79. The Audience Ownership Secret to truly scale your marketing

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I've been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to scale a business. And yes, there are way more factors to consider than what I could fit into this episode. Things like marketing and sales, copy and mindset and team, and my own personal development. But the more I thought about it from a very tactical perspective, about where I could have my team and I really focus our efforts on it really just came down to one thing. All roads led to this one place.

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Want to know what it is, why it's so important, and how you can do it too? You know what to do. Hang with me for this very special conversation that I'm going to have with you. My name is Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co founder of Capsho, the fastest way to repurpose and market your expert content. And this is the Grow my podcast show.

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Hey, you. I don't know if you've heard yet, but did you know that we will be hosting our very first Capsho event? Yes, this is an event we're holding in January 2024 in real life, with real people in a real room. All that to say that it won't be a virtual one, but one where we are getting an intimate group of people into the same room to learn about some really important and impactful things. Things that will help them grow their podcast, but importantly, their business.

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And it's not too late to get in on this too, by the way. We're still selling tickets, although we're close to reaching capacity in the room because, as I mentioned before, I want this to be an incredibly intimate experience. And OMG, we have so many bonuses and fun things planned for Capshovians who are coming. So I promise that you will have an absolute blast. Grab your ticket.

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Now, we're leaving the link to it in the show notes. Or you can just go to www.capshovianslive.com. Okay, now, why is mentioning this event even important? Because the whole purpose of Capsho is to teach and learn from people who have scaled or are in the process of scaling their businesses. Which means that I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately.

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Not just because this is exactly where we are with Capsho, but also because it's going to be the main thing we'll be covering at Capsho in January. And so I thought I'd share some of my early thoughts with you today, and if you don't mind, a bit of an insight into my messy thought process. Is that cool? Cool. Okay, so where do I start?

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Let's start with what scaling a business means to me, at least in the context that I'm thinking about it. Because yes, a key part to scaling a business has to do with having the right team, the right technology, the right processes OMG. OMG. The processes and systems. We're going through that painful process right now.

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It definitely takes a special person to love systemization. And let's just say we're not them. At least not yet. Never say never. But we're still going through the process anyway because it is incredibly important to put them in place in order to scale.

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So yes, there is a lot that goes into scaling a business, especially in the back end. But what I wanted to talk about today is how to scale a business from a marketing and acquisition perspective. Let's call that the front end. So let's call this, this is all about front end scaling. How do we scale our marketing, our acquisition?

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And so let's start with the fundamentals of that. Whenever we think about the end result of scaling, it's usually, well, revenue, right? And ideally revenue that we don't have to work so hard for. Now, I'm not saying that we don't have to work for revenue. What I'm saying is revenue that we don't have to work so hard for.

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Because yes, you can totally make money with no audience or with a very small audience. That's how we all start. But think about how much effort it takes to get that first. $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 whole point of scaling is that your revenue compounds, in effect, it takes a little less effort as you grow. And why does that happen?

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Because you now have leverage. And that leverage comes from the size of your audience. And I know this for a fact. This happens with anything you're trying to monetize and in every way. So for example, we all know that for you to monetize your podcast with sponsorships, it's all about your subscriber and download numbers.

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That comes down to the size of your audience. If you want to get sponsors for your email or your blog posts or even your social media channels, you need an audience. In fact, there are actually minimums you need to meet to monetize your YouTube channel. Think about trying to run paid ads too. The most effective campaigns are usually those lookalike ones built from your current clients, your current audience.

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If you're trying to create partnerships with other businesses, especially when they might be bigger than yours, they're going to want to know your audience numbers because that's the indication of reach for them. So having an audience is you creating leverage. Leverage with potential partners, leverage with sponsors and monetization platforms, and also leverage for ads platforms. Is this making sense? This is the crux of it.

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When I was thinking about what it takes to scale, this is what it comes down to. All roads lead to you me needing to build an audience. Okay? So for some of you, this might be your light bulb moment. For others of you, this perhaps might not be blowing your minds because of course it makes total sense that building an audience leads to compounding revenues, that is making more with less effort.

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But when you think about what exactly that could look like, does it start to feel a little overwhelming. There are so many channels and platforms and places we can build an audience. There are the different social media platforms, of course, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and the heaps more. And within those platforms there are then the different features we could be looking at. For example, is it a group on Facebook?

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Is it your newsletter subscribers on LinkedIn? Okay, this is already feeling insurmountable because then there's also your podcast and growing your subscribers and downloads there. And perhaps you're also building a community elsewhere on something like Circle or Mighty Networks. We personally use heartbeat. Is anyone else overwhelmed?

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I am a big, big believer in focus for me and my team, but also for you. So given that, what type of audience growth do we need to focus on? Gosh, this is something I've been going back and forth on in my mind because it's honestly not an easy question to answer. So let's just take a quick break and dive into that when we're back. Okay, so we know now that the only way we can scale and create leverage when we're talking about marketing is to focus on building our audience.

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But let's now talk about exactly what that means and looks like because I can tell you now that there is no way that I'm going to be able to grow my audience on every single platform and channel, whether it's social media or not. So where do you need to focus on building an audience? Okay, so let's talk about social media first. And I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I have a big love hate relationship with social media. On the one hand, I know it can be incredibly effective to share about you, your life and importantly, your business.

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Yes, a lot of sales and revenue have happened off the back of social media, but I think we also know the headaches that have come with the constant algorithm changes and account closures and everything else that can happen. It means that that audience you're building on those platforms, they're not yours. Imagine, just imagine if TikTok gets shut down in the States, if you've built any kind of following on there, they're gone. Poof, just like that. And that's also the same, but perhaps to a lesser extent when people subscribe to your podcast or your YouTube channel or even your LinkedIn newsletter.

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Now the difference with these subscribers is that they actually get notified when you release something new. But you are still ultimately at the mercy of these platforms. If something were to happen to itunes or Spotify or YouTube, your subscribers gone. These platforms are still incredibly important and for one main purpose, to be a vehicle, a means for you to grow your audience. Okay, I'm just going to let that sink in because it might sound a little bit counterintuitive.

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We're going to use these channels, these platforms, as a vehicle for you to grow your audience. But what is your ultimate endgame? Where are you growing that audience? Your ultimate endgame is to build an audience that you own. And the only audience you truly own is your email list.

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So where do you really need to be building your audience? Email. Your email list is the only thing that you well and truly own and can port from one email service provider to another. You aren't able to do that with your audience on any other platform. Does that make sense?

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So everything else you do, all the other content you create, you need to think about them as the means to getting people to your email list. And they could get onto your email list by buying from you through any of those channels too, which is an absolute win for you. That's the best case scenario. But otherwise, how do we look at using and leveraging these social media channels and any followers that we have on there to get them onto our email list? Now, before I end there, there's one other component that I've gone back and forth about because there is one other channel that is just, I would say just as important as email, but for a very different reason.

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And this is your community hub. For many of you that might be your Facebook group, for me it's Heartbeat, and for others it might be Circle or Mighty Network or some other community platform. Now, I've gone back and forth about this because it somewhat violates the rule that I just set, right? So for example, we've seen the reach of posts in Facebook groups go down. So that's algorithm changes taking effect.

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That's a platform telling you that you don't own that audience that's in your Facebook group. And if for some reason Heartbeat decides to shut my account down, I can't just move my community somewhere else. So do you own this audience? No. If that's the case, then why do I say it's just as important as email?

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Almost as important as email, because I found that creating a place for your audience to interact with each other and build networks is an incredibly powerful way for you to create value. Think about it, if you're in a community and you get a lot of value from the other members that are in there, you cheer each other on, you feel like you're on a similar path as those around you. Aren't you more likely to attribute value to this and place that value on the community owners. And unfortunately, it's not as effective doing this with email because email is a very direct conversation with you. Your audience can't interact with each other through your email list.

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And so that is why when you are focusing on building your audience, build that in your email list and your community platform. Everything else, they're just the means to funnel people to one of these two places. Oh, and a hack, if you're building your community, always make it a mandatory question to get their email so they're on your email list. And if you're using lead magnets to get people onto your email list, house that lead magnet in your community so that they have to join that too, which means you're building both at the same time. So there you go.

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When you're scaling your marketing, this is where all roads lead to, to build your email audience and your community. And I'm actually so excited about this topic because this is the exact thing we're going to be diving into in detail at Capsho. If you thought I gave a ton away just on this episode, just wait until you come to Capsho. You're going to walk away with the exact strategy on how to leverage everything at your disposal to build your audience, to nurture them and convert them into sales. It's seriously insane the value that each and every speaker is going to be giving you.

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So you've gotta be there. What are you waiting for? Grab your ticket now. Capsho. And we'll leave the link in the show notes too.

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That's it for me today. Thanks for hanging with me as I nerd out on one of my favorite topics. And really, this needs to become your favorite topic too. My name is Deirdre Tshien. Stay awesome.