Chapter 9
Goals: Discover Your Audience and Niche
Let us look at getting you connected to YOUR audience. Creating great content is one thin
people to read it is another. Getting them to join your community is yet another goal too.
and friends are not the audience you are looking for here.
Your audience comprises the people who will potentially become your raving fans. Those
wonderful people who will open your e-mails and read them, who will review your new bo
will share your posts, who will talk about you to their friends and who may also go on to pu
your work. Your audience is critical!
Content works when you engage with like-minded people who can find value in your
will reward you in return for helping them out in the various ways that you choose.
1. Imagine not having to wait for your work to be found.
2. Imagine launching a new book to a ready-and-waiting community of fans
3. Imagine sending previews of your new work to your fans and getting orders simply on
mail.
4. Imagine not having to chase after your gallery for sales and payments
5. Or competing for attention on massive online galleries
All this good stuff becomes more likely if you are publishing to the right audience for y
Then having that audience trust you with their email address. You receive special permiss
to your fans via their inbox. You can use video embeds to personalize your message even
Email still has so much to offer. There is a whole chapter on this coming up.
Finding that audience is the challenge. Tip: By having a niche topic you make it easier
and find your audience.
Niche Topics
If you have a niche topic it should be easier for you to identify other people with simila
Are, for example, science fiction fans a niche topic? That is even too broad. What about St
fans? That is a niche for sure! Now it is easy to find other Trekkies and create content they w
What about art? It is so broad that I could not possibly produce content to satisfy all ar
Chapter 10
Find out their likes and dislikes. Ask questions and listen to the answers. This is critica
information.
Personas:
You may have come across the term personas when trying to identify your audience.
marketers often use this term to describe the type of person making up your audience. It
impersonal. What it means is have a picture in mind of your audience members.
If you have a niche worked out then your audience will be fairly well defined. Keep your
vision of the ideal audience member in mind when creating content. If you can see
through your customer’s eyes you are on your way to building a strong business.
IT IS A TYPE OF CONVERSATION. If you would not be happy talking about a subject to
particular person then it is likely that person is not part of your audience. You would not d
gaming high-tech with your grandma who still lives in an analog world, for example.
You are a Problem Solver
Now you have defined a mission, a niche and an audience. You also have a strategy in min
next critical step is to ensure that you also know what problems your audience needs to be
big part of your content will be to shed light on anything that needs attention to make you
happier.
How, when, where, what, Why? These are typical questions that you can ask about a
connected to your niche. Answer these questions consistently over time for a great conte
strategy. Remember it is not about selling, but about informing, educating and relieving
customer’s problems. The sales will follow when your audience gets to know you and trus
business. Register your domain with the hosting sites already mentioned or also try Goda
Why not simply use a social media account?
It is vital that you have your own piece of turf on the internet. Your own domain (.com
own e-mail list means that you own these essential assets. You cannot rely on another co
your business is at stake. All the social media services change their systems and some go
business too or lose popularity.
Recently we saw Skillfeed close down. If you relied on income from your course on Sk
then sorry for you. Instructors could not even get their files back from Skillfeed servers. A
Make sure you remain independent and flexible. We have also seen massive changes on U
where they have unilaterally changed pricing structures. How will this effect instructors w
Udemy as their sole business platform?
Being able to host your own offering on your own website is very important. Add to th
awesome content drawing in new leads and your long-term future is assured.
Keep an eye on costs. I don’t want to sound like a penny-pincher, but it is very easy to
buying many add-on services, apps and other bells and whistles when you start the webs
process. Rather focus on the main things like getting a website that you can upgrade over
domain secured and then an email lead capture service. An email address with your doma
looks professional. Add that to your shopping list when you register your domain.
Then optimize these services together with your core social media channels. Good lo
images, clean design, mobile friendly, quick loading and, of course, start filling your blo
great content.
Newsletter & Subscription Mail Provider?
This is an important step since a HUGE part of your strategy will be aimed at getting n
subscribers. These are your fans and you own the list of subscribers. In social media you d
the list of fans and followers. This is a key issue for your future.
I use Mailchimp and I cannot see any reason why I should change. They are cost effec
efficient and user friendly. You can start with a free account for 2000 subscribers. If you wa
autoresponders and more services you can try their paid services or even a pay-as-you-g
Most importantly it is easy to integrate sign-up forms on your website. You can even
very good lead page based on Mailchimp’s sign up forms. Newsletter campaigns are
easy to prepare using drag-and-drop features with many templates to choose from. Do
not hesitate to open an account with a mailing list service like Mailchimp.