” That’s how I see most people attempt to market. “Hey, look at me!” But by saying it to everyone, they’re saying it to nobody in particular. Who do you really want to attract? I want to attract owners: people who’ve chosen to own their choices, own their lives, and thus, own their futures. Employees can be owners, but only some of them.
Step 2: Know who you’re hoping to reach. Maybe even write a nice document about it.
Speak Their Language, and From Their Side of the Equation
“I’m selling to you here!” That’s how most people seem to try to reach out. Why not offer help? Why not explain just how well you know their challenge, these people you’re trying to reach. What matters to them? When does it matter? How does it benefit you to connect?
Step 3: Talk through what these people might want. Phrase it in their terms, from their side of the equation, or at least from how they’d choose to search for that information.
Help Them Succeed
No matter what, if you’re trying to reach out to others, do it in a way that helps them. Helping yourself should be an after-effect. Yes, you should be working towards the success of your business, but in my model, this is 100% derived from helping others reach their goal. Find a way to accomplish this, and you’re golden.
Step 4: When you’re ready to reach out and/or connect and/or point people towards information, do it with helpfulness as your primary goal.
Provide a Clear Entry Path and Help Them Decide
Once you’ve attracted someone’s attention, have shown that your intention is to help, and have guided them back to your offering with the knowledge that it will help, make it really simple for them to know what to do next. It’s not useful to send someone from your first attempt at outreach into the general wilderness of your website. Guide them to the specific page, the specific item, the specific solution that you feel will help them succeed. From here, both parties benefit.
Step 5: Make is super easy to help someone go from “you’ve got my attention” to “I’m ready to evaluate whether this helps me win.”
It’s Not Rocket Surgery, But It Takes Some Thinking Through
That’s why I created my Social Media Mastery course. Heck, that’s why I created Digital Business Mastery, too. The whole plan is to help you grow your digital presence in a way that improves your opportunity to help.
Reach? Well, do it right and you’ll move from reach to influence to authority. But that’s up to you.