Audience Building

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© 2015 Mirasee. All Rights Reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole

or in part, without written permission from Mirasee.

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support@mirasee.com.

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What’s Inside? Introduction 4

Why Most Internet Marketers Fail... and Why You CAN

(and Will!) Succeed 7

Why Internet Marketers Absolutely NEED an Audience 14

What Does an Internet Marketer’s Audience Look Like? 17

So, How Do You Build an Audience of Fans? 22

Enjoy these Resources 45

Further Reading to Help You Grow Your Audience 46

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Introduction

Every minute, thousands of blog posts are written.

Hundreds of thousands of tweets are posted. Millions

of Facebook posts are shared. And new social media

networks are created every day.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of one small part of

internet marketing. Add in complications like Google

algorithms and Facebook ads, and it’s clear the internet

is changing at a breakneck pace. As

an internet marketer, it’s your job

to carve out a place for yourself in

a constantly shifting landscape.

You know you’re good at what you

do, but that isn’t enough to build a

successful Internet Marketing

business. Sure, you can dream of overnight success, but

the truth is, you can’t win without putting yourself out

there and building an audience for yourself.

Most people who come across you won’t trust you at

first. And with so many options to choose from when it

comes to buying information and products online,

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standing out is incredibly difficult unless you already

have a large audience.

But with the speed that everything is changing, it can

seem like an overwhelming challenge to build a name

for yourself before the rug gets pulled out from under

the whole industry — again.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

We want to help.

You CAN build – by yourself! – an

audience of interested people who

respect what you do.

You CAN get feedback from people

about what they want to pay for –

before making a single sales call.

You CAN have people approaching you

ASKING if you will work for them.

You CAN make a living doing what

you’ve always wanted to – on your own

terms.

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It just takes a little shift in focus, and a few tips, tools

and strategies.

Are you ready to take your Internet Marketing business

to the next level?

Good. Let’s go.

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Why Most Internet Marketers Fail... and Why You CAN (and

Will!) Succeed

The rules have changed. There’s a new way to

make a name for yourself, and it a proven

way to achieve success.

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Can you guess the most common complaint we hear

from Internet Marketers?

“I’m not getting enough traffic – and the

traffic I do get doesn’t convert!”

It makes sense, in a way. The internet is full of sleazy,

one-trick-pony scam artists trying to make a buck. It’s

glutted with your competitors. Why should anybody

listen to you?

But you’re different. You’re NOT sleazy — you have

valuable expertise to share. And you know there must

be a way to get your numbers up – so you run ad

campaigns, make free offers, network with bigger

bloggers, participate in forums, attend conferences,

and even buy training, always keeping up with the

latest tactics and techniques. You do everything you’re

supposed to do to build a thriving and profitable

business.

But it’s just not working.

Some people are trickling in, but not enough – and they

aren’t the kind of customers who will ever buy your

higher value items and offerings.

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There’s a reason all of this is happening, and the

reason is that that you’re trying to build an online

marketing business without the most important

ingredient.

You’re trying to do things the way they used to be done,

to rely on the best practices established by Internet

Marketers over the last decade.

This doesn’t take into account the fact that a LOT has

changed since these rules were first made (even though

they came into being only a few short years ago).

You know the rules I’m talking about:

You implement the latest SEO strategies to try to get backlinks and traffic.

You hone your copywriting and really stress the benefits of what you can offer.

In our digital, connected world, the

traditional ways of building a name

for yourself just don’t work!

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You make sure all of your technology runs smoothly.

You Tweet and Share and Pin and Link and join every new social network.

You test out different headlines and landing pages and buttons until you’re blue (although red might work better…) in the face.

The problem here is that you’re chasing traffic, trying

to convince a world of strangers that you can do what

you say you can do.

Wouldn’t it be better to have people

coming after you? Approaching you for

advice, and asking how much you charge

(and being thrilled with your high price

tag)?

Wouldn’t you rather be speaking from a position of

authority, with hordes of people backing you up when

you say, “I can solve your problem.”

You can have that – but it will take a real change. Not

just in your actions, but in your thinking about your

business. You’ll need to change the way you frame

yourself and your services.

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But it’s worth it. Because if you make this change, it

can transform you from the chaser to the chased. From

the seeker to the sought-after. From just another

online pretender to a recognized, respected authority.

But to do that, you’ll need to learn a few truths that

most internet marketers don’t know. These could shift

the foundation of your business. Here’s what you need

to know:

What you provide and what people need might be different.

What people need and what they think they need might be different.

You’ll never know whether a potential customer is looking for something you can’t provide or doesn’t know what they need till you have a relationship with them.

You can't ask for money until you prove that you can deliver value. And proof is in actions, not words.

It takes lots of preparation, research and trial and error before you start making sales and getting the conversions you deserve – but it’s within your grasp.

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Now, I don’t want you to get overwhelmed with all of

this; you don’t need to do and learn everything today,

but without an audience, you’re going to be chasing

along after the coat-tails of people who “get it” and

struggling to make a name and a living for yourself for

a long time… like most other Internet Marketers.

Let’s get back to the main idea in this section: what

almost everyone gets wrong when they get into this

business.

It isn’t that they aren’t good at what they do, and it

isn’t even necessarily that they don’t want to learn new

things and really market themselves.

It’s that they are playing by the old rules, trying to

build an online business the way you had to a dozen, or

even five years ago, when what they really need is an

audience business.

Talent and skill simply aren’t enough to

attract your best customers.

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That’s the key difference right there: successful

Internet Marketers have audiences – unsuccessful ones

don’t.

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Why Internet Marketers Absolutely NEED an

Audience

Learn the real value of an engaged, loyal

audience… and how it helps you turn your

talent into a real business.

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I’m going to start with the bad news.

No matter how dedicated, talented or innovative you

are, you can’t reach every person or organization who

will be interested in what you’re doing on the hundreds

and thousands of online spaces, forums, communities,

social networks, and on and on and on across the net.

What’s more, when your online business is focused on

scrambling for traffic and bringing in new customers,

the burden of proof is all on you. You start from scratch

with every new person: they don't know who you are or

why they should trust you.

Having an audience takes the burden of proof off your

shoulders. Not only will your audience spread the word

about you, they’ll also keep buying from you as you

create new products, because they already know and

trust you.

Having an audience will help you grow your business in

many ways. You can draw on your audience to do

things like:

Test ideas and new service offerings.

Validate that your offers are good ones.

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Improve your delivery and performance.

Get your message out to hundreds and thousands more people than you could alone.

Get new recommendations and referrals…

Find out EXACTLY what your customers want to buy (which may be a product that doesn't exist yet).

So what is an audience, exactly?

An engaged audience for your business is

a group of people who have self-selected

to be your best customers, colleagues and

even friends. They will support you as

you move forward, comfort you when

you fall, and help you build your business

into something great.

Are you ready to start building yours?

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What Does an Internet Marketer’s Audience Look

Like?

Building your audience doesn’t

need to be overwhelming,

especially when you know how to

do it.

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If you’re sold on the idea of building your audience,

then the next question is clear: who should be in your

audience? What are the most important characteristics

of your audience as an internet marketer?

To answer that question, you need to look at the big

picture of what your business is doing. Ultimately, your

key product as an internet marketer is your specialized

knowledge about online business. You may sell this as a

service, or a product, but either way, you need an

audience who respects you and what you have to say

about the online industry.

This means that having the attention of not just

buyers, but of people who give you feedback, share

your information and promote your message is critical.

So your audience can include a variety of different

types of people:

Potential customers

People who want to do what you do

Other internet marketers

People who are just interested in what you’re passionate about

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It’s YOU that makes the difference here. You’re the one

gathering these people together for a common purpose,

guiding the community towards success – for their

benefit as well as yours. Because of that – and because

your audience gives you the precious gift of their time

and attention – you should be prepared to give a lot of

yourself to help them as well.

Having engaged readers and community members who

are interested in not just what you do, but YOU

yourself, is a priceless resource.

As your standing in your

community grows, so

does your authority.

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If you can do this – if you can gather together people of

all sorts and needs and interests under the banner of

your expertise – you’ll find that your blog posts get

shared far and wide and generate lots of great

discussion, ideas and attention.

As your community grows, you will come to be seen as

a really authoritative source of information, and people

will ask you questions about your area of interest.

This is hugely significant when it comes to developing

new product offerings that are so in tune with what a

client needs that they won’t bat an eye when you

charge them twice what you make now.

Your audience will suggest things to you, challenge

your assumptions and treat you like a mentor – and you

will be able to see the impact that you have not just

Your audience will challenge you,

learn from you, teach you, and buy

from you or direct others who can.

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with your customers, but with a large, constantly

evolving group.

Your audience will teach you things, too! If you’ve

connected with people who are colleagues as well as

audience members, you’ll be able to share tips, instruct

each other, and even refer business back and forth.

Lastly, an Internet Marketer’s audience will buy things,

or direct people who can to you. Whether it’s a one-off

training or a pricey membership, if you’ve invested the

time in making real relationships, they will pay off in

terms of real dollars.

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So, How Do You Build an Audience of Fans?

It starts with finding the link between

your areas of expertise and your

audience’s areas of interest. But that’s

only the beginning…

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Consider what you want your life to look like in a

couple of years.

Do you want to be running an online marketing

business?

Would you rather move into coaching or

consulting?

Do you want to set everything on auto-pilot and

go live on a beach somewhere?

Do you want to be in negotiations for a big buyout

of what you built?

All of these scenarios are possible, but

knowing which one you’re seeking will make

a big difference when it comes to building

your audience.

Let’s break down what kind of

audience you would need for each –

and then we’ll go over the process

that transfers pretty easily across all

of them.

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Situation 1 – Keep Doing What You’re Doing

If you’re in this business for the long haul, then you

want to be looking for people who have an equally

long-term interest in your subject matter.

If you are all about converting traffic, then you want to

be creating relationships with people at a certain level

(which one is up to you: beginner, intermediate, or

expert).

Next, you want to become the absolute best resource

for people at that level, and maybe even in a specific

industry – like eCommerce or Freelancers.

You can create and refine processes that, Google

updates notwithstanding, will stand the test of time.

Situation 2 – Move Into Coaching or Consulting

If this is your long term goal, then you want to be

looking for people who have an equally long-term

interest in your subject matter.

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If you’re an SEO specialist, for instance, that would

mean career bloggers, perhaps, or companies that do a

lot of sales online (basically, anyone whose need for

your expertise will grow as they learn more).

When you can educate an audience enough that they

become sophisticated enough to see the dollar value of

your expertise, you’ve basically hit gold.

Situation 3 – Set It on Autopilot

This is a scenario that takes a LOT of work to set up

over the first couple of years, but it can eventually be

an income stream that only requires a few hours a

week.

For this type of goal, you want a big, broad audience

that loves being online and sharing what they find. You

want to become the expert’s expert, so set your sights

on an audience that is already reasonably familiar with

the space, and make them shine – so they’ll direct new

people to you as their own businesses grow.

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Situation 4 – Build It to Sell It

If your end-goal for your Internet Marketing business

is to sell it to someone else, then you want to really

specialize your audience.

Make them very cohesive, specifically attuned to one

market or theme so it’s easy to explain to someone else

(and for your audience to explain to someone else)

what is expected at any given time.

Having lots of related content that generates a lot of

audience involvement will be a KILLER selling feature –

not to speak of your beautifully curated email list.

Okay, does one of these more or less fit? Whichever

type of audience you need to build, the following will

apply, with tweaks that become obvious as you grow.

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The basic steps are these:

Now, we’ll go into them in a bit more detail.

How to Build an Audience of Raving Fans

1. Identify who you want to serve and what you want to provide.

2. Provide one unique and irresistible bit of insight or delight.

3. Create that content, and put it on a landing page, connected to an auto-responder that has a series of engagement emails that will be delivered at intervals.

4. Start connecting with people on blogs, social media, and other online spaces they inhabit.

5. Contribute to communities by guest posting on blogs your ideal customers read.

6. Once you reach “critical mass” (at least 1,000 people) on your email list, launch or re-launch your blog and continue to engage people there.

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1. Who You Serveand What You Provide

First things first, you need to know what you offer and

who the perfect person is to take advantage of it. This

sounds obvious – I mean, you’re doing it already! But

what this really means is identifying (in much more

detail than you’d expect at first) who your one single

ideal customer is. Who is that one buyer you

desperately wish all of your clients could be exactly

like?

Start by identifying

your one single

ideal customer.

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Think about things like their age, family situation and

income, and then delve into their hopes, fears,

opinions and dreams. It sounds a bit “out there” but

trust me – this works.

Once you have a really clear idea of who you will be

working with, think about your services.

What element of what you do is the

most important to your future

customer?

What do they care about the most?

What is causing them the greatest

pain or difficulty right now?

This will tell you how you need to approach them, and

help you understand how to frame your offering so it

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speaks to your customer in terms of the benefits they

will get from it.

Write down your answers to the questions about who

you serve and what you provide, and post them near

your computer so you remember who you’re blogging

for.

2. Solve ONE Problem

Next, think of one specific problem your customers

have, one you can solve quickly and thoroughly with a

single piece of content. Remember in the previous step

where we talked about benefits? That’s where your

analysis begins.

Pick one problem you can solve. If you succeed, you

will forever be regarded as a hero in the minds of your

subscribers!

We call this problem-solving piece of content a first

impression incentive, and it is one of the very first

steps to building that thriving income-producing

business you want.

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There is a temptation here to try and go after a big,

intricate problem – after all, you have so much insight

into your customers and your services that it seems

natural and easy to help them solve major issues. But

that’s what your paid stuff is for.

With your First impression Incentive, you want to

prove your credibility. You do that most easily by

solving a smaller but bothersome issue you know your

readers have.

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Some examples might be:

Rule of thumb: Keep it simple, applicable, and valuable.

These examples will appeal to more people than just

your ideal client, and that’s good.

While you’re always going to keep the end- game of a

steady stream of reliable, pleasant clients in mind,

fleshing out your audience with other interested parties

provides huge value to you as well.

First Impression Incentives Suitable for Internet Marketers

The five things people hate to see when they’re about to buy something.

The color psychology of landing page conversions.

How to cut your research time in half.

Why you’re getting no juice from your Twitter campaigns.

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3. Crafting the Incentive

Once you’ve decided what annoying and persistent

issue you’re going to be helping your new audience

members with, you have to figure out how to best

present the information.

You can make an eBook, a free report, a video, an audio

recording – whatever you think will help people absorb

and use the information you’re giving them.

If you’re not sure which format to use, keep this in

mind: use the minimum richness to get the job done.

So if you need a video to demonstrate a technique, then

make a video, but if a description would be as good,

then write a report or an eBook. You don’t want to

invest more of your time or resources than necessary,

because you’ve got plenty of other things to worry

about!

Always use the “minimum richness” to

achieve the best possible outcome.

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Like making the content available.

You’ll do this through a landing page and email auto-

responder.

A landing page is a simple part of your website that

only has information about the incentive, and a chance

to subscribe with their name and email to get it.

Anything else is a distraction.

You want them to sign up for your first impression

incentive, and at the same time, give their permission

for you to contact them in the future... which is where

your engagement sequence comes in.

The engagement sequence is a series of emails that

does a few things:

It gets people in the habit of opening your valuable messages.

It encourages your subscribers to respond to you.

It shows that you’re interested in whether or not the incentive is working for them.

It show’s you’re a real person – not just a money-grubbing shill.

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So have emails that go out in the days and weeks after

they subscribe, asking them how it’s going, if it’s

working, sending them other resources, and asking for

their opinions.

All of this is managed by an email service provider such

as AWeber. It allows you to create the all-important

opt-in boxes and schedule your emails in advance.

Landing pages can be tricky, but there are free and

premium WordPress plugins that work right out of the

box, and they don’t take much time to get the hang of.

4. Finding Your Tribe

Once you’ve got your landing page set up, your first

impression incentive created, and your engagement

sequence ready to go, you’ve got to start finding and

connecting with the people you identified as your

perfect customers (and the myriad others who

will just think you’re cool and interesting).

Go back to the research you did when you

were identifying them, and try to step into

their shoes.

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If you were them, what blogs would you read? What

magazines? What forums? Where would you look for

answers to your problems? Make as long a list as

possible, and start joining conversations in those

spaces.

If your ideal customer religiously follows the personal

blogs of industry notables for example, start reading

them too, and leave interesting, insightful comments

on as many posts as possible.

Do this for a while, and you will start to see subscribers

trickling in.

Do you see why the first step is so important now?

I’m not going to lie to you; this part of building an

audience is long, and sometimes it feels like absolute

drudgery – but you are building a very strong

foundation for everything that comes after.

Your audience is the foundation for

everything else you do to build your

business.

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It’s not just the readers of these other blog and

communities that are going to notice your comments;

it’s the owners as well – which is absolutely critical to

your next step…

5. Contributing to Communities

Once you’ve done your time with commenting (you’ll

know you have when you get to a hundred to three

hundred subscribers) you’ll need to step up your game,

and start leading the conversations on these other

blogs, not just participating in them.

You do this by guest posting.

Remember that the owners of those other

blogs will be reading your comments. That’s

important because when you go to pitch

them a guest post, you’ll be able to say, “I’ve

been happily commenting on your articles…”

and they will know it’s true.

This puts you miles ahead of other Internet Marketers

who haven’t done the preliminary work. (From long,

killingly annoying experience, I can tell you that blog

Writing guest posts

on popular blogs

helps you move

from a participant

and follower to a

leader.

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owners know whether a pitch is genuine or from a

sleaze ball within the first 10 seconds.)

Let’s step back for a moment.

What Is a Guest Post?

It’s when a blogger lets a guest author write a post for

their blog that will be seen and shared by their

audience. It’s an amazing way to get attention and

build relationships with both readers and fellow

colleagues in your field.

If you’re not sure you have anything to write about for

the blogs your ideal customer spends their time on,

look for the intersections.

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Say you’re an SEO specialist whose ideal customer, a

new small business owner perhaps, reads a lot of

marketing blogs. A possible intersection between those

two ideas would be: “4 Way to Protect Your Posts from

Google Updates.”

If you’re a social media strategist whose ideal clients

hang out in technology news sites, you might want to

write about the “12 Tech Twitter Accounts you NEED to

be Following.”

Remember: the main goal is to impress your future

readers so they follow your byline back to your landing

page!

You’ll ideally do all of this before you actually start a

blog – in fact, until you have close to a thousand people

on your list, we don’t recommend blogging on your

own site much at all.

Your goal as a guest blogger is to impress

your future readers so they follow your

byline back to your landing page.

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If you already have a functioning blog, however, it can

still work for you; just make sure to create a landing

page and spend more of your energy guest posting and

building relationships than you do posting on your own

space.

6. Finally, You Can Launch

I bet you thought we were never going to let you

actually launch (or re-launch) your business, right?

Not at all – we just want to make sure your launch is a

successful one.

Waiting until you have around a thousand subscribers

(not to mention healthy relationships with a host of

other bloggers and professionals) before you launch

means that when you officially open your doors, there

is a crowd of people effectively waiting to celebrate

For best success, wait until you have

around 1,000 subscribers before you

launch.

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with you – sharing the news and spreading your

message.

To launch, pick a date at least a couple of months in

the future and reach out to all of the bloggers that

you’ve been in contact with.

Ask them for another chance to guest post during the

week you’ll be opening your doors. Most of them will

say yes, and running several guest posts in one week

will ensure maximum site traffic.

Okay, that’s it; that’s the basic formula for building an

audience and getting your online business going.

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I’d like to recap this briefly, because we covered a TON

of ground, and this stuff is really vital:

The 6-Step Formula for Building Your Audience Business

1. Identify who you want to serve and what you want to provide.

2. Provide one unique and irresistible bit of insight or delight in the form of a First Impression Incentive.

3. Create that content, put it on a landing page, and connect it to an autoresponder that has a series of engagement emails that will be delivered at intervals.

4. Start connecting with people on blogs and other online spaces your target audience inhabits.

5. Contribute to communities by guest posting on blogs your ideal customers read.

6. Once you reach “critical mass” (at least 1,000 people) on your email list, launch or re-launch your blog and continue to engage people there.

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So, what happens after you launch?

You continue your community-building exercises, and

you also get ready to start offering your services to

your audience.

Remember, up until this point, you’ve mostly been

giving, giving, giving, and asking for fairly small

things in return, like comments and social shares. Now

is the time to think about offering something a little

bigger in scale. Namely, your paid offers!

If your business is new, then you’ll want to start with a

small, reasonably discounted offer to your list. Make it

special, make it exclusive, and make it an almost

irresistible offer. You have two goals for this offer:

1. You want to get a few people to pay you for your

services

2. You want GLOWING testimonials that you can use

on your landing pages.

If your business is already established, it’s time to start

testing higher prices, using all you’ve learned about

your ideal clients' needs to make the sale.

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This is really just the beginning. There are obviously

many more details to creating a thriving audience

business – too many for one eBook – but these really

are the basics.

If these ideas appeal to you, check out our Audience

Business Masterclass, where we take you through this

process step-by-step with all of the detailed,

customized support your Internet Marketing heart

could desire.

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Enjoy these Resources

Engagement from

Scratch!

The Audience

Revolution

Teach and

Grow Rich

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Further Reading to Help You Grow Your Audience

Creativity: The Essential Discipline for Entrepreneurs

I used Instagram for Business and Doubled my Sales in

One Month

3 Reasons to Use Pop-Up Retail: Curiosity, Cost Cuts

and Carving a Niche

Blogging 101: The Most Advanced Blogging Technique

You Can Master