Building an Audience from Scratch

Oct 7

Written By Andrew Woodbury

Embrace discipline in aiming for quality over quantity

Read time: 4 minutes

Here’s our TTT for this week on how to grow your online teaching business.

What is TTT? A Tip, Takeaway, and Task. On Thursday.

Enjoy!

Tip: It’s not a numbers game

Audience curation may be the most difficult and also most important aspect of having your own business. Without an audience, we don’t have anyone to sell to, right?

So how do we build one from scratch? Let’s dive in.

Let’s get a misconception out of the way right off the bat: this isn’t a numbers game.

Audience building is very much quality over quantity. This is something many people get wrong. When you’re building your audience, you have to think of the purpose.

Is your intention to become famous?

Or is it to attract the right kind of person, help them in an amazing way, and build your business?

It really doesn’t matter if you have 500,000 followers if they’re not your ideal client. They won’t pay you if it doesn’t help them.

On the other hand, you can have a thriving, successful business with only 2,000 followers. If even a third of those people paid you what you’re worth, that adds up.

So the first rule of thumb in building your audience is to attract the right people and repel the wrong people. Don’t look for everyone; rather look for someone.

Takeaway: Do the same thing every day for 6 months

With that said, there are some key tactics to use that will go towards building that audience. It requires consistency, discipline, and precision.

The consistency to do the same thing every day.

The discipline to do that over a six month period.

And the precision to understand to whom you are speaking and to whom you are not.

With that avatar in mind, play the long game, delay gratification, and start helping the people you help for free. They will pay you later.

Task: Do these things and watch what happens

This is our audience growth strategy for online teacherpreneurs. We highly recommend becoming laser-focused on one social media platform where you’ve discovered your niche lives the most. The more platforms you use, the harder it becomes.

Social Posts: 1x per day

Post long-form content 1-3 days per week

Post short-form content 1-3 days per week

Comment and interact with large accounts in your niche: 3-5 per day

Meaningful conversations with your audience: 10x per day

High-value Newsletter: 1x per week

Talk about a lead magnet you have (to get emails): 2x per week

Offering free advice, strategies, and resources: to everyone who asks

Talking about your product: 3x per week

Get feedback from students: 1x per week

Iterate your product: 1x per month

Each morning, track your social media metrics and numbers on a spreadsheet so you know exactly what happened at the end of each month and which type of posts resonated the most. On the 1st of every month, make data-driven decisions for change and improvements.

Do this for 6 months and watch what happens.

We hope this helps.

See you again next week.

Leo, Andrew, and Mike