How to Choose a Winning Audience (and work less)
The biggest obstacle when selling your course or growing your following is choosing the wrong audience.
Half of you are about to have a much clearer vision around how to create content/marketing messages after reading this email.
There are only three types.
- Downhill
- Neutral
- Uphill
Downhill
This is you 5-10-15 years ago. You’re teaching beginners how to start. It’s the easiest and hardest audience.
- Easy to get attention
- Usually broke (the farther back you go the worse it gets)
Don’t target the beginners. Yes, they will love your content and engage with it but wont buy because they have no money.
The sweet spot is targeting someone that is 1-2 steps behind you at most.
Neutral
These are your peers. Think of the average owner of an agency that scaled it a bit… puts out a course on how to do the same right away. Always a ton of noise in this space. For every Tony Robbins there are 1000’s of motivational coaches with courses and weak followings barely getting by.
Unless you’ve accomplished something, have a solid story and are a good writer/speaker then the ones that do will drown you out.
I think of this space of coaches teaching coaches how to coach coaches.
Here is what I look for. Let’s say in you’re basically in the same spot in business but you hear your competition complaining about scaling or hiring which is something you’ve figured out.
This is your edge.
Uphill
The people ahead of you. You might be looking to sell a CEO on your course, get on Joe Rogan’s show or a recommendation by Oprah.
In sales we would call these whales. They will make you a lot of money but they were known as the valley upon which the unskilled person dies (but if you have a long runway, clout and a proven sales method – then this is the main audience you want).
The challenge with this audience
– They can smell bullshit
– Have a moat (purchasing person, gatekeeper, multiple decision makers)
– Large budget but a short purchasing window (1-2 months per year when they choose all vendors)
– Difficult to catch their attention (if looking for engagement on socials)
Solution
You need two audiences
1. Your bread and butter.
2. The whales
The course can be the same. You could be selling to individuals (1-2 steps behind you) or (peers if you have an edge) as your bread and butter.
Then target the whales (with upsell or white glove service) or (with multiple licenses sold to large companies).
It’s also the fastest way to attract the right following.
Whenever you have a content/marketing idea, is it targeting one of these audiences? If not, skip it.
