#171: How to Attract a New Audience That Doesn’t Know You

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina, Onativia here to get you excited about your course creation and your marketing and to help you build up the course based business of your dreams. And by the way, I want you building whatever is going to serve your students and your customers at the highest level. It could be a static course, a live workshop group, coaching a mastermind, whatever it looks like. I want to help you get across the finish line. And last week I talked about gamification. Some really great ways to help your students get across the finish line when it comes to your course. If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, please go back and listen. It’s a great workshop. And today I want to talk about how do you approach a new audience? I’m feeling a little emotional today and nostalgic because the kids soccer team, boys under 12 that I just assistant coach wrapped up their season yesterday and they did an amazing, amazing job. This team really came together. Everyone made progress and we got underneath the tent right before the end of the game and we went around and said, okay, what’s the season like for you? How did it feel in one word? And all the kids were saying amazing or awesome sauce or incredible or fantastic. And then coach got to me and I said, Proud. So proud to support these kids, proud to be a part of something bigger than myself. That just takes me out of the day to day of being an entrepreneur and being a business owner. So if you’re a coach or you’re supporting your kids in some way or youth sports, like I really want to commend you because I know sometimes it’s not easy, but it can be so rewarding. I also want to do some shout outs to those of you taking action. So my half day gal Monica, who’s putting out a webinar for coaching and corporate gigs or my intensive gal Selina, who’s putting herself out there in terms of being an online fitness trainer, could not be more proud. If you are taking action if you’re listening to this podcast. Message me so I can give you a shout out so I can acknowledge you because at the end of the day, this is what I want. I want you guys to take action. I was just looking at this Ricky Gervais quote and he was saying, I’d rather you put your creation out there, then sit on the couch and criticize somebody and not take action and criticize somebody. Now, I’m paraphrasing there, but the idea is better to take action, right. And make a mistake or fail even, but have taken the action rather than stand on the sidelines and poke fun at somebody for what they’ve put out there. I will never fault you for being a creator, for putting your output into the world. So don’t be afraid to do that and let me know when you’ve done it so I can acknowledge you on this podcast.

All right. Now getting back to our podcast about what do you do with the new audience? And this was inspired by a call I had this week with someone who sees a big opportunity with a different niche. In this case, she’s a retirement advisor and she’s really passionate about who she serves now, but she sees a different niche that she can serve. Now the challenge is this niche. This segment doesn’t know who she is. No idea. So she’s excited to serve them, but they don’t know her from Eat Right? So she comes to me because she wanted to build a course. I said to her, Well, this is great. I love this. You want to build a course. But we got to back up a couple of steps. And it’s a great offer because it’s a niche. She knows there’s a demand. She knows she can fulfill it. But the audiences even know you exist. And you want to present yourself in a way that they can learn about. You trust you, right? Like and trust you and love you and then buy from you. So and I thought this was a smart move, by the way, for her to talk to me first.

Not that I’m God’s gift to knowing everything about offers and audiences, but she wanted to vet this out like, Hey, I’ve got this idea. I think it’s a great audience for me. What do you think? Is this a viable course? And I do think it’s a great idea. I just think there are steps that she needs to take before she starts selling to this audience. And by the way, if you have a great idea and you want to explore it, you can always DM me. And then if you’re a little further down the line, you could always apply for one of our Done for you spots. A link to that in the show notes. Here’s the thing. It’s important to build your audience first, right? It’s not just about having a lot of people on your list. It’s about having the right people on your list who are ready to buy your course. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about in this workshop episode. So how do you approach this new audience that you have an opportunity with? And when I say opportunity, maybe you have a partnership that somebody has offered you.

Someone says, Hey, I’d love to partner with you. I’ve got this great audience. You’ve got the content or you’ve got the training. Let’s get together and let’s make something powerful happen. Whatever it is, I want you to build up your presence for this audience and make yourself attractive, even irresistible. And let’s break it down versus how much you want to invest to start. Because when I was talking to this financial advisor, she was saying, I don’t want to spend a lot of money right now. I don’t want to invest a lot of money. So where can I start in terms of not having to throw a lot at it right now? So the first is the free kind of tier to start with, and this is what you can be doing right now to build up your audience.

Let’s start with the free tier. Now, I also want to be clear, when you’re building your audience, it’s going to require an investment of some time. If you have money to spend on ads, it’s one investment and it can help you quickly build an audience. But if you don’t have money to invest, that’s okay. But it’s going to require time and energy on your part to build up that audience. Also, it will take time to see result. I just mentioned the ads piece that will accelerate your results. When you put money behind that. So if you’re planning to launch your course in, say, six months, you need to focus on building your audience right now because you might not see real results for, I don’t know, 90 days. And it’s going to take some time to build momentum. Here’s what you could be doing for free. You could be storing up some content, really thinking about your audience’s pain points, because I’m assuming you’re starting from scratch. This is a new audience for you. Write down their top five pain points, then match your content with whatever the solution is for those pain points. Then you could start writing content doing videos for this coach. She said, Well, I don’t want to do blogs. I like video. And I said, Great do video. You’re listening right now. Do whatever you’re comfortable with. Whatever lights you up, whatever you think your people are really going to want. So you would start making notes in your content journal about what really speaks to your audience. Start recording videos and stockpiling those. And by the way, if you’re going to have videos, maybe of emails to go with them, so you start writing those, right? So eventually you’re going to release these videos, you’re going to want to email your list or put out social posts. Start writing. Start writing posts and emails and copy the go along with it. If you been listening to me for a while, you know I don’t truly believe in batching, but in a big way like, Hey, I’m going to knock out ten videos in one day.

I just think that’s really difficult and most of us can’t do that. But I will batch my content scripts together, my podcast videos and audios, etc. all link to the episode I did about how I kind of customize is my batching so you can learn how to do that. That’s something that you can do as a first step. Then meanwhile, I want you figure out what your audience is, what social platforms are they on, who they follow, what do they watch, what do they consume? How can you get a sense of them? And doing that research so content is the first part, right? It’s just your time and energy in order to create that for this new audience. And then second is figuring out who can you partner with in order to get in front of their audience and build up your own list. So I want you focusing on creating content that resonates with your audience and building partnerships that allow you to get in front of someone else’s audience. So you’ll need to create time for both the content creation and also for researching partners and reaching out for ways to collaborate. In both these instances, you want to be clear on how to position yourself. What makes you unique? What something different you bring to the table? What do you offer the audience of your partners? So that’s a baseline if you’re thinking, I’m interested in this audience, But Gina, I don’t even know where to start. That’s a great place to start. That’s free. Just your time and energy, then figuring out how to position yourself. So that’s a baseline. So that’s a great place to start and that’s free. Oh, and by the way, one of the piece, I want you to figure out how to position yourself. I’m the course boutique girl, right? I am the boutique digital strategist. All linked to a three part series I did about how to work on your course. And part one is all about who you are into the market. And really, when you’re going into a new market, a new niche, you have to define yourself. I am this person to this audience because in that it says what you do for them. It says, What makes you special? So don’t overlook that step. All right. So step up from free. You spend a little bit of money, is writing a lead magnet and getting it up on your site. All link to some podcasts I’ve done about lead magnet. I like lead pages. I like hijabi WordPress. Whatever suits you. I don’t care where you house your heat magnet as long as you get it up, get it up on your site, add it, collects emails and names for you, for qualified people. That’s what’s important to me. And a quick reminder, your lead magnet needs to be something compelling, something that helps your audience get a quick win, something they’re willing to give you their name and email for, especially in such a skeptical age. And it should be easy to consume. The goal is for them to be able to use your lead magnet and want to learn the next step so you’ll build a nurture sequence and then lead them to your course. Or at least the waitlist for your course. And by the way, talking about the money, because this is where we invest a little bit of money, right, guys? This is where you get some help. Maybe you go to Upwork and you get a little bit of design help. Maybe you get a little bit of writing help or tech.

Please don’t let the tech hold you back. There are so many people out there who want to help you all around the world in terms of getting your tech done. I don’t care what software you’re using. If they know how to use one software, you know how to use Active Campaign, you know, to use constant contact and and etc. of all these different platforms. So some of you have written to me to say, I got it all up on my own meeting your lead magnet. And that’s amazing. I applaud you DIYers out there, but for the rest of you, maybe you want to spend a little money getting support and then you can send traffic to that lead magnet you post on Social, Your new podcast, if you get some guesting opportunities going.

So that kind of next level is the lead magnet because you’re capturing names so you can nurture your audience and that’s an awesome way to introduce yourself to this audience as well. Another thing you can do, by the way, is get scrappy and DM people on whatever your platform of choice is LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. and you’re offering them a freebie or some kind of added value, which by the way, I think is a little less slimy and committal less committal than offering a strategy call. I see a lot of LinkedIn requests and they’re offering strategy calls. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to get on a call till we have done a little bit of research. And I know, I know you and I like you. I might not trust you yet, but I feel your vibe and I feel like we are aligned and then I’m willing to get on a call. Now, some of you might disagree with me if you do write it so that lead magnet or opt in would be a level to you spending a little money. And then once you figure it out, tier one, tier two, and you’re listening and you’re a little more advanced, you’re not starting from scratch, the next level would be potentially running some ads against your lead magnet and building that audience for you. Okay, let’s get this out of the way right now. When it comes to ads, some people are saying, well, Gina, ads don’t work anymore. It’s not true. Okay. Ads are still working for many course consultants, coaches and course creators, including myself. And you just got to figure out what works for you and your audience and how to get those qualified leads. Now, that being said, you don’t want to run ads without knowing what you’re doing, right? Make sure you have a lead magnet that converts your audience to signing up for it organically. You know they’re interested, and if you don’t know how to run ads, find someone who can help you. Upwork is another great resource for this, especially when you’re getting started. You don’t have to hire some big agency. The great thing about having a niche is that you know how to target these people. Like going back to that tier one we talked about where you’re figuring out where they live, what they consume, what they watch, what they read, what they listen to. That’s how you target them. And that’s where that Tier three ads can be really effective for you. Well, hopefully this was helpful for you. And by the way, these principles are really helpful for you, for any audience, your current audience, a new niche audience, whoever you’re going after in terms of building your list, let me know if you have any questions. You could DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn. Please leave me a review if this has impacted you in any way. This podcast or another episode. Next week I’m going to talk about the highs and the lows when it comes to building my website so I can teach you guys how to build an incredible website from all the mistakes that I went through. Until then, go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.