[social_warfare]
SHOW NOTES
Back when I was first growing my business, I used to get coaching from Russell Brunson.
I always remember hearing him say in our inner circle meetings that if you have a hundred true believers, you can sell anything and have success as a business.
You don’t have to have hundreds of thousands of followers to make it.
All you need is a core group of people who trust you, believe in you, and have faith in you.
Quality versus quantity, right?
So where do you find said believers?
How do you convert the people who are following you, but aren’t engaged with you into believers?
I’ve got a few strategies up my sleeve that might help.
In this episode I’m diving into how you can grow a following of true believers by prioritizing brand awareness and visibility.
After tuning in, I’d love it if you shared with me how YOU are doing this in your marketing over on Instagram (@emilyhirsh)!
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Hello, welcome back to the podcast everybody. Thank you for joining me today. And I hope I am joining you on a great week, a productive week. In this crazy world and crazy times, I feel like every week is just something else these days. I am currently back in Texas from California and it is hot AF. I’m kind of whiny about it cause it’s like 102 degrees out. I do not do well with the extreme heat because I need to go outside and I need nature. So I go outside at like 7:00 AM and then go for my walk, and that’s like really all that I go outside because then it’s just like so hot, especially in the sun. So I’m going to be going back to California soon to San Diego, actually for a little while to see friends and take our kids to the zoo and do some things like that.
So today I want to talk about growing a following of true believers, about why that’s important, and how to do it. So when I first started growing my business, I always remember Russell Brunson saying in one of my inner circle meetings that if you have a hundred true believers, you can sell anything and have success as a business. And that’s always stuck with me because not only because I thought, I think that it’s something to think about, but I think it’s true. And I think it’s something really important to continually consider with your businesses. Are you growing a following of true believers?
And a lot of times people focus on the number of followers they have on Instagram or Facebook and the number of likes and like those types of metrics, which are kind of vanity metrics and their cool to grow, and you should be watching. I mean, we obviously watch does our Instagram growth grow up, and does our Facebook followers go up and all of that. But really, those are vanity metrics. And what really matters is the quality versus quantity. And out of those followers, are you getting people who really believe in what you’re saying, who want to get more content from you, who are building that trust with you? Who, when you put out an offer, they buy it because they trust you and they know that you can make a difference in their life, and their business, and their relationships or health, whatever problem you solve for your audience.
So the followers and the number of people following you in your brand, obviously you want it to go up, the numbers, but you want the quantity to be there. And the way that you get that quantity to go up and truly be quality true believers is by putting out valuable content and consistently making sure you’re connecting with your audience through showing up online in some form, podcast, video blog, whatever it is consistently. And so we actually said, we talked to our clients about this when we onboard them, because like marketing has to be a very holistic effort. So you have to have your organic marketing and your content that you’re putting out. You have to have your paid marketing. Then you have to have your email marketing, you know, your offer and your delivery has to be kind of weaved in there because you have to have retention.
So marketing is never about one thing, getting it to work. It’s about getting multiple things to work together. And one of those things is your organic with your paid. And so we are constantly encouraging our clients here of making sure that they are putting out content, valuable content in some form that we can then actually use to run ads to. So here’s why, if you’re not currently prioritizing this, cause I know it’s hard and I know sometimes as, you know, the face of your business and as a CEO and as an influencer, it gets pushed down on the priority list. Sometimes when you have a lot going on that you actually sit down and create content, but it should be one of the main things you’re doing because oftentimes creating that content is something that only you can do.
And that’s like, there’s very few things in your business, like if anything else, I don’t think there is anything else that you can’t, that you have to be doing. And I would argue it cause I’ve had those arguments before, but you getting on video or you creating a podcast, you know, just like myself, I’m the only one who can do that. So I at least right now, because I’m the face of my brand, so if I’m the only one who can do that, and it’s so critical that we do this consistently, I have to make sure I’m doing this every week and a lot, a huge percentage of my time is spent doing this.
Okay, let’s talk. I have some points I want to walk through on just how to grow a following of true believers and the points you guys need to remember. So first of all, I want you to get this metric stuck in your head. Only 3% of people in your audience are ready to buy right now. That means only 3% of your audience, on average, is sitting there saying I’m actively looking to buy this product or service. Okay? So this means a huge portion of your marketing efforts has to go to building your brand awareness so that the rest of the 97% of people you’re staying top of mind, so that if it’s in a month, or three months, or four or five, six months from now, they think of you when they are thinking about their problem.
Now there’s another like 33% of people who are open to buying. They’re not like, yeah I’m actively looking for this problem, or solving this problem so I need to go hire a marketing agency or hire a business coach. But they are like, I’m open to it, if you convinced me through your content, or through your webinar, I might convert, right? But only 3% are actively looking. And then 33% are open to the idea, which means you have to do so much around building that trust, building that brand awareness, and building that quality audience.
The way you can do this is using social content strategically to build trust and relationships. And the number one key is staying consistent and creating extremely valuable content. Ask yourself and step back today and just think if I compare myself to five competitors and people in my industry that I might have a competing product or service with, do I have the best content, free content out there? And do I put out the best content consistently out of everybody? And if not, why and how do I improve that? I know for myself, one of my main contributors to growing my business has been consistently putting out a ton of value and never worrying about like, oh if I give too much then they won’t sign up as a client and they’re going to be able to do it themselves and like, I should withhold that, that’s my secret information.
I give it all because I know that my client doesn’t want to do it themselves and people pay for the system, for the pain to be completely taken away from them. But sometimes, you know, by having it done themselves or being given the exact blueprint or pathway they need to take with all the, you know, videos laid out and the tools laid out for them, or whatever it is that your actual offer is, they pay for that. And sometimes you have to convince them through content to get to the place where they’re willing to pay for that. Okay.
The other thing is social media is a pay to play game. So if you just post this great content, like less than 10% of your current audience is going to see it. So our recommendation is you spend 5-10% of your ad spend promoting valuable content to new people in your target audience. Okay? So people who don’t know who you are, how do you get them to be listening to your podcast, reading your blog, watching your videos, you’re going to have to pay to do that. And so 5-10% of your ad budget per month should be set aside for that. And I actually would just talk to a friend who, because of what they sell he’s like, I really feel like our audience, we have to do a lot more convincing and trust-building before they want to buy from us cause we’re not selling basically a make more money offer, we sell like a how to run a better business offer. And I was like, yeah, well your brand awareness and your visibility efforts should be more in the 20 to 30%. Probably like that’s how much of your marketing efforts should go into the trust, and the brand awareness, and building that visibility with your brand. And he’s like, oh yeah, like that’s, you know, that is exactly how I need to think about it.
So another metric I want you to guys to think about is about 40% of people will buy from you after they’ve already seen your brand and offer multiple times. So if you stay consistent with your visibility and you grow that brand awareness, it will create a snowball effect of followers and buyers. So you’re building those true believers so that you have people who have followed you for months and months who are now coming out of the woodworks and buying because you’ve managed to stay top of mind.
And I can’t tell you if I go in, if I literally went into our tracker where our client success specialist, who does our sales calls, writes down notes about people who she did calls with, over half are probably, has been following you for a very long time. And now dah, dah, dah has been following you for over a year, has been listening to your podcasts. Like that’s all like over half of the people, I’d say more, maybe like 70% if I really went in and added it up, are that warm traffic. And so that’s really important for you to keep in mind and the people who are not willing to play that long game and only see that quick win results as what they, you know, what they are going after. And if after 30 days they’re not seeing that traction and they give up, like, they will not last. You’re here for the long game, because that’s the only way you can do it. Alright.
When you have true believers, an audience of true believers, selling becomes easy because you create a new offer, you create a new funnel, you add an upsell to your program, you want to do a live launch, whatever it is, you’ve got an audience to start with. And yes, you can bring cold traffic into that, but if you have an audience of true believers, selling becomes so easy because they already believe in you. They already trust you and they’ll buy from you. So all of these audiences of true believers are built up through quality, valuable content, put out consistently. And again, step back and ask yourself, am I putting out more valuable content then my competitors and other people in this space? Do I stand out right now today with what I put out there and what content I put out there? Or, what can I do to make sure I do stand out to make sure I do have the best content to make sure I can start gaining traction with my visibility?
So all of these audiences that you build up through that content, through that visibility, you can then traffic into your webinars, to your application, to your live launch, to your video series, whatever happens. You can then funnel those people into the next step and when they get there, one, they’ll be a cheaper lead, but two, they will have so much more trust with you which means they’ll sell easier. Again, going back to when I look at all the leads who sign up with us for a client 50-70% of them are warm traffic, are people who have been following me and sometimes for a year or more.
Like it’s a long game guys, businesses, the long game, I feel like with this people make a couple of mistakes. One mistake they make is they’re not consistent. So they’ll put out, they’ll get really excited. I’m going to master video and they’ll put out video like every month once a week for a month. And then they run out of their batch content and they stop, or they maybe didn’t see the level of traction that they wanted to see and they stop, or they haven’t seen necessarily an ROI from it yet and then they stop. And here’s what I want you guys to do. If you’re not currently putting out consistent content, consistent, valuable content, I want you to commit to how often you’re going to put it out there and how so. Like I’m going to do a podcast once a week and I’m gonna launch it on, you know, obviously podcast apps and Facebook and Instagram. Okay. Commit to that.
And then I want you to just do it for six months and put out the best content that you possibly could put out, spend 5-10% of your ad budget promoting it and do it for six months. And don’t even pay attention, or actually like really stress about the number of downloads you get. And the ROI of like, are downloaders buying? Are they going to my webinar? How do I track this? All that stuff matters, but you’ve got to get traction first, which only will come from being super consistent and having super valuable content and not stopping after a month. And so don’t lack your consistency because you didn’t see traction right away. It takes time. And so do that, commit to it. Commit to the amount you’re putting out, the way you’re going to put it out, the frequency that you’re going to put out really valuable content. Spend some money promoting it so new people see it. Do it for six months and just commit like, that’s your goal, don’t stop. Okay.
The other mistake people make is we’re all overachievers as entrepreneurs. So they’re like, okay, I need to do brand awareness and visibility. I am going to do YouTube and Twitter and LinkedIn and Pinterest and podcasts and everything. And I’m going to do it five days a week. And we all know, I mean, that’s like a workout challenge where you’re like, okay, I’m going to work out seven days a week for two hours or something crazy and like you last three days, right? Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to do it all and have this like, I gotta be on every platform every day because it’s overwhelming and you don’t have to do that.
I’m not on YouTube. I’m not on Pinterest. I’m not on Twitter. I’m not really on LinkedIn. I’m on Facebook and I’m on Instagram. And I have my podcast and I slay that. Yes, someday I would like to add YouTube, and I don’t even know if I want to do Twitter and LinkedIn. I don’t think my clients are there. That’s another argument. Where are your clients? Where are your customers? Show up there. Where’s the number one place they are? Okay? Don’t try and do every single form of content on every platform. Pick, you know, one or two platforms that you can master and one form of content that you can really put your heart into so that it is so valuable, because then you’ll be out shining all those people who are trying to like take a video and Gary V it with like all, you know, all these different clips and put it all these places. Gary V has a whole social media team by probably 10 employees just doing that. You do not have that. I do not have that.
So we can’t be that person. We have to meet our business where we’re at right now and meet our audience where we’re at right now. And the quality matters more. So create the content for the platform, show up consistently, promote it so new people see it, and then you will build a following of true believers. And those true believers will make selling now and in the future and the years to come so much easier. So I want you guys thinking today, like, am I doing this? How could I show up better and more in this area in my business today? And tell me what your answers are.
If you want support with your marketing, this is something we’re constantly tying in the organic marketing with the paid marketing for our clients. So you can find helpmystrategy.com, you’ll find our application to work with us where you can figure out if you are a better fit for our done with you offer or our done for you offer. You go through that kind of assessment that we have, and then potentially get on a call with our client success specialist and see what offer would make sense to support you with your marketing. So thanks so much for listening today guys, and I will see you all in the next episode.