5 ways to easily build an audience and transform your life

Have you ever wanted to be completely location independent and experience financial freedom without the grind of daily worry?

It seems like a dream yet every day we find example after example of people who’ve done it.

Well in this article our goal is to give you what we believe to be the fastest and easiest way to get there. Your own audience of prospects, customers, and loyal fans.

Because the truth of it is, there’s never been a better time to create the life and lifestyle of your dreams.

Ownership Economy To Access Economy

Airbnb, Uber, Netflix, Spotify. These are all examples of the “access economy”.

Instead of having to own a vacation home, you can now rent one within a few clicks. Instead of having to own a car, push a button and your personal driver arrives within minutes. And on it goes.

And it’s even better news for the digital entrepreneur…

It wasn’t too long ago where if you had an idea to sell online courses or create a membership site, you needed either incredible coding skills, large amounts of investment capital, or both. It some serious resources and a whole network of people just to launch your idea.

Now with all-in-one solutions like Kajabi, you have access to everything you need to turn your idea into a legitimate business in as fast as humanly possible.

You can create, market, and monetize nearly anything you can imagine using a single, easy to use platform. Saving not only time and money, but the mental bandwidth of being able to simply act upon whatever idea you have without having to wonder how to do it.

So if you’ve been on the fence in creating your digital business, start today. Start right now.

In fact, we offer free trials where you can create and launch your first online course without any out of pocket investment whatsoever. Go here to test drive Kajabi.

While you now have access to the tools to transform your life and business, you also have access to pools of people who could become the customers fueling this transformation.

In this article, we’ll dive into 5 of the most effective and proven ways to build an audience of people anxious to hear from you...

#1: Create Fans - Not Followers

While having followers is in no way a bad thing, the mindset of creating “fans” will help you go above and beyond and turn followers into lifelong fanatics of whatever you offer.

One of the most renown articles about audience building for creators was first written in 2008 by Kevin Kelly, the Founder of Wired Magazine. The article is titled “1,000 True Fans” and in it, Kevin articulates how a small amount of “true fans” have the power to provide you with an incredible lifestyle.

As you read his words below, think about how they relate to the Knowledge Commerce entrepreneurs who sell online courses, coaching, and other digital products...

“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.

A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce.

These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”

We’d like to note that if it’s fortunes you seek, there are countless examples of online entrepreneurs who have turned their digital products business into digital empires.

That’s the power of having courses ranging from $497 - $2997 and coaching programs priced even higher than that. 1,000 true fans buying time and again at these types of numbers can create almost any lifestyle you seek.

So instead of getting bogged down worrying about how you don’t have a million followers yet, start with one. A single person...

Can you go out today and serve someone?

Can you help someone struggling in a Facebook group?

Can you create one fan today?

Our guess is you’ve already done this many times before. Now it’s just being conscious of the fact that everything you do is to create an audience. And you don’t need many to have an absolutely incredible business allowing you whatever freedoms you desire.

#2: Creators Create Consistently

One of the fastest and easiest ways to build an audience is to consistently create content.

After all, your online information business is driven by content, so creating as much as you can is in your best interest anyway. But don’t make it harder than it actually is.

Find ways to leverage the content you’re already creating. Do you have podcasts or YouTube videos that you’ve already done? Perfect. For a few dollars, you can get those transcribed and turn them into multiple blog posts, emails, or free giveaways.

One of the most well-known thought leaders and marketers on the planet is Seth Godin.

What’s his secret? How does he crank out so much content? Consistency.

He publishes on his blog every single day. Some days it’s an essay, some days it’s a few paragraphs, and some days it’s only a sentence. But there he is every single day. Posting. Contributing. Adding value to his audience and being found by new fans.

What’s his advice for consistently creating content?

“Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.”

Is today’s email not as good as yesterday? That’s ok.

Is your blog post close to perfect, but just not there yet? Great.

Instead of waiting, continuously tweaking, and talking yourself out of action...instead focus on who that imperfect content can help. Then post, share, and contribute.

By giving your audience (and those who find you via your content) the opportunity to see more of what you share, you help create an audience far faster than waiting till everything's “perfect”.

#3: Email Is Alive And Well

It seems like every year with the rise of a new social media platform, someone somewhere proclaims that “email is dead”. Well for the record, email is alive and well.

And when it comes to creating audiences (and especially audiences filled with loyal and lifetime buyers) almost nothing beats email.

Here’s what Jonathan Perelman the VP of Agency Strategy at BuzzFeed had to say about using email to build your audience…

“Content is king, distribution is queen, and she wears the pants.”

To put it simply, while your content is critical, even more critical is how you get that content in front of your current and future readers. And in terms of engagement, email far outranks any social platform by a longshot.

So whether you have 1 or 100,000 people on your email list, you should still be emailing them as often as possible. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. That’s up to you.

Focus on giving them good content combined with your personality and you don’t need to worry about them not wanting to hear from you. With access to all kinds of information, what really helps build an audience is by sharing and expressing your opinions in your own unique way.

Remember: no one will be bored in print.

So use every list building strategy you can and make building your email list a constant focus. Then invite your readers to share your emails and content with their friends and social media followers.

#4 Engage With Influencers

This idea alone can sometimes double or even triple your audience base overnight.

People trust the recommendations of others, right? Whether it’s reading random reviews on Amazon or Yelp or the suggestion of which movie to see from a close friend. We tend to be more open to new people or places if someone we know recommends them.

It works the same in building your audience as well.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to do this is by engaging with and leveraging online influencers. The majority of the time it makes the most sense if they’re within your same industry, but there are plenty of other people outside your niche who may have access to the kind of people you can help too.

Start by making a list of 10-20 different influencers who you’d like to partner with and who you think you can help.

Maybe you can promote them or offer their followers a deep discount…

Get creative in how you can serve this influencer and their audience.

But never forget...when you approach an influencer (or anyone for that matter) it’s not about you! It’s all about them. Always.

How can you help them? How can you partner together with their audience? What’s in it for them?

If you lead with that sort of mindset you’re much more likely to get favorable responses. If you instead lead with you, you, you, and how great you are without tying it back to what’s in it for them...you’ll most likely experience a rough road.

So make your list. Search out potential influencers on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or wherever is most relevant for your audience.

Then simply reach out with some compelling message about how you’d love to connect and serve their audience in some way.

By working together with different influencers, the two of you help grow each others business faster than if you went at it alone.

#5: Quality Over Quantity

Often times (especially when first starting out) building your audience can become a little discouraging. Maybe you only have a few followers, and they’re both your Mom...yet others in your niche have tens of thousands.

But that’s ok because here’s the thing…

Everyone starts somewhere. At one point they had zero followers or zero subscribers as well. But by taking action things began to happen. And day after day, strangers became subscribers, and customers became fans.

By simply focusing on serving and solving problems, your audience will grow almost magically.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” - Theodore Roosevelt

And like we started this article off with, you don’t need to have the biggest audience to make the biggest profits. In fact, many businesses or entrepreneurs go wrong by focusing on quantity instead of quality. They accumulate people who are only interested in free information and never plan on buying anything for any reason.

You want quality. You want fans. You want people who are eager to not only learn from you but to buy from you as well.

So right now, instead of worrying about the size of your audience, worry about helping the audience you do have. How can you serve them? What would they love for you to teach them? What product would they love for you to create?

Spend more time in cultivating a quality audience and you’ll reap the rewards long after your competition has come and gone.

5 Ways To Quickly Build Your Audience

1. Create Fans - Not Followers
2. Creators Create Consistently
3. Email Is Alive And Well
4. Engage With Influencers
5. Quality Over Quantity

These are just 5 ways that we’ve seen work time and again. Do whatever works best for you. But always keep building an audience as a top priority, because in Knowledge Commerce, your audience is your business.

Use Kajabi to Turn Your Knowledge And Content Into Products You Can Sell

We know that you have something to teach the world. We also know there are people out there who want to learn what you know.

That’s why we created Kajabi. It’s a full-featured platform that allows professionals like you to create their own businesses from home.

Create online courses, establish membership sites, and sell other digital products. We offer tons of marketing tools to help you spread the word about your products and earn more revenue.

Of course, launching a business represents a huge commitment. We understand that.

To help ease you into the process of creating a Knowledge Commerce business of your own, we offer a 14-day free trial.

Get unfettered access to our tools, templates, and other assets so you can fully explore what Kajabi has to offer.

Are you ready to become your own boss? Now’s the time.

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