When it comes to audience building online, we tend to fall for the hype.
It's all about “get a thousand clients” or “make thousands of dollars”.
If you've already been down that path you know that all of those methods fail spectacularly in building your audience. You have to ask yourself: what works? Or rather, what are the principles that you need to be paying attention to, if you really want to get, grow and keep your audience?
Let's find out three concepts to get customers coming back to your business from photographer, David duChemin.
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One of the things I liked the least about photography was the camera.
I'd owned a lot of cameras since I was in my teens, and I used them all the same way. I'd put them on automatic or Program mode and take the picture. I loved the result, but it drove me crazy how photographers talked obsessively about f stops, shutter speed and other jargon that made my head spin. In that chaotic space, I ran into someone quite different: a photographer called David duChemin.
His tone was so different, his booklets so non-technical that I went to his site and bought a handful.
Over the years, David and I have never met, but we've gotten to know each other exceedingly well. What makes David's newsletters extremely enticing is the clarity of his message. As a good newsletter should, he focuses on a single point and presents it lucidly.
I used to subscribe to many newsletters, and over the years, I've actively unsubscribed until just a few choice ones remain. David's is one of them, and here are three gems from “TheAudienceAcademy.com”. You'll find the newsletter is still very much dedicated to photographers, but the advice is just what every business owner needs.
Here are three I've loved in the last few months alone.
1- Brand vs commodity
2- Make a dollar, grow your audience?
3- Do you have an audience or just a mailing list?
Let's take a whirl into the duChemin world, shall we?
1- Brand vs Commodity
If you were asked to buy plywood, which brand would you buy?
In the late '80s, a branding exercise was rolled out, changing how Indians regarded plywood. Back then, if you wanted a cupboard, there was a strong likelihood you'd go to the store and buy one. However, back then, carpenters played an essential role in household furniture.
The carpenter came across, measured the area, and built furniture to your precise specifications. Not surprisingly, someone in your household had to deal with purchasing plywood.
Until Kitply came along, there was no way of telling one type of ply from another.
In the months from June-September, the rain lashes India, and the humidity soars. The moisture causes the ply to warp, and your lovely, new furniture looks terrible. The reason? The plywood wasn't able to stand up to the weather conditions. However, Kitply wasn't introduced as generic plywood. The ad campaigns were precise: Kitply was waterproof and even “boiling water proof”.
Buying plywood was a low-priority decision until Kitply changed its messaging. The wood company had taken something relatively unimportant and elevated it into a brand.
When making furniture, you bought Kitply or something cheaper—some other unknown ply.
That's the difference between a brand and a commodity.
And in his March newsletter, David covered just that topic: Is your business a brand or a commodity? Most businesses say they're a brand. However, the article goes on to say this: Before you answer too quickly (because everyone tends to think they're a brand. And because this isn't an all-or-nothing thing), here's another consideration:
It's easy to be a commodity in your chosen market and still think of yourself as a brand. Brands have audiences. Commodities do not.
Okay, you will likely have an audience, but how can you tell if you're a brand?
Here's how I know if you're a brand or not: when other people talk about you, do they say, “She's a photographer? Or do they say, “Oh, she's the photographer who…”
Is it, “He's a comedian,” or “He's that comedian who…”? If it's the former, you're a commodity. You're one of many.
In effect, the difference is between the choice of “a” vs “the”
Here are some examples of how a client would speak about you:
Anand is “a” photographer.
OR
Anand is “the” photographer who…
Marcela is “a” dentist.”
OR
Marcela is “the” dentist who…
Commodities might find their way onto a shopping list, but never a wish list.
Being a brand requires the courage to say, “This is who I am and who I am not.” It requires specificity. This means to reach the elevated status of a brand, you have to stand for something and then drop all the rest of the stuff. A commodity tries to occupy any and every space. A brand occupies one position and, more importantly, drops all the others.
In plywood terms, that would be the difference between “this is plywood” vs “this is the plywood that's boiling waterproof”. Which one would you choose? Well, so most of India. Kitply went from being a random brand with no identity to becoming a verb: like Hoover or Google.
But hey, you've only got a third of David's wisdom.
Let's move on to the next, which is incredibly piercing. And it doesn't talk about millions of dollars, or even thousands or hundreds. It narrows down to a screeching halt at one.
One measly dollar.
2- Make a dollar, grow your audience?
“A tiny goal that will change your life: Make $1 on the Internet.”
Before the Internet existed, people did. And people always behaved similarly. If you were a good artist, they'd say something like, “Oh, you should sell your work. I'm sure you'll make a lot of money out of it”.
And then, along came the Internet.
That technological wonder of being able to stay at home if you chose to do so. To be able to be in your underwear and drive audiences to you. Except that not everyone makes money on the Internet. And David explains why people struggle so much.
He says: “I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me how to make a living with their art, mostly in photography. I'm always hesitant to answer, especially in the few words”. Those types of questions require a conversation, usually a long one. But the one thing that most people behind those e-mails have in common is this: they have a hobby, not a business.
A hobby can become a business, but they aren't the same thing.
Just because you can make photographs doesn't mean people will buy them. The same is true of your paintings, songs, or those weird handmade garden gnomes you've been carving in your garage under cover of darkness.
A hobby becomes a business only when people buy what you are selling and for more than what it costs to make it.
Make a dollar online, and it'll change your life. Start with that.
Why? The moment you sell your first piece of art, your first recorded single as an Mp3, or your first book, you prove that someone out there sees value in it. It's proof of concept. And if one person will buy it, there's a good chance that someone else (and then many others) with similar tastes will also want it.
Making your first dollar also makes you realise one dollar isn't enough. I don't mean that in a greedy way. But it's not enough. Paints cost money. Canvases cost money. So do cameras and pianos and charcoal and sketchbooks. And the coffee you drink as you create, and the roof under which you do that creating. It all costs money.
The craftsman who creates only for the love of it isn't concerned with making a profit, but when actual income becomes a concern, you'll start thinking about charging what your work is worth. You might not get it right for a while, but you'll start thinking about it. That's a step forward.
It's only a hobby until you're making bank—actual profit. And if you can make a dollar online, then it's scalable.
When I sold the first eBook on which I eventually built my publishing brand, Craft & Vision, it was $5. After the second sale, I had made $10. After many more sales, I had made many more dollars.
But then he gets to the core of the message.
Everyone out there is making a free eBook right now.
Or some kind of free lead magnet or opt-in. Get them on the mailing list with something small, helpful, and free, like a sample of what you do, and then offer them more. It's a great strategy. But it's not the only strategy. I love free. Go to any of my websites, and you'll find free stuff.
But the problem with free is people don't value it in the same way that they value something that costs them something. They don't rave about it in the same way. They don't tell others about it in the same way.
For every 100 e-mails I might get telling me how much someone loved one of my books, like Within The Frame or The Heart of the Photograph, I might get one telling me how much they loved the free eBook they downloaded from my website. That's just not how people interact with free.
An audience of true fans is not built on free samples alone; the first dollar you charge is an invitation to have a more invested part in what you do—it's a commitment.
The fans you add to a mailing list via a purchase of something you make are many, many times more likely to purchase from you again and engage with you on a deeper level. They are qualified leads, and I'd take 100 qualified leads over 1,000 that are on my list only because they got something for free.
Free only goes so far.
When I started in marketing, I gave 45-minute presentations. They were at local groups, and they were always free. I was terrified to sell anything. And back then, few people had e-mail, let alone a connection to the Internet. However, a friend of mine who was a magician knew what I was going through. I ignored the main point: I had to sell something to make my work more viable.
“When you go to your next event, sell something,” he told me.
Terror crept in yet again. Would I be known as the hustler? I hated that term, “hustle”. It sounds raw, greedy. I was there to share my work with the world. I didn't want to hustle. Or sell, I just wanted to give my presentation, get the audience happy and move on. However, my friend was adamant that I try it, so I did.
There were about fifty people in the audience that Friday morning
Fifty of them clapped after my presentation, but about fifteen of them decided to buy a digital copy of The Brain Audit because I'd offered to sell something. I couldn't send it to them by e-mail, so I had to put it on a CD and then mail it to them when I got back.
But I'd made my $1.
Ok, so it wasn't on the Internet, but in a way, it was. At that moment, I realised without a doubt that there are two ways to get audiences. The first way is to demonstrate your ability somehow and get them on your list. However, there's nothing quite like when you make that dollar transaction.
Even if it's just $1.
Which takes us to the final point: Do you have an audience or just a mailing list?
3- Do you have an audience or just a mailing list?
You’ve probably read about an influencer called Ari, who had approximately 2.6 million followers.
Ari’s plan wasn’t over the top. In fact, it was downright modest. She’d told her followers that her goal was to start a fashion brand. And for the brand to get off the ground, she would like to sell 36 t-shirts.
The deadline came, and the deadline vanished.
All that was left was a very disappointed influencer who wrote: “No one has kept their word, so now the company won’t be able to send out the orders to people who actually bought shirts and it breaks my heart (don’t worry you’ll get a refund).”
That’s the difference between an audience vs a mailing list
And that’s how David describes his current situation as well. He says:
My mailing list shrunk last year by about 5%.
Despite all my efforts, if you look at the numbers, my audience seems to be getting smaller. Makes you glad you’re taking advice from me about audience growth, doesn’t it? But numbers don’t tell the whole story. Not the simple numbers, anyway. Here’s why I’m not only unbothered by the apparent shrinking of my list, but encouraged.
Audiences flow, and they are not to be confused with the size of your list.
In the last 30 days alone, I’ve gained almost 408 new subscribers. And I’ve lost 460. On paper, it looks like I’m going backward, so why am I even telling you this rather than hiding it from you? Because I understand that (A) audiences flow and (B) the size of a mailing list is not the same as the size of your actual audience. On the latter point, perhaps a visual aid will help:
The orange circles above roughly represent my mailing list. The one on the left is from a year ago; the one on the right is today. It’s also 5% smaller than the one on the left. A smaller list. That’s bad, right?
But the blue circles represent the people who are actually engaging with me, opening and reading the emails I send, clicking them, etc. The one on the right is about 20% larger. Smaller mailing list, but larger actual audience.
Take a look at the circles again.
Which would you rather have? I’ll take the one on the right—a smaller list with a larger engaged audience—any day.
So, it’s true that the number of subscribers shrank a bit last year, but my engagement is way up. More people are opening, reading, clicking, and replying to my emails. Do you see why I’m so encouraged?
But this isn’t about me; it’s about you. And it’s within the blue circle that you will find impact and your most loyal fans. It’s within the blue circle that you’ll find those who love what you make and want more of it, and those who will tell the people in their world about you.
We live in a world obsessed with “likes”.
First, as we discovered, the Internet came along. Then Facebook taught us that “likes” matter. And they do because we want people to like what we do, who we are, but that’s not an audience. That’s not even a bunch of window shoppers. We must encourage at least some of those people to get on your list. And when they get onto your list, they have to open, read, and buy.
But even engagement matters
When someone buys something from you, that’s not just a financial transaction; it’s an emotional one. The person needs to trust you and, at some level, like you. And that “like” is not the same as the “like” you get on Facebook or social media. That “like” is deeper.
It’s when people will buy or engage because they have a sense of camaraderie or respect. Hence, when people engage with responses or actions, that too is an audience.
Even so, it’s hard to measure audience participation
Around 2006, we started a year-long program called the Protégé program. We already had members in our membership site at 5000bc. We expected those most likely to join the Protégé program were those who actively participated in 5000bc. However, that was not the case at all.
More than 70% of those who paid for a year’s worth of consulting were clients who had bought The Brain Audit and other products but had rarely participated in 5000bc. However, when working in a smaller group, the same people were active daily for the entire year. They even attended a workshop in California that went on for almost the whole week.
Which makes this last point a bit sticky, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to know if you have an audience or not and if that audience is the one that will eventually buy. How are you supposed to know if they don’t show any signs of participation?
Usually, the way we go about gauging this issue is to ask our clients to do something small. e.g. Answer a simple one-line question. e.g. If you had one challenge in your day-to-day business, what would that challenge be? And then we wait for the response.
The response isn’t as you’d expect.
At first, a small set of people answer. Then, if nudged again, a second group answers. Eventually, it’s a good exercise if even just 35-50% answer, because you know that from that group, people are reading what you have to say and eventually responding. It’s no scientific test, but it gives you a good feeling that you have an audience rather than just a list.
I agree with David’s concept of audience vs just a list. However, I wouldn’t recommend putting too much emotional energy in how much your audience participates. The main point is NOT to worry about how slowly the list is growing or how many people unsubscribe. As long as your business is viable and your audience responds from time to time, you’re doing okay.
And that brings us to the end of this article, where we covered three concepts.
1- Brand vs commodity
2- Make a dollar, grow your audience?
3- Do you have an audience or just a mailing list?
Where would you start?
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