How to build an audience for your business

Building an audience is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. Knowing that you have people following you and engaging with your content will help you to:

• Share your message
• Build more trust
• Introduce products and services

In this article, we’re going to walk you through a simple method to do this the right way.

The biggest mistake when building your audience online

The mistake that we see far too many people make is building their audience on “rented land” this means solely relying on third-party platforms like Twitter, Linkedin, Tiktok etc.

Of course, social media is important and getting more followers, likes, and comments is going to help you reach more people, but it shouldn’t be the end goal.

Ultimately, you don’t own that audience. Social networks do, and we’ve seen many big accounts get banned or closed down without any explanation as to why, and you lose that audience instantly.

How to build an audience

Rather than relying on social media to build an audience, you should use those platforms to direct people back to your website, where they can become a part of YOUR community.

From here, you can ask people to join your email list and receive all your content directly to their email.

Email is still one of the most effective tools you have to reach your audience quickly. If you have 1000 people on an email list, you might have 300-500 people open those emails, whereas 1000 Twitter followers might only be seen by 50-100 people. 

This is why building your audience using email is going to be the most effective way to grow your business.    

The most important thing when building an audience is to focus on adding value first.

Attracting the right audience

Getting people to join your email list is a lot easier if you have a compelling reason with a nice reward for your website visitors. An example would be a free quiz or assessment tool that helps them to self-assess their situation and get some feedback on how to improve. This is called a lead generation quiz.

For example, an Architect might create a quiz called “How green is your home? Take the assessment to find out”

Their website visitor would enter their name and email address and then answer a few questions that will automatically calculate their score based on their answers.

It’s personalised and fun to take part which makes it a compelling offer for your visitor.

Deliver value upfront

Once someone has completed the quiz or assessment, you can provide much more relevant advice and guidance on their situation and tell them how they could improve. 

For instance, after someone has completed the questions, the quiz software will allow you to create a results page. On this page, you can show them their personalised results along with some simple tips on how they can improve.

You could even go one step further and provide them with extra content, such as a free video or  a checklist they can download.

Nurture the relationship with your audience

Once someone has completed the quiz and joined your email list, you’ll want to continue to offer value and nurture that relationship. Here are a few ways you can do this: 

• Create an automated email sequence that sends relevant emails after someone has taken your quiz. Provide as much value as you can and build more trust with your audience.
• Send your audience new blog articles, and resources as you produce them to continue to educate, inform and entertain them.
• Recommend tools, techniques and advice on how they can improve their situation and help them achieve their goals

The more value you deliver before asking for anything in return, the more trust and loyalty you’ll build with your audience.

Promote your offers

Once you have built an audience and have provided value, you can then tell your email subscribers about your products and services. You have built up enough trust at this point to promote your offer. The good thing about building your email list is that you always have access to communicate with your audience whenever you feel like it.

Providing you have delivered real value to the people on your email list, some of them will genuinely want to work with you and be interested in your products and services.

Building your email list is the most effective way to reach more people and deliver more value.