A content strategy isn't something like, on Monday, we're going to entertain them.
On Tuesday, we're going to educate them. On Wednesday, we're gonna
put a sales post up. No, that's not a content strategy. A
content strategy starts with who is your ideal plant, what is going on in
their heads, what do they need to hear from you, and meeting them
where they're at. Welcome to Imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years,
I read all the books, downloaded all the freebies, and did all
the courses, But it wasn't until I started taking imperfect action that my business
had its first million dollar year. Imperfect action is about doing things before you're
ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward even when you're
not sure you're doing it right. On this show, you can expect mindset
advice, actionable marketing tips, and strategies to build a business that brings you
more profit, more freedom, and even more joy. Are you on the
list to get my daily businesses? Every day, I'll send you a bite
sized prompt designed to help you grow your business in a more intentional way.
Sign up at step Taylor dot co. Forward slash DBB or at the link
in the show notes. Hey, welcome back to Imperfect Action this episode seven
hundred and seventeen. Today I am talking about the audience growth formula. I
know that standing out online reaching the right people, I know that can feel
really, really hard at the moment. And in today's episode, I'm going
to share the four parts that I think anyone needs to be on top of
if they want to grow their audience in today's online world. Now, today's
episode is for you if you are struggling to get your business in front of
the right people online and that that means you're not growing as quickly as you
would like to. It's for you if you are questioning whether you're attracting the
right kinds of people into your audience, the people who are being awesome clients
who are taking action, who are getting those results. And it's also for
you if you already feel like you don't have enough hours in the day to
do all of the things that you are supposed to do and don't have any
time to do anything extra. So today I'm going to start with a little
story from my very very first business. So I love marketing like I'm a
marketer at heart, and before the launch of my first business, which was
a product based business, it was a subscription box, I spent a lot
of time growing the audience on Instagram because this was, you know, going
back now to twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, even this was when Instagram was
at its prime for small businesses. You could reach lots of people. You
could grow your audience on there really easily. And before I launched that product,
I managed to grow the Instagram audience too. I think over ten thousand
people, around ten fifteen thousand people, and I was so excited about it
because I thought, great, We've got this awesome audience. When I launched,
it's gonna be a hit. People are gonna buy it. But they
didn't, and I was like, oh, well, this is really weird.
We've got, you know, ten thousand people following and like maybe fifty
customers. Why are they not buying? And in my mind, I was
like, okay, cool, let me just keep growing the audience, Let
me just keep adding more people. So I kept growing it, thinking that
that growth would lead to sales. And at one point we had like twenty
thousand followers and we're making maybe two thousand dollars a month in revenue before expenses.
So this was a physical product business, so I still had to pay
for postage and shipping. I had to pay for the wholesale products that were
going into the subscription boxes. All of that so was really turning much of
a profit. And I realize now in hindsight, I'm like, oh,
I know those mistakes that I made, But at the time I couldn't quite
figure fure out why these people weren't converting and some of the mistakes that I
made. So firstly, I relied purely on Instagram for this business audience,
and when the algorithm started to change twenty sixteen was one of the first big
changes that people noticed with the algorithm. Suddenly I stopped reaching as many people
with my content. I wasn't thinking about how I would nurture those people in
the audience. I was just focused on how can I get more people in.
I also didn't really focus on building my email list, and I was
sharing kind of content that was attracting the wrong people. This is the big
takeaway. So I was sharing awesome recipes for yummy food because it was a
food based subscription box, but the people who were following for that weren't gonna
buy the subscription box. They were just following for the yummy recipes. And
then I did one mistake that so many people make because it leads to awesome
growth, but those people don't buy, and that was giveaways. I participated
in loop giveaways, I participated in collaboration giveaways, and they grew the following,
but they weren't right for the product I was selling. They weren't the
right people. They were freebee seekers. And so I realized, Huh,
a big audience doesn't mean big sales. It's all about growing your audience with
the right people. A small audience of the right people is going to convert
into sales so much more effectively than a large audience of the wrong people.
So then after I closed that business down, I worked at a startup for
a little while, as you know, the kind of head of marketing.
And while I was doing that, I started my next business doing marketing consulting.
And I knew that I needed to do something different to all of the
other marketers out there because it was a pretty noisy environment. Even though that
was like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, it was very different. I guess
it was still similar in some ways in that it was super busy, but
it was like even back then it was still noisy. Now it's even much
noisier, but back then it was still pretty noisy. And so what I
started doing was I started creating really quality content. I started writing long form
blog posts. I'm talking two thousand word blog posts, sharing unique perspectives that
nobody else was talking about. I started doing videos and sharing videos to Facebook,
which back then was a great strategy. Now probably wouldn't work so much,
but nobody else was really sharing videos at that point in time, and
then I would actively get those in front of the right people. So I
would share those blog posts and those videos into Facebook groups where the right people
hung out. Now, while that wouldn't work now because of the way that
the algorithm has shifted, there's still one key takeaway there. You still need
to be creating that content and getting it in front of the right people.
So let me share with you the's growth formula. It's still the same formula
as it was back in twenty seventeen, and it probably won't change going forward
because it's not platform specific. It's not reliant on any particular type of content,
but it's more about the strategy that's underpinning all of it. So the
formula is content strategy plus remarkable content plus visibility plan multiplied by consistency. Let's
break that down. The first part content strategy. So this starts with knowing
who you are talking to and what kind of content is going to catch their
attention, the attention of the right people. And a content strategy isn't something
like on Monday, we're going to entertain them. On Tuesday, we're going
to educate them. On Wednesday, we're gonna put a sales post up.
No, that's not a content strategy. A content strategy starts with who is
your ideal client, what is going on in their heads, what do they
need to hear from you, and meeting them where they're at. It's not
about, oh, well, my ideal client is age twenty five to thirty
five and they live in Sydney and their favorite food is Japanese food. No,
that's not an ideal client. That is a target audience and knowing their
favorite food doesn't really that doesn't help us communicate with them and connect with them
better unless we are selling sushi. Right. So then the second part is
remarkable content. Creating and consistently sharing that remarkable content. Remarkable content is not
how to content. It's not tips and tricks, because those things, the
how to content, the tips and tricks, chat ChiPT can replicate those so
easily. Instead, it's the kind of content that makes the right person think,
hmm, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that.
Okay, it's the kind of content that they're going to go and then tell
somebody else about. And it's usually going to involve your unique perspectives, your
unique experiences, your stories. That's more remarkable than five tips to grow on
Instagram whatever. Then the next part is the visibility plan. So once you
created that content, you can't sit back and be like, oh, yay,
the algorithm's going to show me to the right people, because it doesn't
anymore. I saw a statistic recently that Instagram's reach is declining by thirty two
percent year on year. So that means that each year your content is reaching
thirty two percent fewer people organically than it was the previous year. So you
can't sit back and rely on the algorithm to show your content to the right
people. Okay. Instead, you need to be proactively getting in front of
those audiences. The other reason, of course, is that meta who owns
Instagram, they don't care about your business. They want you to spend money
on ads to promote your business, so they're not going to show your staff
to the right people unless you actually pay them. So instead we want to
look at how can we intentionally get in front of the right people. Back
in twenty seventeen, it was me putting that content into those Facebook groups.
In twenty twenty three, I am a guest on podcasts, I speak at
events, I teach to other people's courses and memberships. That is how I'm
intentionally getting in front of the right people. And then all of this we
multiply all of this by consistency. Consistency is that multiplier. The more consistent
you are, the more you will see results from all of the audience gross
things that you are doing when you put them together. It's not something you
can do just once and then be like cool, I sent five pitches out
to be a guest on someone's podcast and I'm done. No, it's something
you need to be able to stick to consistently over time. It doesn't have
to be something that you do a lot of every week, but it's something
that you can do sustainably over an extended period of time. And it also
means that you have you're on top of your content plan and your visibility plan.
You have that structure around what you are sharing and when, who you
are pitching and when rather than waiting to feel motivated and inspired. Because I've
been podcasting three times a week for the last like five and a half years,
and if I only showed up and did an episode when I felt inspired
and motivated, this show would have ended years ago. But instead, because
I have that structure in place, I know the episodes need to go out
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I show up and I record them.
The other thing that can really help with consistency is repurposing your content. Okay,
repurposing that content, so taking that podcast episode and switching your webcam on
while you record it and turning it into a YouTube video like I'm doing,
or turning it into short form video clips, repurposing all of it. Okay,
So there you have it. The audience growth formula, content strategy plus
remarkable content plus visibility plan or multiplied by consistency, that is what grows your
audience now at the moment, I have some special bonuses available for Booster Brand
super Fans. It's always open, but if you sign up in the I
think it's like six days of this episode going live, you'll see it on
the website page six days of this episode going live, I will chuck in
a bunch of extra bonuses, including weekly Q and A calls for four weeks,
so one Q and a call per module, so you can jump on
there, ask me questions all of the details. You can find all of
that at stephtaylor dot co slash BYBS, or if you send me a DM
on Instagram and there it's Stephtaylor dot co. Send me BYBS one word and
I will send you the link to find out more about Booster Brand Superfans,
where we deep dive into each part of that audience growth formula in much more
detail and in a much more actionable way, because I'm all about implementing and
getting results from taking action, not sitting there learning more learning all of the
things. All right, that is in for today's episode. If you haven't
already left a quick rating, please take thirty seconds to do that. In
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one of them, and yeah, it really does mean a lot, because
a lot of work goes into creating this show. Thank you so much for
listening. Catch you next time.