4 essential ways to organically grow your audience—without spending a cent on ads

As most online business owners are already aware, times are changing when it comes to growing your audience. It's no longer just about building your numbers, it's about attracting the right people to the business that *you* want to build. In today's episode, I'm sharing the 4-part formula for audience growth that won't cost you a cent.

- Why focusing on building more followers and subscribers won't necessarily translate to increased sales.
- The common mistakes when it comes to growing your audience.
- The questions you need to ask yourself to meet the *right* people where they're at.
- How using this 4-part formula can help you to share remarkable content with the right people at the right time.

SHOW LINKS
- DM me “BYBS” on Instagram (@stephtaylor.co) to find out more about “Boost Your Brand’s Superfans” or visit https://stephtaylor.co/boost-your-brands-superfans

- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
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- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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.

(00:23):
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

(00:45):
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 Steph Taylor dot co.

(01:09):
Forward slash DBB or at the link in your show notes. Hey,
welcome back to Imperfect Action this episode eight hundred and
fifty one. Today, I'm 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.

(01:31):
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

(01:53):
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

(02:17):
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,

(02:40):
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

(03:01):
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

(03:21):
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 postation, shipping,

(03:43):
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 realized now
in hindsight, I'm like, oh, I know those mistakes that
I made, But at the time I couldn't quite figure
out why these people weren't converting and some of the
mistakes that I made. So firstly, I relied purely on

(04:06):
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

(04:28):
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

(04:50):
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 and 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

(05:11):
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

(05:35):
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

(05:57):
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

(06:20):
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

(06:42):
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 audience growth formula.
It's still the same formula as it was back in

(07:03):
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

(07:26):
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.

(07:47):
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 a
page 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

(08:08):
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,

(08:30):
because those things, the how to content, the tips and
tricks chat GPT 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.

(08:54):
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

(09:14):
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.

(09:37):
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 stuff 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

(09:59):
putting that content to those Facebook groups. Now 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

(10:19):
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, and 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.

(10:42):
And it also means that 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 half years, and if I only showed
up and did an episode when I felt inspired and motivated,

(11:06):
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

(11:27):
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 I teach more

(11:48):
about the audience growth formula in Booster Brand Superfans. So
you can find out more at stephtaylor dot co slash BYBS,
or if you send me a DM on Instagram and
there at stephtaylor dot co, send me BYBS one word
and I will send you the link to find out
more about Booster Brands Superfans, where we deep dive into
each part of that audience growth formula in much more

(12:10):
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 Apple podcasts means a lot to me when you do.

(12:30):
I read every single 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.