You need an audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re running an ad campaign, or sending a newsletter, your content is useless without people to receive it.
When you’re starting off something new, or looking to reach a new group of contacts, you will experience the great temptation. This is the voice in your head that says: “I need to find someone else with an audience, and send my campaign to those people.”
The great temptation manifests itself in different forms:
- a newspaper ad that promises a distribution to thousands
- a purchased or “rented” email list
- flyers or admail through the postal service
Simply put, broadcasting to an anonymous sea of recipients doesn’t work. People receive thousands of messages a day; they’ve learned to dissociate from mass media. Which is more powerful: a list of 1 million with a response rate of 0.00001% or your own audience of 30 where everyone is actively engage with your message?
You need to build your own audience: a group of people that want to hear from you, and will keep coming back time and time again.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Ben // Dec 29, 2008 at 6:40 am
But where do you start? How do you get a group of people interested in what you’re doing???
2 Doug // Dec 31, 2008 at 12:30 am
Building a mailing list of your own is absolutely critical.
I literally just started a blog, like this, and began writing and including on my e-mail signatures or on Facebook. I included my e-mail capture forms in the appropriate places. I offer free content for the readers who are serious about subscribing. It’s got to be content that is valuable to them regarding your specific niche. I’ve dropped out of so many newsletters because all they did was sell! No content, just more products. That’s a no-no. Give your readers what they want. Build trust with them. They will reward you with loyalty.
3 jesse // Jan 27, 2009 at 2:59 am
.00001% of one million is 10.
if you can generate an audience of 10, and serve those 10 exceptionally well, then the word of mouth, which is widely regarded as the best form of advertisement, will carry on to 5 of each of their friends, netting you as many as 50 clients.
the beauty of this avenue is that the people interested will contact you because they are already interested. half the work is done.
i do agree with one thing though, once you have an audience it’s absolutely essential to keep them as close as possible.
4 Justin // Jan 27, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Jesse,
Yes, that’s my point: there’s no reason to use some silly “marketing list” with one million people on it, when you might only net 10 responses.
Far better to go out, hustle, and find your own audience.
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