The Most Common Mistakes When Building an Audience

Melissa: Today's topic is super juicy. We are talking about top mistakes business owners make when they're building an audience. 

Paul: Oh my goodness. Mistakes. We don't we're entrepreneurs. We don't make mistakes. 

Melissa: Sometimes we make some mistakes.

Paul: Sometimes we make some mistakes? Okay. I'm really excited about this because I think this is where so many people fail because I tell you what it's like speaking.

If you are in front of the wrong room of people, it doesn't matter how good your messaging is or your offer, what you put into the market. We really needed to tune in that audience. I think this is so key. So I'm really excited to talk about this.

Melissa: Yeah, having the right audience in front of you is key because you have an offer you something amazing to share with your people, but you got to have the right people that are interested in what you do and have that problem that you can solve.

Paul: You know what a lot of us were experts, right? So we walked the path through the years. So sometimes it's taken trial and error and gone through a long period of time, a lot of times. 

And what happens though? I think we forget what we were thinking, what we were saying, how we were feeling. And like what we were doing back in the day, like back when, when we were new, when we were brand new, when we were just started that journey.

And I think a lot of times we had to go back and actually do the research to really connect with our audience, like back in that space. 

Melissa: So this is where you rewind, you put on the hat of back in the day when you were first getting started with whatever it is that what you're doing, think about where your audience is coming from and do that research really think back, think about all the things that they're doing, what a day in the life is like for them, what they're feeling, what they're going through, because that is really going to help you tune in into the needs that they have, the desires that they have, the pain points that they're experiencing.

And what you can help them with on the other side. 

Paul: And if you really think about it, cause that's so key because like we do follow people, right? We follow brands and companies and people. And a lot of times we're like, oh my goodness, they get me, they get me, they're in my head. They know what I'm dealing with. Right?

Melissa: I love that! That's good marketing. And I'm like, ah, you're speaking my language. 

Paul: But think about it. They're speaking my language as the consumer, as the person that would want to follow. Right? 

So it's not really all about them. It's about me. It's about me being the, the listener, the viewer, the consumer of that content , of that offer.

Right? And it really starts with doing the market research. Like, I think a lot of us don't take the time to rewind back and actually take the time to like, see the conversations that are, people are in. So that we can make sure we have relevant conversations in our social media. 

Melissa: Yeah. And when you do the research, then the next natural step is to have content that speaks to those things that your audience is asking about.

That's inquiring about, that's interested in lot of times when you're building an audience, a big mistake that we see is, and we just, we all are guilty of this. We put out random content, we just put a post about this and make posts about that and show this. And yeah, it's like, it is nice to have some variety, but if we're posting all kinds of random stuff that your audience really isn't that interested in.

They're going to tune out and then they're going to go find what they need somewhere else. 

Paul: Yeah. It's like having a mixed bucket of something, right? It's like, no, you want consistency because if you bring in an offer later on, if you have something that a product, a service and information thing, of course, a membership, anything that you want to like present, that means everybody's coming around that common conversation that they're already having.

And if you're all over the place with your messaging, what's going to happen is you're going to track a random audience as well, because they came to you from some random topic, a random thing that you put out into the world, into the ethos. 

And then what'll happen is when you're going to make that offer, you have a lot of people that are really not really aligned with what you're trying to present them.

Melissa: Yeah, you have to be super intentional with your content.

So do the research and then be intentional. And then when you put out that content, you've delivered what they're looking for. It's exactly what they're looking for. That, that's what we want. 

Paul: Yeah. You know, another thing that I realized is that a lot of people, it feels like their social media, when they're trying to get their audience and they're trying to build a thing, it's almost like they're a 24 hour day, like infomercials.

They're like buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing. And we talk about it all the time, but a lot of people didn't wake up this morning, like wanting to buy your thing. 

And this is what's really important because I think a lot of people accidentally, they don't realize it. Like they're, they're like selling all the time and a lot of it, unless it's like super bowl and like funny commercials, like a lot of us when, when you watch TV, like traditional TV, you know, not like the replay stuff, we can skip the commercials, but what do we do?

We skip the commercials. Don't we, where we turn the channel, when the commercial comes on. Or if a radio station's on, it's our favorite song, and then we, what do we do we skip and go to another station, the moment that commercials come on. Right? So there's a lot of technology that kind of skips all that stuff for us these days, but we have to pay for it.

Right? So what's really interesting though, is like, we need to stop selling all the time because people aren't going to follow commercials. 

Melissa: Yeah. So this is where connection is super important. This is where it's a combination of letting them know what it is that you do, but then connecting with them, getting to know your audience, asking questions about them, starting a two-way conversation with them.

And when you can build that connection piece, when it is appropriate in the right time, then you start to let them know: "hey, I know that you have this challenge is problem. The situation. I have a solution for you."

 So it's a nice combination connecting selling, and you can, the two work hand in hand together. 

Paul: You know, where I think a lot of people freeze up though, is like, they think they just want to like wake up and have this huge hurdle, right.

That little magic pixie dust is got. Like a Cinderella moment type thing. And it's like, you know what? We have to start at zero. We had to start where, where you're at. 

You do not need a big audience to be successful. Yeah. This is so vitally important. I think a lot of people get tripped up. They think they have to have 5 million followers or.

50,000 this, or they have to have an email list. That's so huge. And at the end of the day, in order to be successful, like you really don't need that big of a following. 

Melissa: We're definitely gonna be jamming more on this because it is a huge myth and it stops people in their tracks because I think I don't have, I don't have.

I'll do that later when I have the list, I'll do that later when I get this many followers and no, you don't need to do that. 

Don't wait, get yourself out there and start putting your offers out there. Let people know how you can help them out. Because again, coming back to that connection piece, when you have a really connected audience that loves what you do, loves what you're all about, loves what you stand for, it doesn't really matter how big your audience is. It's a matter of how connected you are to them. 

Paul: you know, I really think like locally, there's a couple of restaurants. They have like lines out the door. Right? And what's really funny. Like they don't do social media, all that. Well. So it's like their audience. Like if you think, like in the online space specifically, it's like, They should not be successful, but you know what, they're tuned in like what they provide and what they talk about, what they do.

They don't need a big, huge audience in order to be successful where you probably have others that are like, that's all they're doing is they're just focused on building that audience, but they're not actually connecting with their customer. 

And that gap is what's so vitally important and what's success for not, we see people all the time, the vanity metrics, like these big, huge numbers that they actually do.

But they're not actually successful behind the scenes. It looks good, but it's just a facade and we don't want that to happen for you. We really want to bring in and you know what the best step to do is to really go back, pull the curtain back, do super ninja stuff. And we might have a freebie that we have for you to help you with this.

So you build the right audience. You wanna talk about that?

Melissa: Yeah, of course we do. Of course we do. So we have our ninja targeting research PDF, which is really going to help you tune in, do the research so that you can really understand who your audience is, what they're interested in, what they stand for what their challenges are, what their desires are, really do all of that research.

And then from there, that's where you can create content that they're really into they're tuned into and create those connections. So we will make sure that we have that PDF in the show notes for you. 

Paul: Yeah. I'm really excited about this because I tell you what, I'd rather have a small audience that is really tuned in because you are talking their language.

Remember, and if we really balance that out and we really truly think about that, we really don't know need tens of thousands of people. We don't need hundreds of thousands of people. If we have the right people, you can have a very smallest, a very small following that is so aligned that whatever you present them, they're just raving fans.

It's just going to like invest straight into it. So this is a really exciting topic today. 

Melissa: Lots of fun stuff to think about. So make sure if you love the show, please subscribe. Tell all your friends about it. We are here. We love talking about online marketing.

Paul: So you know what, until we meet again, remember marketing matters.