Unfortunately, you can’t wave a magic wand and have a community begging to pay you for your expertise.
Recognizing your challenges and understanding what to focus on is a great step to saving time and reaching your potential.
Here are ways to grow and sell to an engaged community.
Jump into it:
- Setbacks to Growing a Community
- Nurturing your Community
- Convert your Buyers
- How to Attract your Audience
Setbacks to Growing a Community
Some setbacks a business can have from growing a community:
- Not having a big contact list
- Not having time with your full-time gig
- Not feeling worthy or confident
- Scared of what our peers will say.
The good news though, once you have locked into how you can meet the specific needs of a group of people, you will gain traction very quickly. Serving and helping people see the possibilities of their potential growth in life and business is the ticket to the success of any online offering you would like to start.
Today, I want you to focus on two primary things that come into play as you focus on how to nurture, serve and build an engaged community that you can sell to:
- Know what your community needs
- Know the transformation you can create in their lives
Nurturing your Community
Now how do you shine what I like to call your “marketing lighthouse” so those who are needing you can even find you? That’s where nurturing a community is going to come into play.
Step #1: Know your People Inside and Out
Understand what keeps them up at night. They won’t buy because your offering is good or the price is right, they will buy because you can solve their problems.
It’s hard but critical to narrow in as much as possible. Example: “28-35-year-old single mothers, who are working part-time to make a wedding planning hobby a full-time gig and “feel short on time, income and confidence to reach their potential”.
Related: How to Define Your Target Audience
Step #2: Check the “Brand” Boxes
It is critical you position yourself as the expert you are. Over 70% will Google or validate you on social, so develop an online brand with a website, a social media account, or two, and make sure your messaging and offerings are discussed on each platform.
Social Proof is another way to validate yourself is to have reviews from past clients or character reviews from friends and family if you are just getting started.
Step #3: Build and Nurture a Buying Community
I am a huge believer in building your audience and community by email. The numbers don’t lie and in my experience, most online offerings like courses and memberships convert at about 4-7%.
100 people on your list? Possibly only 5 will pay for your offering and that also depends on how cold to trusting your audience is. Showing up and serving is a great way to take leadership, be perceived as an expert, and add trust and credibility.
This part is a long game but is an incredible time investment. You can build a community through hosting a podcast, a YouTube or social channel, etc., but the biggest bang is a direct download.
Related: Community Engagement Ideas
Convert Your Buyers
The easiest way to serve your audience for free so they see the value and convert into buyers is to build and provide a free resource PDF, video, or webinar series. Give them a win! Here’s an example
When crafting what you provide for free, show them the possibilities, but don’t give them the bridge to get there. Share:
- Myths
- Mistakes
- Secrets
- Tips
- Did you Know
- Resources
Related: Freebie Success Guide: Grow A Profitable & Strategic Brand
How to Attract your Audience
How to get in front of people who may want to join your community?
- Show up on social media frequently
- Sharing your freebies to existing contacts/clients
- Blog and email your list to share it
- Be a guest on a podcast or webinar
- Speak in person at conferences
- Run ads for freebie downloads
Once you have people in your community, you have the opportunity to sell to them built engagement. Once you have given them results for free, they are more likely to become paying customers.
I have my membership, Brand Magic Society which is highly retentive because all of my focus is on helping them win. Win each week, each month, and each quarter.
When we are gearing up for a launch, we tend to spend an intentional 6-8 weeks nurturing my entire community by giving a lot of freebies and value each week consistently, we then go into a 4-5 day selling stint and then go back to developing value. The time spent crafting free value vs selling offers is 10/1, but the results are incredibly higher and we are able to see fewer unsubscribes from our emails as well (which are inevitable).
For more tips on launching a digital offering and understanding the brand pieces you need, check out my Digital Business Takeoff Shortcut Sheet here.
