Unlock Your Ideal Audience: Short Webinar

Daren:

What if you only needed 1,000 clients (or customers) to make your business thrive? TLDR (too long didn’t read?), it’s a simple principle by Kevin Kelly, which is a thousand real fans by a hundred dollars worth of stuff in that year, which equals a hundred thousand dollars. This puts the focus on 1,000 quality people instead of a random 1 million quantity. But how is this applicable to your marketing and content creation journey for your business? Find out the answer to that and how you can unlock your ideal audience with these targeted content marketing strategies on this episode of Digital Ninjas and D Lake Media.

Daren:

Hey, I’m Darren Lake and welcome to this podcast series, collaboration between Digital Ninjas, D Lake Creative and Pod Paste. We want a mission to supercharge your brand, company or organization and help you change the world through digital strategy, training, and insights. Each episode we answer questions and talk about one specific idea to help you market and run your business better. And we do that by making them easy to digest, short and concise, because we’ve all got a business to run.

What is this series about?

Daren:

It’s actually a panel discussion that I ended up being a part of, that was really awesome. I was joined by Natalie Refa, who is the founder and CEO of Splash Up, which is an e-commerce software company. Also Jensen Gleer, who is a growth hacker extraordinaire, absolute wizard. And Brendan Hill, who’s another content creation wizard, he also is a venture capitalist investor. And then obviously myself, I was a part of it. Darren Lake D Lake creates, I do a running fitness brand. So what will you learn in this episode? How to find your 1000 true fans, aka “dream customers”, putting yourself in those dream customers shoes, getting outside and actually talking to real humans. Why good products and services never go outta style and much more. Let’s get into it.

Brendan:

So to your point there, Jensen, you know, finding those 1000 true fans that you mentioned that a couple minutes ago, fantastic article by Kevin Kelly about 15 years ago, will put the show or put the link in the show notes to the article. It’s fantastic. But I wanted to talk more about, you know, how do you find those 1001st fans? And you’ve touched on it briefly, Natalie, I know you’ve worked on something similar. Giving you guys a bit more context about Natalie. She’s worked with over 500 early stage businesses, one in particular that I have in mind called perla.com. Shout out to Kurt, our, mutual friend Kurt. But what they did, they sort of found those 1000 true fans and then they use their community as a mote for their business as well. Which influencers? Yeah, yeah, fin Influencers. They have a FinTech product, A perla.com. We’ll put it in the show notes, check it out. Fantastic community. And I know at Together AI, you’ve built a fantastic community of families as well. So maybe if you guys could tell us about, you know, even a few stories from the community, how it’s strengthened those two products and really created that moto around the business.

Jensen:

Yeah, so finding your first 1000 true fans, I’d say definitely like going back to what I’ve said previously of put yourself in their shoes. Think about what platforms that they are more likely to engage with and start testing on said platforms. If we’re looking at like developer communities, we’d be looking at Slack, discord, Reddit, or four chan, you know what I mean? If we are talking about like parents initially, depending on the age group, you might be looking at Facebook groups, you might be looking at Instagram, you might want to promote more on reels. It really depends on sort of where you assume your target market is and generate content that you think would be appealing to them to start a conversation. Invite them to a closed group, create a sub where you’re creating content about the topics that they’re interested in. Like really it’s just, you know, honey for the flies.

Natalie:

And adding to that, it’s also like finding out who do they go to for knowledge and then approaching those people, these people and ask them to potentially collaborate or create content or, maybe host them or have them like, you know, on a show or like a podcast like you’re doing. Because they would allow the, the target target market to basically, you know, attract them to your platform. It’s a source of credibility. Now in finance, it’s definitely a different landscape because they’re legally got banned and you know, you cannot, everyone can just give in Australia like financial advice, right? Um, but it’s definitely a thing that we, you know, have evolved as humans to really, um, to, to look for. So, um, the community aspect is definitely there and growing and it’s, it’s used even with startups. Like they create your, their own communities, to make sure that first they, constantly engaging with their user base, they know what’s happening, they’ve got a fan base that’s helping them propagate that, usage outside of that community.

And it’s such a really strong, um, uh, incredible place to sort of, it’s great to create, like look at Coda, if you’re familiar with Coda, sort of like notion and if you go on their community, it’s like raging fans who are sort of like so passionate, sort of like a nation like nationalism of Coda and they are like big fans, but to build that obviously it took ’em a while. Adding to that point, go where they are, if there are parents who might be on Facebook groups talking about, you know, how to share tips, it could be working with maybe potentially, doctors or, you know, whatever it is. Maybe it’s a bit of an outreach, but it’s, it’s really about finding out like where, where they are and um, talking their language. Also for example, if you go on Reddit, it’s not just about “I’m just gonna go on Reddit, create an account and post”, like I actually been there, got banned, had to create another account. It’s really about like, you know, being part of that Reddit community and, and not sort of selling, selling yourself without selling yourself, if that makes sense.

Jensen:

Yeah, definitely like adding value to the community. But also when growing said community, it’s about enabling those champions within those communities. So whether you’re paying them or whether you’re like helping them out in some way or like some sort of incentive program, you know, maybe they love the, adoration and you know, the fact that they’re seen as a knowledge leader or a thought leader in that community. Whatever the approach is, start the relationship. If you see someone that’s in your community that’s posting pretty consistently, reach out to them and go, you know, we’ve got additional content we’d love for you to help out. Or do you have any advice on how we can improve our content? It’s, it’s about those conversations and they take time, but they’re worthwhile because that bridges those strong networks.

Natalie:

And, and so like with that, you know, talking to them is, is such an important thing because I get startups that often come to me and they’re like, like now my conversion rate is really low. How do I improve that? How do I grow my wait list? And, they already have customers and I ask ’em like, are you talking to people who have transacted with you? Did you reach out to them? Did you get their opinion? Um, and they say no. And so like when they’ve had like a few customers who are like, tell me why, like, what makes you wanna, you know, purchase this product again? Oh, it’s a seasonal product. I just didn’t really think much about it. Or the, the website I found it really difficult to navigate. They had things like you, even if you don’t crack it, you will find a piece of gold that would help you, you know, embellish or improve your strategy altogether. So yeah.

Brendan:

I mean, another fantastic Paul Graham essay, shout out to Paul Graham. I know he is an avid listener of the podcast. One of his other great essays is, you need to get out of the building and talk to customers as you guys have just been saying. But I sometimes, I mean a lot of business owners sometimes struggle, how do I actually do it? Like how do you guys actually, you know, get outside the building and go and talk to these, uh, business owners? What, what are some of the methods that people can use?

Natalie:

You’re a network guaranteed every person in your network will know someone that knows someone if you start small. There is a way, if you go to where events are where they hang out, there is a way if you, befriend them. If you, if you act like them, if you put yourself in their shoes, like Jensen said, you will figure out one or two people and from there you can act actually ask them like, who can you think of that you know, is like you that may need this? And it’s really about doing things that don’t scale. You have to get out of the building though, like, it’s just imperative. Otherwise, you know, you’re just gonna be stuck inside and trying to figure things out. But, um, it’s just a long way to death.

Jensen:

You’re a network guaranteed ev any person in your network will know someone that knows someone if you start small. There is a way, if you go to where events are where they hang out, there is a way if you, um, befriend them. If you, if you act like them, if you put yourself in their shoes, like Jensen said, um, you will, you will figure out one or two people and from there you can act actually ask them like, who can you think of that could ac that you know, is like you that may need this? And it’s really about doing things that don’t scale. Um, you have to get out of the building though, like, it’s just imperative. Um, otherwise, you know, you’re just gonna be stuck inside and trying to figure things out. But, um, it’s just a long way to death.

Jensen:

Well, I think also it depends at what stage the company’s at for sure. If you’re early stage bootstrapping, sure happy days, get out in front of ’em. If you are at sort of scale up, look at the technologies that’ll give you feedback for users. C.R.O, conversion rate optimization, heat mapping tools such as full story, even sort of your actual platform analytics such as mix panel amplitude as such, or other ones like UX chem and smart look. So if you have an application, you wanna do live recordings of your actual users, how they’re engaging with your ux. But any opportunity to get like some user feedback. If it’s in application, you want to use one signal, or app tentive, of the such because you really want to get the immediate feedback whenever a user has a challenge, you know, whether they’re rage clicking or, you know, you don’t want to get them when they’re putting reviews, you know, for your product or service saying, come sign on. Or like, you know, I got stuck at this specific screen, one star. You know what I mean? So really try and get them in before they go public, or if they do go public, bring them in house in some manner, jump on a call, email them, hit ’em up on social, be like, you had a shit experience. Really Sorry, what can we do to improve?

Daren:

I think, one thing that I’ve found, I am surprisingly an introvert. I know I come off as extroverted to some people, but, I won’t go into details of that, but, uh, <laugh>, I, I get extroverted when I’m around people that I like that, you know they drain my energy. So I guess it’s the, the makeup of me is that, you know, even loved ones that I like being around, they dream energy. So I, I really like social media for those kind of micro interactions. And, my brand is international and yes, I do meet people out running and it’s pretty cool when they’re like, D Lake Createss? And I’m like, who are you? And they’re like, oh, follow you on Instagram, or, you know, I’ll your podcast. I’m like,. it’s working. Um, and, but then I’m like, cool, I couldn’t handle that 20 times a day.

That would be too much. I don’t wanna be famous. I think being famous is terrible. Uh, but with the internet I can go, okay, there’s a lot of messages today. I’ll hit ’em up tomorrow. And I use the internet as I guess going outside, you know, getting outside the office. That’s my metaphorical way. Um, but the one point I guess that I’ve found is give value just for value’s sake, like you would help a friend or family member out and then it will come back to you, but you shouldn’t ever expect anything to come back. And I know we’re all in business and it’s all transactional, but like, don’t think of the relationship as transactional. I know it’s hard, it’s easier said than done, but it, it’s, it’s like it will all, you know, if you believe in the universe and all the woowoo stuff, like it will come back to you. And if you just, if it’s a question and you can easily answer it in five seconds, boom, you do that 10, 20 times, one or two people are gonna be like, yo, you’re dope, blah, blah, blah, and they’ll pass you on X, X, Y, Z and the other 18 people will get it and then forget about it, whatever. But, you know, you’re out there, you’re communicating with people, um, even in the, the direct messages. So yeah, that’s again, do it because you want to help people and don’t expect something.

Jensen:

A hundred percent because like the reality is, is business is transactional of course. But what most people fail to realize or to take into consideration is the brand awareness. People often just think, “oh, you know what? I get my brand out there, I’ll get someone else to plug it”. But it’s also your brand reputation and your brand reputation is just as important as anything else. It’s like it’s peer reviewed. So someone’s gonna be, do you really like that? Or like, this shit, the CEO’s crap, or like, you know, I don’t like what they’re doing ethically stuff it, I’m not gonna touch that brand. There’s gonna be a hundred thousand people to replace you or a hundred thousand people companies to replace you. So it, it is about adding that value for value sake because you’re creating that relationship. You know, it’s like, it’s the old sales adage, you know, you sell to someone like they your best friend, so you treat ’em like the friend and then they’ll stick with you through the thick and thin.

Natalie:

It’s a great point. Like one thing that I think Beso said was, you know, like things will always evolve and change. Like, you know, you get new tools and, and new e-commerce experiences, but the one thing that will never change is a good product. Like if you just have that, you are already, like, you’ve got, you’ve got a big advantage. So it’s not just about like, you know, listening to the value but also implementing it with a good product. Um, yeah. So just wanted to add that.

Jensen:

And actually, like, your product’s gonna be shit for a while. Yeah. Like, it’s gonna be terrible. And if you are listening to your user and getting that feedback and making the changes, they’re gonna see that and be like, this brand, this person, this product is trustable because, like, trustworthy, because they’re actually doing what I’m asking.

Daren:

Speaker 2 (14:04):

All right. Thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. You know the drill. Make sure that you like, follow, subscribe, depending on wherever app you’re on. Whether you’re listening to this as a podcast or you’re watching it on YouTube, LinkedIn, wherever you, you get this, it really helps us get the word out. And if you’re feeling this and you’ve got some value, please make sure you share this with someone that you know, and we’ll see you on the next episode.