Building a Following That Stays Beyond the Scroll | 162
Ever struggled with growing an audience that doesn't just scroll past your content? This week, I'm Jenzaia, your go-to guru for creating a community that sticks around longer than my uncle at a holiday dinner! Join me for a laughter-filled journey where we'll draw parallels from everyday life, like March Break madness and car tune-ups, to the world of organic growth in the social media jungle. Get ready to crack the code on captivating content for platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, all while learning the secret sauce to regular posting that'll keep your audience coming back for more. Expect to leave with belly laughs and the blueprint for viral success that doesn't involve dancing cats (unless that's your thing, of course).
But wait, there's more! In the realm of collaborations, we're tearing down the traditional walls and exploring partnerships that pack a punch. I'm sharing my backstage pass to productive partnerships, focusing on sister niches that complement rather than compete with your brand. We'll chat about the magic of monthly mini-collaborations and the game-changer that is the quarterly big event, all from my firsthand experiences with teacher business owners and summit maestros. No hollow follower counts here—only solid strategies to cultivate a following that's as engaged as a bride-to-be with a shiny new ring. Strap in for an episode filled with insider tips that'll turn your marketing efforts from monologue to dialogue and keep your audience as loyal as my Labradoodle, Buster.
In this episode, we chat about…
✨ Organic Audience Building [5:45]
✨ Collaborations for Audience Expansion [14:30]
✨ Using Paid Ads to Grow Your Audience [20:00]
Episode Transcript:
Hello, how are you? This is the end of March break. So I, uh, hope that if it was your spring break, March break, whatever you happen to call it, where you are, I hope you had a great week and that you're ready to get back in the swing of things. My son, he's in junior kindergarten this year and he has no understanding of this.
So I think, I don't, I don't know how Monday's going to go because he has to go back to school. Uh, but we had a really great week. I'm sure I'm recording this before my break, but I'm sure we had a really great week. Uh, we went to. Montreal for a couple of days, got oil change and our tires changed. We live in Ontario.
And so in the fall slash early winter, we switch into winter tires. And then sometime, March, April, we switch from the winter tires. Back to our summer tires. We have all seasons actually, not that that's relevant or anything, but, uh, and then on Monday we have this gigantic crack in our window. It's actually not that bad.
It's probably like a foot, maybe a foot and a half. So it's like not small, but it also it's on the passenger side. It's not like crossing over anyway on Monday. We're getting that, uh, we're getting a new windshield. So pretty excited about that also. Today I am taking. A dose of my own medicine, if you will.
A couple weeks ago, I recorded an episode about what to do when you're in a creative rut or if you feel like a broken record. And I don't necessarily feel that way, but I miscounted the weeks and did not have a podcast plan. So, here we are. Here we are, uh, getting, uh, A new podcast out because we need it and I'm just like, I'm just gonna laugh all the way through this.
Uh, so I didn't have a podcast planned and I felt a little bit stuck on an idea so I went back in the archive and Sorted the podcast by most popular so most listened to and then looked for episodes that were over two years old because we're coming up on the three year anniversary like holy moly. So we're coming up on the three year anniversary of this podcast.
So I was looking for podcast episodes that were over two years old and one of the more popular. like most popular that fit that criteria was about three traffic sources that you can leverage. And so I decided to do a reboot of that for 2024. And we're going to talk about the, those three traffic sources.
I did not re listen to the episode. I did not look at the blog notes. I did nothing. So this is just my current 2024 take. on how to leverage the three main traffic sources in your marketing. So the three traffic sources are, well, okay, backup. When I first talked about it and why I keep referencing traffic sources, because that's how I used to talk about it.
And Now I've kind of like shifted and I'm gonna talk about it from ways to build an audience. So the three ways you can build an org, build an audience, and that's going the organic route. You can borrow someone's audience through collaborations or you can buy. And I hate that term. I've done a couple of trainings where I've included this information.
I probably mentioned it in that original podcast, but I don't want you buying an audience. I want you buying eyes on your business to grow your audience through people who are interested in what you have to offer, but you're going to buy that exposure, if you will, not the actual audience. So, we'll dive more into that once we get to that section.
So, let's start with building your audience organically. So, some examples of how you're going to do this is through social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, threads. Whatever new platforms pop up going forward, you can also build your audience through a podcast or blogging any sort of organic Growth would fall under this category where you really are Using your visibility using the algorithms to get yourself more seen the pros to this is Number one, it's free You are using your time and energy to create the content and to do the outreach, not money.
And then the second big pro is that often people that you connect with organically who find your content and become followers, join your audience. through this type of outreach, organic outreach, a social media post, or they hear a blog post, blog, they read a blog post, or they listen to a podcast, whatever it might be, tend to be the most loyalist of followers.
So that's great. The cons are that it can be very, very hard to do, especially as the algorithms have changed and evolved. It gets harder and harder. And then it can also take a really, really long time because you are doing it. Organically, one person by one person, typically, you could get an, a viral reel or another viral post, a viral Tik Tok, which can really, really help.
However, it can still be a lot of work and energy and time that is put into. Creating the content for either the social media or your long form content. How I recommend using this strategy within your marketing plan is to post regularly because it helps you stay visible, especially on social media. It's going to help you stay visible.
And it's going to help remind those people who are already in your world that you are still there. And if you can unlock the formula for viral posts or viral reels, viral TikToks, whatever it might be in your niche, then it can really help you. reach many, many people regularly and expand out beyond your current audience.
Uh, it is also a really great way to build relationships with the people who are already part of your audience and the new people who find you. This can, can go towards Social media, but I would say a little bit more to the other side and when I say the other side, that like to the, the long form content, building those relationships, nurturing the relationships and building the trust would come a lot more from the long form content.
I do recommend that you try to post on your social media, picking one main platform, so whether it's Instagram or TikTok or something else, posting there three or more times per week. And this does depend on the platform and your strategy and your own anything. I will also say that for me personally, my social media is the first thing I let go of.
I've had a really, really busy few months. I would say like three to four months now have been extremely busy. There have been some pretty big shifts and changes that have happened in our lives that have limited my time. And if you were to go onto my social media, onto my Instagram, there is a huge gap in content in January and February. I did not post a single time in February. It's the only time that I have, that I can remember, that I'm aware of. It's the only month since I started this iteration of my business that I haven't posted at least once. But uh, yeah. So February was a milestone month, if you will. Not in a great way, but it's because it's the first, for me, my social media is the first thing that goes.
My podcast and my emails are More important to me and I take they take priority. So that's where my energy went But you have to make that decision for yourself. And as I say about everything Consistency and quality are extremely important quality number one consistency number two And it's better to stick to a consistency plan of once a week or once a month Whatever you can actually commit to then to be throwing out garbage content More frequently.
Traffic source number two is borrowing an audience through collaborations. And what I mean by this is if you collaborate with someone through a summit conference, a live speaking opportunity, doing a podcast tour where you go and guest expert on multiple different podcasts, these are all really good ways that you put yourself in front of somebody else's audience.
You can also do Having other people come on to your platform and they hopefully will bring their audience to you, but that happens a little bit less frequently. I would say for the most part, you putting yourself in front of their audience is the best way to get that visibility that you're looking for.
Some of the pros are that it's usually free to do this. You don't normally need to pay to be in a summit or conference. or to go on a podcast tour. The one exception I would say is live speaking opportunities. Sometimes there might be a speaker fee that you have to pay, but there's also the opposite of a speaker fee where you get paid.
And so those are individual opportunities that you're going to need to look into. And I personally have never paid for a collaboration opportunity and, but I'm going to leave it. for you to decide if that's right for you or not. Another benefit is that it does tend to be a bit faster than organic growth because you're putting yourself in front of a big audience for an event or for a podcast where people will listen to it.
Like that first 24 to 72 hours, there's typically a big influx of listens to a podcast. Like a lot of downloads happen in that short period of time. A conference or a summit is a live event where there's a lot of exposure in that short period of time. So, It, it can be fast, but it's not necessarily as long lasting as long form content or a viral social media post could be.
And then the last pro is the built in trust. When I have someone on my podcast, you as listeners trust me because you listen regularly and by default, that means you're likely going to trust the other person who's come on to the podcast. Instantly, like instinctively, without even thinking about it because you trust me and I trust that person, you also trust that person.
And so collaborating with other people has this built in trust factor so you don't have to break down walls as much as with someone who's never heard of you before. Okay, cons for collaboration, it can be a lot of work. Especially for something like a summit or a conference, and even more so if it's a live opportunity, whether it's a live opportunity on a digital platform or a live opportunity on a, at a hotel or a conference room or whatever. It can be a lot of work to prepare for these types of presentations. And pre recording a summit presentation is also a lot of work. You have to factor in the time piece. You also need to make sure that the audience is a good match.
Because if it's not a good match, if it's not the right audience for you, then it can be a lot of that time spent wasted. And you don't want that. You don't want to waste your precious time and get almost nothing from the collaboration. So that's really important to make sure that the person is in a sister niche.
So they serve the same types of people that you might be serving, but they're not direct competition. So I wouldn't want to be working with another Facebook ads strategist. I'm more likely to work with others who also work with teacher business owners. So maybe someone who does Pinterest for teacher business owners and someone who creates logos for teacher business owners, uh, because they also serve teacher business owners, but we're not in direct competition because we offer different services.
So that's my recommendation. for how you find good matches for collaborations. And you can absolutely reach out. I've definitely done collaborations with people who serve, uh, Summit hosts. I was in a conference for Summit hosts, and that was a really great match because I offer Facebook ad services for Summits, and so if anyone who was hosting a Summit wanted to run ads I was able to help them and support them through that.
I've also done collaborations with mompreneurs. So they work with moms and that's not necessarily like my main focus audience. I do tend to lean towards the teacher business owners, but I do. As a mom myself do connect really well and easily with other moms who are business owners and so that's another niche that I have collaborated within.
I tend to shy away from business niches. Yes, I do work with business owners, but I tend to shy away from them because I don't feel that I can support them as well. And same with like real estate agents, I could probably work with a real estate agent, but I'm not. Putting my hand up to present at a realtor's conference or something like that, right?
Okay, how to use collaborations in your current marketing plan. I highly recommend that you are collaborating regularly because it's a really good way to grow your audience and to bring fresh eyes into your business. So monthly, I like to do smaller collaborations. So a joint live. or a podcast guesting opportunity because they're pretty easy to handle.
There's not a lot of work that goes into them each and you can do about one a month. And then quarterly I like to do a bigger collaboration. So that would be like the summit or the conference. And, or a live speaking opportunity. So do one, doing one of those once a quarter, they do tend to have a bigger influx because there is typically more eyes on you for those types of, uh, events, if you will, then a podcast.
But, again, there are a lot more work. So once a quarter for the bigger ones and then trying to get, uh, one monthly collaboration opportunity. And then the last one is buying eyes on your audience, or sorry, buying eyes on your business. And again, I said this at the beginning, but I want to reiterate, we are not buying audiences.
First and foremost, it is illegal in a lot of places, I would highly not recommend you do that. Again, the legalities of it alone are just a huge turn off for me. Second doing things like those giveaways. So on Instagram, I want to say like four, three, four years ago, the giveaways were really, really huge.
And I haven't seen as many of them recently. But the whole point of those was there was an account, like teacher giveaways or something along those lines. And there would be 20, 30 different people who had bought into the giveaway and you as one of the giveaway participants would have to post about the giveaway on your, your, Like your feed, your Instagram feed, Instagram stories, like they all had different requirements.
And then to be entered into the giveaway, the participants would have to follow all of the accounts and potentially share or comment or this or that or other, whatever the requirements were. And so that is buying followers because you've paid 10, 15, 20 dollars, whatever it is to be part of that giveaway and then people are following you in attempt to win the giveaway. I've seen significantly fewer of these because those end up being ghost followers, people who have no idea who you are, they have no idea why they followed you, so you either don't show up in their newsfeed, or when you do, if there's a misalignment, then they unfollow you pretty quickly.
And we don't want ghost followers on our profiles, so. Yeah, we don't, they were not a good thing, but buying followers in that way, I'm sure that there's another new way that, that like that type of thing is popping up and it will pop up again, I'm sure. But buying followers does not result in the loyal raving fans that we want.
We want people who want to be in our world. We want people who love our content, love our message, it resonates with them, they feel like they're learning something new and gaining something. So we want them to self select in. Even if you participate in one of those big like bundle giveaway, freebie giveaway bundle kind of thing, you don't want to be given the entire email list, in my opinion.
You don't want to be given that entire email list of people. You really want those freebie bundles. And I think that because of changes to email laws and to privacy, that this is the way it's going anyway. But you don't want to be participating in the ones where every single participant gets the entire email list.
You want to participate in the ones where people sign up, so the main person gets the email address. They sign up and then they're taken to a landing page where all of the different freebies are listed and they can self select into the ones that they want. And then they sign up for your email list.
That way, because then they're selecting into you and into your offer, into your freebie. And they're saying, yes, I want to be part of that email list. They will feel more in control and they will be able to say like again just self selecting when we self select into something We know it's what we want.
We know we want to be there and It's just a more positive experience for everybody. So some of those freebie bundle type things again You can pay to be in them. There's free options as well it really just depends on the organizer and what it is, but You want to participate in the ones where people are self selecting into you.
And yes, that means you're going to get less because if the organizer gives everybody the full email at list, there's going to be more people than if they just self select in. But you have to remember that those people who did not self select in probably don't want to be on your email list. And you don't want.
Just random people in your audience who don't want to be there, especially if you have a platform like ConvertKit where you're paying per subscriber or, you know, you have like a bucket of up to a thousand subscribers, up to 1500, whatever it is, where you're paying more for more subscribers. You don't want to be paying for people who don't want to be on your email list.
So I need to get off my soapbox and stop ranting about this and actually talk about what I mean when I say buying eyes on your audience with paid ads. So you can use any paid ads, some of the options, Facebook and Instagram ads, YouTube ads, TikTok ads, Google ads. I'm sure that there's other ones out there.
I personally still recommend Facebook and Instagram ads as my number one for most people because of our habits, the way we scroll, and you want to be catching people who aren't thinking about what you have to offer and getting them in that moment and be like, Oh, you know what, I am interested in this thing.
So that's why I love Facebook and Instagram ads, because of our habits and how we use the platforms, we can get those people, they might not be thinking at all about XYZ. But when they see your ad, they're like, yes, I need that freebie in my life. Whereas YouTube ads, Google ads, there isn't the same using habits.
So Google, it's really great for like local businesses or things that people are going to be searching because then they Like if I search plumbers, then ads for local plumbers will pop up in Google or if I search for realtors, ads for local real estate agents will pop up and that's really great.
Some of the pros to using paid ads. Oh, pause before we get to the pros, specifically how I recommend online businesses. So service businesses, uh, course based businesses, memberships group. Programs, coaching offers, how I recommend you use ads, at least 80 to 90 percent of your budget should be going to list building, getting new people onto your email list with either a freebie or a low ticket offer, something that's like 7 or 27, depending on your niche, it could be up to like 47 for that front end offer, or it can be absolutely free.
Right? And you're just growing your email list with those paid ads. That is my main recommendation. And so you're paying to get eyes onto your lead magnet. And then people will, again, self select into, yes, I see your lead magnet. It's something that I'm interested in. More eyes on the lead magnet hopefully means more people opting in.
Okay, so some of the pros are that it is much faster than organic because it runs 24 7 without you really having to lift a finger. And I have an asterisk here that says, After the initial setup and optimization, and we'll get into that in one of the cons, but, uh, it does run 24 seven, you don't need to be posting on social every five minutes.
You don't need to be going live. These ads will be running on your behalf. And the growth does typically tend to happen significantly faster than organic. Another pro is that it can reach a significantly wider audience than you would typically be able to reach with organics alone, with the exception of if you're able to hit it.
Viral post after viral post after viral post ads are going to be going out to cold audiences Beyond your normal reach that you would be able to make so that's a huge pro cons of course it costs money and it can be expensive and it can take a lot of work to get the ads set up and Running optimally, there can be a lot of stumbling points in those first couple of weeks, trying to get the best images and ad copy and finding the audiences.
And then once the ads are running, tweaking the landing page and making sure that it's converting well, and then making sure that your email sequence is running well. So there's a lot of work that can go into it. But once it's running well, and smoothly, it does tend to be a Very little work. Okay. , I just said it tends to be very little work.
That's not true. It doesn't tend to maintain that high level of work long term and the maintenance of an ongoing ad campaign can be lower. There isn't refreshing of images or not even refreshing, like if you're posting on social media, you're creating new images or creating new videos and creating new captions.
Once the ad is running and you're into maintenance phase, you don't need to be doing that creation, that constant creation. You really need to be tracking the numbers, looking at the data, and continuing to optimize the campaign. Okay, and then how you should use ads, paid advertisement in your current marketing plan.
And I already said this, but using them primarily for ongoing list building and email list growth is so, so important. It can be a huge factor in longterm sustainable business growth. As your email list grows, you have more people in your audience. Those are your warmest leads. more people who are likely to interact with you, to buy from you, people who are ready to work with you when you open those one to one spots or a new group program.
So growing your email list is a huge, huge asset. And if you listen to the episode that I put out a couple weeks ago on lowering, like people changing their consumption habits and minimizing their digital screen time, then you'll know that I highly recommend your email list even more now. That was a little intense.
Even more now. So I do recommend building your email list and consistently emailing your list because as people become more and more intentional about their screen time and they try to reduce their social media use, you'll, you won't see that same reduction in emails because There's a bit more of a business feel to them and more of a communication feel and they are also less addictive.
So if you want more of my insight on that, go back and listen to episode 161 and then you can see, like you can listen to my take on why email lists will just become more and more important. So okay, this was significantly longer than I thought it was going to be.
I hope that this reboot of an old episode is helpful, and I will make sure that that old episode is linked in the show notes if it's something that you are wanting to listen to, to go back and hear my original take as well as my refreshed take, and I will be back in your headphones with another Saturday Strategy Session next Saturday.
So I think, I don't, I don't know how Monday's going to go because he has to go back to school. Uh, but we had a really great week. I'm sure I'm recording this before my break, but I'm sure we had a really great week. Uh, we went to. Montreal for a couple of days, got oil change and our tires changed. We live in Ontario.
And so in the fall slash early winter, we switch into winter tires. And then sometime, March, April, we switch from the winter tires. Back to our summer tires. We have all seasons actually, not that that's relevant or anything, but, uh, and then on Monday we have this gigantic crack in our window. It's actually not that bad.
It's probably like a foot, maybe a foot and a half. So it's like not small, but it also it's on the passenger side. It's not like crossing over anyway on Monday. We're getting that, uh, we're getting a new windshield. So pretty excited about that also. Today I am taking. A dose of my own medicine, if you will.
A couple weeks ago, I recorded an episode about what to do when you're in a creative rut or if you feel like a broken record. And I don't necessarily feel that way, but I miscounted the weeks and did not have a podcast plan. So, here we are. Here we are, uh, getting, uh, A new podcast out because we need it and I'm just like, I'm just gonna laugh all the way through this.
Uh, so I didn't have a podcast planned and I felt a little bit stuck on an idea so I went back in the archive and Sorted the podcast by most popular so most listened to and then looked for episodes that were over two years old because we're coming up on the three year anniversary like holy moly. So we're coming up on the three year anniversary of this podcast.
So I was looking for podcast episodes that were over two years old and one of the more popular. like most popular that fit that criteria was about three traffic sources that you can leverage. And so I decided to do a reboot of that for 2024. And we're going to talk about the, those three traffic sources.
I did not re listen to the episode. I did not look at the blog notes. I did nothing. So this is just my current 2024 take. on how to leverage the three main traffic sources in your marketing. So the three traffic sources are, well, okay, backup. When I first talked about it and why I keep referencing traffic sources, because that's how I used to talk about it.
And Now I've kind of like shifted and I'm gonna talk about it from ways to build an audience. So the three ways you can build an org, build an audience, and that's going the organic route. You can borrow someone's audience through collaborations or you can buy. And I hate that term. I've done a couple of trainings where I've included this information.
I probably mentioned it in that original podcast, but I don't want you buying an audience. I want you buying eyes on your business to grow your audience through people who are interested in what you have to offer, but you're going to buy that exposure, if you will, not the actual audience. So, we'll dive more into that once we get to that section.
So, let's start with building your audience organically. So, some examples of how you're going to do this is through social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, threads. Whatever new platforms pop up going forward, you can also build your audience through a podcast or blogging any sort of organic Growth would fall under this category where you really are Using your visibility using the algorithms to get yourself more seen the pros to this is Number one, it's free You are using your time and energy to create the content and to do the outreach, not money.
And then the second big pro is that often people that you connect with organically who find your content and become followers, join your audience. through this type of outreach, organic outreach, a social media post, or they hear a blog post, blog, they read a blog post, or they listen to a podcast, whatever it might be, tend to be the most loyalist of followers.
So that's great. The cons are that it can be very, very hard to do, especially as the algorithms have changed and evolved. It gets harder and harder. And then it can also take a really, really long time because you are doing it. Organically, one person by one person, typically, you could get an, a viral reel or another viral post, a viral Tik Tok, which can really, really help.
However, it can still be a lot of work and energy and time that is put into. Creating the content for either the social media or your long form content. How I recommend using this strategy within your marketing plan is to post regularly because it helps you stay visible, especially on social media. It's going to help you stay visible.
And it's going to help remind those people who are already in your world that you are still there. And if you can unlock the formula for viral posts or viral reels, viral TikToks, whatever it might be in your niche, then it can really help you. reach many, many people regularly and expand out beyond your current audience.
Uh, it is also a really great way to build relationships with the people who are already part of your audience and the new people who find you. This can, can go towards Social media, but I would say a little bit more to the other side and when I say the other side, that like to the, the long form content, building those relationships, nurturing the relationships and building the trust would come a lot more from the long form content.
I do recommend that you try to post on your social media, picking one main platform, so whether it's Instagram or TikTok or something else, posting there three or more times per week. And this does depend on the platform and your strategy and your own anything. I will also say that for me personally, my social media is the first thing I let go of.
I've had a really, really busy few months. I would say like three to four months now have been extremely busy. There have been some pretty big shifts and changes that have happened in our lives that have limited my time. And if you were to go onto my social media, onto my Instagram, there is a huge gap in content in January and February. I did not post a single time in February. It's the only time that I have, that I can remember, that I'm aware of. It's the only month since I started this iteration of my business that I haven't posted at least once. But uh, yeah. So February was a milestone month, if you will. Not in a great way, but it's because it's the first, for me, my social media is the first thing that goes.
My podcast and my emails are More important to me and I take they take priority. So that's where my energy went But you have to make that decision for yourself. And as I say about everything Consistency and quality are extremely important quality number one consistency number two And it's better to stick to a consistency plan of once a week or once a month Whatever you can actually commit to then to be throwing out garbage content More frequently.
Traffic source number two is borrowing an audience through collaborations. And what I mean by this is if you collaborate with someone through a summit conference, a live speaking opportunity, doing a podcast tour where you go and guest expert on multiple different podcasts, these are all really good ways that you put yourself in front of somebody else's audience.
You can also do Having other people come on to your platform and they hopefully will bring their audience to you, but that happens a little bit less frequently. I would say for the most part, you putting yourself in front of their audience is the best way to get that visibility that you're looking for.
Some of the pros are that it's usually free to do this. You don't normally need to pay to be in a summit or conference. or to go on a podcast tour. The one exception I would say is live speaking opportunities. Sometimes there might be a speaker fee that you have to pay, but there's also the opposite of a speaker fee where you get paid.
And so those are individual opportunities that you're going to need to look into. And I personally have never paid for a collaboration opportunity and, but I'm going to leave it. for you to decide if that's right for you or not. Another benefit is that it does tend to be a bit faster than organic growth because you're putting yourself in front of a big audience for an event or for a podcast where people will listen to it.
Like that first 24 to 72 hours, there's typically a big influx of listens to a podcast. Like a lot of downloads happen in that short period of time. A conference or a summit is a live event where there's a lot of exposure in that short period of time. So, It, it can be fast, but it's not necessarily as long lasting as long form content or a viral social media post could be.
And then the last pro is the built in trust. When I have someone on my podcast, you as listeners trust me because you listen regularly and by default, that means you're likely going to trust the other person who's come on to the podcast. Instantly, like instinctively, without even thinking about it because you trust me and I trust that person, you also trust that person.
And so collaborating with other people has this built in trust factor so you don't have to break down walls as much as with someone who's never heard of you before. Okay, cons for collaboration, it can be a lot of work. Especially for something like a summit or a conference, and even more so if it's a live opportunity, whether it's a live opportunity on a digital platform or a live opportunity on a, at a hotel or a conference room or whatever. It can be a lot of work to prepare for these types of presentations. And pre recording a summit presentation is also a lot of work. You have to factor in the time piece. You also need to make sure that the audience is a good match.
Because if it's not a good match, if it's not the right audience for you, then it can be a lot of that time spent wasted. And you don't want that. You don't want to waste your precious time and get almost nothing from the collaboration. So that's really important to make sure that the person is in a sister niche.
So they serve the same types of people that you might be serving, but they're not direct competition. So I wouldn't want to be working with another Facebook ads strategist. I'm more likely to work with others who also work with teacher business owners. So maybe someone who does Pinterest for teacher business owners and someone who creates logos for teacher business owners, uh, because they also serve teacher business owners, but we're not in direct competition because we offer different services.
So that's my recommendation. for how you find good matches for collaborations. And you can absolutely reach out. I've definitely done collaborations with people who serve, uh, Summit hosts. I was in a conference for Summit hosts, and that was a really great match because I offer Facebook ad services for Summits, and so if anyone who was hosting a Summit wanted to run ads I was able to help them and support them through that.
I've also done collaborations with mompreneurs. So they work with moms and that's not necessarily like my main focus audience. I do tend to lean towards the teacher business owners, but I do. As a mom myself do connect really well and easily with other moms who are business owners and so that's another niche that I have collaborated within.
I tend to shy away from business niches. Yes, I do work with business owners, but I tend to shy away from them because I don't feel that I can support them as well. And same with like real estate agents, I could probably work with a real estate agent, but I'm not. Putting my hand up to present at a realtor's conference or something like that, right?
Okay, how to use collaborations in your current marketing plan. I highly recommend that you are collaborating regularly because it's a really good way to grow your audience and to bring fresh eyes into your business. So monthly, I like to do smaller collaborations. So a joint live. or a podcast guesting opportunity because they're pretty easy to handle.
There's not a lot of work that goes into them each and you can do about one a month. And then quarterly I like to do a bigger collaboration. So that would be like the summit or the conference. And, or a live speaking opportunity. So do one, doing one of those once a quarter, they do tend to have a bigger influx because there is typically more eyes on you for those types of, uh, events, if you will, then a podcast.
But, again, there are a lot more work. So once a quarter for the bigger ones and then trying to get, uh, one monthly collaboration opportunity. And then the last one is buying eyes on your audience, or sorry, buying eyes on your business. And again, I said this at the beginning, but I want to reiterate, we are not buying audiences.
First and foremost, it is illegal in a lot of places, I would highly not recommend you do that. Again, the legalities of it alone are just a huge turn off for me. Second doing things like those giveaways. So on Instagram, I want to say like four, three, four years ago, the giveaways were really, really huge.
And I haven't seen as many of them recently. But the whole point of those was there was an account, like teacher giveaways or something along those lines. And there would be 20, 30 different people who had bought into the giveaway and you as one of the giveaway participants would have to post about the giveaway on your, your, Like your feed, your Instagram feed, Instagram stories, like they all had different requirements.
And then to be entered into the giveaway, the participants would have to follow all of the accounts and potentially share or comment or this or that or other, whatever the requirements were. And so that is buying followers because you've paid 10, 15, 20 dollars, whatever it is to be part of that giveaway and then people are following you in attempt to win the giveaway. I've seen significantly fewer of these because those end up being ghost followers, people who have no idea who you are, they have no idea why they followed you, so you either don't show up in their newsfeed, or when you do, if there's a misalignment, then they unfollow you pretty quickly.
And we don't want ghost followers on our profiles, so. Yeah, we don't, they were not a good thing, but buying followers in that way, I'm sure that there's another new way that, that like that type of thing is popping up and it will pop up again, I'm sure. But buying followers does not result in the loyal raving fans that we want.
We want people who want to be in our world. We want people who love our content, love our message, it resonates with them, they feel like they're learning something new and gaining something. So we want them to self select in. Even if you participate in one of those big like bundle giveaway, freebie giveaway bundle kind of thing, you don't want to be given the entire email list, in my opinion.
You don't want to be given that entire email list of people. You really want those freebie bundles. And I think that because of changes to email laws and to privacy, that this is the way it's going anyway. But you don't want to be participating in the ones where every single participant gets the entire email list.
You want to participate in the ones where people sign up, so the main person gets the email address. They sign up and then they're taken to a landing page where all of the different freebies are listed and they can self select into the ones that they want. And then they sign up for your email list.
That way, because then they're selecting into you and into your offer, into your freebie. And they're saying, yes, I want to be part of that email list. They will feel more in control and they will be able to say like again just self selecting when we self select into something We know it's what we want.
We know we want to be there and It's just a more positive experience for everybody. So some of those freebie bundle type things again You can pay to be in them. There's free options as well it really just depends on the organizer and what it is, but You want to participate in the ones where people are self selecting into you.
And yes, that means you're going to get less because if the organizer gives everybody the full email at list, there's going to be more people than if they just self select in. But you have to remember that those people who did not self select in probably don't want to be on your email list. And you don't want.
Just random people in your audience who don't want to be there, especially if you have a platform like ConvertKit where you're paying per subscriber or, you know, you have like a bucket of up to a thousand subscribers, up to 1500, whatever it is, where you're paying more for more subscribers. You don't want to be paying for people who don't want to be on your email list.
So I need to get off my soapbox and stop ranting about this and actually talk about what I mean when I say buying eyes on your audience with paid ads. So you can use any paid ads, some of the options, Facebook and Instagram ads, YouTube ads, TikTok ads, Google ads. I'm sure that there's other ones out there.
I personally still recommend Facebook and Instagram ads as my number one for most people because of our habits, the way we scroll, and you want to be catching people who aren't thinking about what you have to offer and getting them in that moment and be like, Oh, you know what, I am interested in this thing.
So that's why I love Facebook and Instagram ads, because of our habits and how we use the platforms, we can get those people, they might not be thinking at all about XYZ. But when they see your ad, they're like, yes, I need that freebie in my life. Whereas YouTube ads, Google ads, there isn't the same using habits.
So Google, it's really great for like local businesses or things that people are going to be searching because then they Like if I search plumbers, then ads for local plumbers will pop up in Google or if I search for realtors, ads for local real estate agents will pop up and that's really great.
Some of the pros to using paid ads. Oh, pause before we get to the pros, specifically how I recommend online businesses. So service businesses, uh, course based businesses, memberships group. Programs, coaching offers, how I recommend you use ads, at least 80 to 90 percent of your budget should be going to list building, getting new people onto your email list with either a freebie or a low ticket offer, something that's like 7 or 27, depending on your niche, it could be up to like 47 for that front end offer, or it can be absolutely free.
Right? And you're just growing your email list with those paid ads. That is my main recommendation. And so you're paying to get eyes onto your lead magnet. And then people will, again, self select into, yes, I see your lead magnet. It's something that I'm interested in. More eyes on the lead magnet hopefully means more people opting in.
Okay, so some of the pros are that it is much faster than organic because it runs 24 7 without you really having to lift a finger. And I have an asterisk here that says, After the initial setup and optimization, and we'll get into that in one of the cons, but, uh, it does run 24 seven, you don't need to be posting on social every five minutes.
You don't need to be going live. These ads will be running on your behalf. And the growth does typically tend to happen significantly faster than organic. Another pro is that it can reach a significantly wider audience than you would typically be able to reach with organics alone, with the exception of if you're able to hit it.
Viral post after viral post after viral post ads are going to be going out to cold audiences Beyond your normal reach that you would be able to make so that's a huge pro cons of course it costs money and it can be expensive and it can take a lot of work to get the ads set up and Running optimally, there can be a lot of stumbling points in those first couple of weeks, trying to get the best images and ad copy and finding the audiences.
And then once the ads are running, tweaking the landing page and making sure that it's converting well, and then making sure that your email sequence is running well. So there's a lot of work that can go into it. But once it's running well, and smoothly, it does tend to be a Very little work. Okay. , I just said it tends to be very little work.
That's not true. It doesn't tend to maintain that high level of work long term and the maintenance of an ongoing ad campaign can be lower. There isn't refreshing of images or not even refreshing, like if you're posting on social media, you're creating new images or creating new videos and creating new captions.
Once the ad is running and you're into maintenance phase, you don't need to be doing that creation, that constant creation. You really need to be tracking the numbers, looking at the data, and continuing to optimize the campaign. Okay, and then how you should use ads, paid advertisement in your current marketing plan.
And I already said this, but using them primarily for ongoing list building and email list growth is so, so important. It can be a huge factor in longterm sustainable business growth. As your email list grows, you have more people in your audience. Those are your warmest leads. more people who are likely to interact with you, to buy from you, people who are ready to work with you when you open those one to one spots or a new group program.
So growing your email list is a huge, huge asset. And if you listen to the episode that I put out a couple weeks ago on lowering, like people changing their consumption habits and minimizing their digital screen time, then you'll know that I highly recommend your email list even more now. That was a little intense.
Even more now. So I do recommend building your email list and consistently emailing your list because as people become more and more intentional about their screen time and they try to reduce their social media use, you'll, you won't see that same reduction in emails because There's a bit more of a business feel to them and more of a communication feel and they are also less addictive.
So if you want more of my insight on that, go back and listen to episode 161 and then you can see, like you can listen to my take on why email lists will just become more and more important. So okay, this was significantly longer than I thought it was going to be.
I hope that this reboot of an old episode is helpful, and I will make sure that that old episode is linked in the show notes if it's something that you are wanting to listen to, to go back and hear my original take as well as my refreshed take, and I will be back in your headphones with another Saturday Strategy Session next Saturday.
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