Table of Contents 3 - John Bardos - BundlesforGood.com 4 - Courageous Kitchen - CourageousKitchen.org 5 - Rob Cubbon - RobCubbon.com 6 - Tyler Tervooren - Riskology.co 7 - Mars Dorian - MarsDorian.com 8 - Derek Franklin - DerekFranklin.com 9 - Dan Johnston - DreamsAroundtheWorld.com 10 - Amy Botes - PeppedProductions.co.uk 11 - Alex Mathers - AlexMathers.net 12 - Beth Barany - BethBarany.com 13 - Ben Nielsen - YellowVanTravels.com 14 - Debbie LaChusa - DebbieLaChusa.com 15 - Marinda Botha - MarindaBotha.co.uk 16 - Nick Leffler - Exprance.com 17 - Ben Parr - BenParr.com 18 - Cyndee Woolley - BuildingBrandYou.com 19 - Ramona Lever - RamonaLever.com 20 - Cindy Donovan - WildFireConcepts.com 22 - Sabrina Ricci - DigitalPubbing.com 23 - Shawndra Russell - ShawndraRussell.com 24 - Steve Shockley - StormShock.com 25 - Wes Lucus - WesLucus.com 26 - Tami Brehse - TamiBrehse.com 27 - Josh Sklar - Heresy.Agency 28 - David Bradley - DavidJBradley.com 29 - Justin OBrien - CoursEnvy.com 30 - Tom Corson-Knowles - TCKPublishing.com 31 - Ryan Biddulph - BloggingFromParadise.com 32 - Trudy Rankin - WestIslandDigital.com 34 - Cheryl B. Engelhardt - CbeMusic.com 35 - Colin Gray - ThePodcastHost.com 36 - David Baer - BaerOnMarketing.com 37 - Eli Natoli - EliNatoli.com 39 - Stoney deGeyter - PolePositionMarketing.com
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40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76
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Kelvin Dorsey - KelvinDorsey.com Serena Greenslade - DoNotMumble.com Franki Kidd - FBKWrites.com Kiara Smithee - KiaraCollectives.com Maddy Osman - The-Blogsmith.com Kelly McCausey - LovePeopleMakeMoney.com Lisa Jacobs - MarketYourCreativity.com Sesan Oguntade - SesanOguntade.com Kirsten Oliphant - CreateIfWriting.com Christiaan Baas - FamilyBase.org George Weiner - WholeWhale.com Frici Barabas - Udemy.com/FriciBarabas Gundi Gabrielle - SassyZenGirl.com Molly Suber Thorpe - PlurabelleStudio.com Faye Brown - FayeBrownDesigns.com John Shea - NoShameIncome.com Kay Franklin - KayFranklin.com Gregory Diehl - GregoryDiehl.net Leslie Friedman - Leslie-Friedman.com Lisa Buyer - LisaBuyer.com Cathy Goodwin - CathyGoodwin.com Naresh Vissa - NareshVissa.com Mike Omar - MakeMoneyFrom HomeLionsClub.com Priya Florence Shah - BlogBrandz.com Candee Fick - TheAuthorToolbox.com Michael Dickson - MichaelMDickson.com Mindy Gibbins-Klein - MindyGK.com Nick J Lechnir - LeapFroggingSuccess.com John Lee Dumas - EOFire.com Ann Evanston - AnnEvanston.com Hannah Priore - SubconciousMindExpert.com Joe Pardo - SuperJoePardo.com Paolo Pelloni - PaoloPelloni.com Davy Sims - DavySims.com Cathy Presland - CathyPresland.com Ricky Shetty - DaddyBlogger.com Thank you!
Grow Your Audience!
Message Welcome
John Bardos BundlesforGood.com
Thank you for downloading this ebook! Building an online audience is critical to business and career success. I hope you’ll get some great, succinct, actionable advice from all the contributions in this book. I’ve asked everyone to be as brief as possible to make this a quick read. I also recommend that you visit the sites of the contributors you like and subscribe to their email lists. Follow everything they do to pick up their best ideas. See how they write their emails. Check out what they offer to get email subscribers. Find out how active they are on social media. Learn from others so that you can accelerate your own growth.
Bio Hi, this is John, I’m the creator and organizer of BundlesforGood.com. I’m a serial entrepreneur, digital nomad, blogger, expat and new father. I’m Canadian, but have lived in many countries around the world. I spent 13 years in Japan and have a great Japanese wife. We sold our business, house, car and got rid of most of our possessions in Japan in 2010. We discovered that more consumption and possessions didn’t really make us happy so we try to live a very minimalist, nomadic lifestyle. We now regularly rotate between various countries around the world. Thailand and Hungary are our current favourites. In my search for more meaning and fulfillment in life, I’ve discovered that giving is a lot more rewarding than consuming. BundlesforGood. com is part of my Million Dollar Project to raise $1 million dollars for worthy charities around the world.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
All the contributors to this Grow Your Audience ebook, plus many more, have included courses or books in the Influencer Bundles for Good that runs from October 12 to 16, 2017. There will be dozens of course, books and resources offered at one low price. The best part is that 25% of my proceeds of the sale are going to support a great charity helping refugees in Bangkok, Thailand. You can learn more about the charity on the next page. Enjoy this ebook and please keep an eye out for the Influencer Bundles for Good coming on October 12th. You are not going to want to miss this sale. It only lasts 5 days!
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Making a Difference Courageous Kitchen provides career training, housing, education, food, cash stipends, and other critical assistance to some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
Courageous Kitchen CourageousKitchen.org
The charity began in 2009 as a small Bangkok based initiative called In Search of Sanuk which aimed to provide emergency food and housing for children and families most in need. The word ‘sanuk’ is the Thai word meaning fun/enjoyment. They chose that name because they believe every child, regardless of their situation, has the right to have a happy and healthy childhood. Fun and learning should come first and that all children should be free from worry and the burdens of poverty and suffering.
Charity The charity we are supporting for the October 2017 Influencer Bundles for Good is Courageous Kitchen, based out of Bangkok, Thailand. As little as $100 a month can get an entire family off the streets in Thailand. I’ve had a several opportunities to visit and volunteer with the charity so I can attest to the difference they are making. Virtually all administrative fees are raised internally through fundraisers and events so the money we donate from the Better You Bundles for Good will go directly to help the families and children under Courageous Kitchen care. I strongly encourage you to visit their website and learn more about the impact they are making. The founder, Dwight Turner, is definitely one of the most generous people I have ever met.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice Rob Cubbon RobCubbon.com
Bio I’m an Amazon bestselling author, online course creator, design business owner, and serial entrepreneur. I was doing dead-end jobs for years. I used to hate the monotonous work I did each day for someone else which left me with neither time nor energy. Now I’m able to do what I want, when I want, where I want. And I’m happy about that.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Blogging. I wrote an article every week for 8 years or so. (I may have missed the odd week though!) Nowadays I write less often but longer articles as Google has changed. This free content gets traffic and I collect email addresses in order to entice some of that traffic to purchase some of my products. Instead of saying “blogging” I could have said “free content”, because I also create free video on YouTube and free video courses – this is especially good for gathering email addresses and an audience.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Good question, because things change so much in the online space and getting Google traffic was easier a few years ago. However, I would still focus on creating an audience through free content, only nowadays I’d try to add paid traffic into the mix but that’s hard to get right without the free content in the first place. So, still the answer is free content.
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Advice Tyler Tervooren Riskology.co
Bio Tyler Tervooren is the founder of Riskology where he writes for introverts about the science and strategies for becoming a great leader. He loves finding new ideas and testing them on himself—a human guinea pig for your entertainment. He’s run a marathon on every continent, leads three businesses, and has organized three successful Guinness World Record attempts for thousands of participants.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? It was all about finding tangential audiences for me. Where could I go to find people who would be interested in my thing, but wouldn’t already know about me? And how could I get their attention? Today, SEO brings in most of my audience but when I was getting started, getting in front of pre-built audiences in similar niches is what helped Riskology grow a lot faster.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? First, I would focus on making sure I really cared about what I was trying to build an audience around. I’d ask myself, can I do this for at least 2 years and still be happy if I fail? It’s a long time and a lot of work. If you can’t, then I wouldn’t get started. If you can, though, then I’d do what I mentioned above and start looking for audiences that already exist rather than trying to create your own from 0.
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Advice Mars Dorian MarsDorian.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? My number one strategy was to connect with like-minded people on Twitter and via e-mail. Back in the day, I contacted bloggers and creative entrepreneurs which lead to podcast interview
Bio Mars Dorian is an illustrating designer and indie sci-fi book author who’s been making a full-time living online since 2010. He has penned viral cartoon articles for Mark Schaefer’s Business Grow, crafted illustrations for Portfolio Penguin, and exhibit his artwork in Los Angeles.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
and the sharing of my work online. Up to this day, the vast majority of all my clients come through personal recommendations from peers I’ve built relationships with.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? If I was to start today, I would focus on launching more products and services. Despite all the research one does, you need to test the market yourself and receive feedback which you can use to improve your product(s). Back in the day, I hesitated too much and postponed too many projects.
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Advice Derek Franklin DerekFranklin.com
Bio Derek is a writer, speaker, and personal development coach. Since 1998, he has: • Written 5 best-selling print books for Adobe Press that have sold over 250,000 copies in more than a dozen languages worldwide • Worked as Creative Director for a nationally recognized media company, with clients that included Adidas and Papa Johns • Created several software products used by over 10000 satisfied users • Achieved multiple 5-figure sales days for my products/services • Launched 25+ projects online - everything from software, video courses, to ebooks, to a membership site
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Stirring, exciting, and agitating people’s emotions HAS to be at the center of everything you do online if you expect to build an audience. When you trigger an emotional response in someone (even a small one), it ignites a force within them to take action in some way - join, subscribe, follow, buy, watch, read, listen, and share. Why? Because we LOVE feeling emotion and we want to continue to connect with things that trigger our emotions in ways we enjoy. The tools of an emotionigniter include personal enthusiasm/energy, motion (video), beautiful photos, powerful music, words that excite, and the creation of content that adds massive value to people’s lives.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would focus on creating video content and using it to build an email list that I could then sell valuable products and services to. Simple, but not always easy - but definitely VERY doable if you stick with it.
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Dan Johnston DreamsAroundtheWorld.com
For me, it was producing higher value one time content, such as writing a book. I also spend a lot of time on giving value and creating quality content. By time someone has spent a month with my content they either hate me or love me, but they always know me who I am and what I stand for.Â
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio Dan Johnston is an International #1 Best-Selling Amazon Author in the German Kindle store in the category English -> Non-Fiction -> Self-Help -> Mood Disorders -> General Disorders -> Specific Disorders -> Mood -> Other. He proudly held this top spot for 45 minutes before being overtaken by the only other book in the category.
My advice would be to focus on being real. Less BS. Talk about what you really know and have experienced...or shut up and gain some experience before trying to teach or influence.
Before becoming a world-famous Author and Hero to millions, Dan was a humble freelance writer in Vancouver, Canada. He left in 2012 to fulfill his dream of living in 5 countries before he turned 30. Since leaving Canada, Dan’s journey has included living in 7 countries, publishing 12 books, and serving clients around the world. He currently offers a training and coaching for freelancers, coaches, and consultants who want more freedom. Currently based in Prague, Dan speaks and writes about psychology, personal development, location independence and anything else that he feels could change a life. You can find out more on his website DreamsAroundTheWorld. com or catch him on YouTube where he publishes new content every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at YouTube.com/DreamsAroundTheWorld/.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice Amy Botes PeppedProductions.co.uk
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? I think being as genuine as possible is my biggest tactic. Also, using video on social media is a big way in – people can then see your body language and work out if you are a friend or foe more easily. In a world where technology is taking over, being able to show your face and personality is a huge plus. It not only builds trust but it tends to hold someone’s attention a little longer than written text.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Amy Botes is a RADA trained Actress. She has worked throughout the UK and the United States. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2004 and went on to perform at the Royal Shakespeare Company both at Stratford Upon Avon and London’s West End. She also took on main parts in a multitude of theatres including Salisbury Playhouse and the Birmingham Rep. After having her daughter in 2011, she became an Entrepreneur and launched EPM Services which helped start up companies reach their potential. After 5 years of EPM services she decided to marry her knowledge of business and professional acting by creating a new company called PEPPED Productions.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
For my business, I would personally concentrate on building connections on LinkedIn a lot more. However, having said that every business/organisation is different. The reason for why I would concentrate on LinkedIn is that my target audience tends to hang out there. So, really you have to ask the question: Who is my target audience and where do those people hang out?
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Advice Alex Mathers AlexMathers.net
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Writing blog posts about things I know about from the heart, and encouraging people to subscribe to my newsletter. This was especially effective as I gave away a useful ebook for new subscribers.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
I wouldn’t change my strategy, only to focus on making each new blog post I write better than the last.
Alex Mathers is an illustrator and writer from the UK, currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. He’s worked with clients like Dots Games, Saatchi & Saatchi, Google and the BBC. He enjoys drawing and writing on topics that help people live more confidently and creatively.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Beth Barany BethBarany.com
I used in-person free talks to grow my audience at first. Believe it or not, I also used flyering in my local area to promote my early classes and expand my reach. Later, when I took my business online I used free webinars and courses as a way to grow my business. I also offered free classes online via other platforms, like online conferences and summits. Lastly, one thing that has never gone away is my one-on-one free consults with potential clients and colleagues, which has helped me create word-of-mouth.
Bio Beth Barany is a certified creativity coach, NLP Practitioner, and keynote speaker. She helps fiction writers get their writing done and out into the world via Barany School of Fiction and the Writer’s Fun Zone blog. She’s the bestselling author of The Writer’s Adventure Guide and Overcome Writer’s Block. Her most recent book for writers is Twitter For Authors.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I’d do much of the same: free workshops in person and free webinars online; one-on-one chats with potential clients and likeminded colleagues in my industry. Lastly, I’d find more joint venture promotions earlier.
Beth writes young adult fantasy, paranormal romance, and soon science fiction mystery. Her young adult epic fantasy novel, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, now the first book in a trilogy, won the Grand Prize in the 2012 California Book Fiction Challenge. Check out her free 5-day Writer’s Motivation mini-course.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Ben Nielsen YellowVanTravels.com
Targeted following and interaction is the top strategy I have used to build many social profiles and taught to my clients to build their followings.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I love twitter and I think it is a great way to build a strong following. You are able to quickly become involved in a community there that can help springboard you to success.
Bio Ben has been a social media manager and consultant working with dozens of profiles across every major social network. Ben has a bachelors of arts degree and a masters in instructional technology. He currently oversees the multimedia lab of a large university library. Ben has taught technology and social media at every level, from elementary school children, to high school students, college classes, and senior citizens. He and his wife Meagan write the Yellow Van Travels blog and love seeing new things and meeting new people.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Debbie LaChusa DebbieLaChusa.com
The number one strategy I’ve used to build all three of my successful online businesses is content marketing. I started back in 2005, speaking, teaching free teleclasses, and writing and sharing articles on my website and online article directories. Over the years I’ve used 11 different forms of content marketing to build my list, my social media following, and attract clients. For me, positioning yourself as a uniquely branded resource and sharing high quality, useful information, is the best way to earn trust and attract followers and clients.
Bio Debbie LaChusa is an author, blogger and online teacher. She worked in marketing for 32 years and ran a successful coaching and consulting business for 19 years. She’s the founder of The Business Stylist® Marketing Academy which offers online courses in marketing, branding, and business development for independent coaches and consultants. To date more than 12,000 students have enrolled in her online courses. Debbie is the author of three books and the creator of six blogs. She has spoken to audiences across the US, in Canada, and Australia, and has shared the stage with celebrity teachers from The Secret. She and her businesses have been featured in national online and offline media including Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes.com, CNBC.com, Inc.com, Home Business Magazine, and Yahoo! Finance.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I am actually starting over today with my Following Inspiration blog and Live Inspired project, and, I’m still using content marketing. I started with my blog and recently added a podcast and video series. I still believe sharing quality information, branded with your unique point of view, is the best way to build trust, attract followers and clients, and build an online platform.
After dedicating 32 years of her life to marketing, Debbie now spends her time blogging, doing volunteer pet therapy, and encouraging others to follow a more inspired path through life. Her blog, FollowingInspiration.com, features inspiring ahas Debbie gleans from daily life, and interviews with people around the world who are building inspired businesses and living inspired lives.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Marinda Botha MarindaBotha.co.uk
I make sure I communicate with my student and remain as available as possible. This doesn’t mean checking my emails constantly. I do that once a day. Though prompt (24 hr responses) are essential, I think. This builds trust in your community. If they trust you, they are more likely to buy more of your products and market word-of-mouth, on your behalf.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Market research. It is the age old question. Can you find (or better yet) create a market for the product you wish to sell?
I am a bilingual native speaker of Afrikaans and have a very neutral English accent. I am also experienced in the British voice over industry, as I spent 8 years living and working in London before moving back to South Africa. I am now based in Centurion, Gauteng, working from my home recording studio. My voice has been described as warm, earthy, sensual, clear and authoritative. It lends itself well to corporate scripts like IVR, medical narration, e-learning, telephony and videos for web. I hold a Performing Arts Degree and love stretching my acting muscles in the booth. I also trained at The Actor’s centre and did an Advanced Acting for Radio course in London. I have also been teaching at a tertiary education institute in South Africa for 8 years.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice Nick Leffler Exprance.com
Bio
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Writing quality content for my website. I’ve written on a number of different topics that help people and businesses grow their online presence and brand therefor growing their professional success. The content I create helps me build my audience and provide quality information that helps them.Â
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Writing quality content on my blog and also guest posting on other blogs. Each piece of quality information helps build your own brand.
I help people and small businesses expand their online presence with my experience building websites, social media presence and more. I have grown my online presence with a small marketing budget by using methods such as blogging, organic social media reach, and email marketing.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice Ben Parr BenParr.com
Bio Ben Parr is the author of the best-selling book Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention -- named the top marketing book of 2015 by Strategy+Business Magazine and Small Business Trends. He is Co-Founder and COO of Octane AI, the CRM for Messenger marketing. He sits on the board of directors of Samasource, the global non-profit dedicated to impact sourcing and giving work and is a member of the advisory board of Lufthansa Airlines. Previously, Parr was a venture capitalist, a columnist and commentator at CNET, and Co-Editor and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. He is a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? I religiously followed the Three Cs: Create Content Consistently. Too many people are too critical of their content, when the truth is that the most successful influencers stick to a schedule. YouTubers put out a video every week. Top bloggers put out a new piece every day. I find that when I follow the Three Cs, my audience counts consistently go up and to the right.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I’m biased, but I’d start with Facebook Messenger and messaging apps. It’s like having an email newsletter, but with push notifications + more data collection + better click-through rates + a younger audience. That’s why I co-founded Octane AI, the CRM for Messenger marketing. We’re backed by General Catalyst and other top-tier venture capitalists in our mission to make conversations with your favorite brands and influencers more conversational and personal.
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Cyndee Woolley BuildingBrandYou.com
Many people start with a “tactic”. They start blogging about a topic without thinking through their business goals, audience goals, and long-term engagement. Then, they shift gears and lose connection with their audience.
Bio
As a business professional, I can tell you that the most valuable asset that I have is my brand reputation. This was built through solid relationships that were cultivated with strategic business leaders who had established credibility. I took time to build these relationships before I launched my business, which helped me succeed.
Cyndee Woolley is a consultant in public relations, social media, and community outreach strategies. She has two decades of experience in marketing and public relations and holds an Accredited Public Relations professional (APR) designation from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). She is also the author of Building Brand [You], which has been incorporated into the MBA program at Hodges University.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? If I were starting a new business today, I would take a strategic approach in cultivating lasting relationships with key influencers and educating potential clients. With the ease and accessibility of video platforms, I would take better advantage of creating content on-thego.
Woolley has been a featured speaker at the 2011 and 2015 PRSA’s International Conferences, PRSA’s national webinar series, the PRSA Sunshine District Conference in 2012 and the PRSA Western District in 2013. She is a past chair of the PRSA National District Council, the PRSA Sunshine District, and a past president of the Gulf Coast Chapter of PRSA. Woolley believes in giving back to the community by taking an active role in professional and civic organizations. She is also a past president of the Public Relations, Marketing, and Advertising Association of Collier County. She has served on marketing and branding committees for The Shelter for Abused Women and Children of Collier County, the Naples Equestrian College, and the Leadership Collier Foundation.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Ramona Lever RamonaLever.com
I built up my Personal Brand as an expert in my field by writing a book, creating an ecourse and sharing my knowledge.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I’d work on creating an Authentic Personal Brand to connect with the people that need my services.
Bio Ramona Lever is an Author, an Internationally Accredited Behavioural Profiler and an expert in Personal Branding. Her extensive experience in Sales and Marketing coupled with her background in Coaching and Counselling have given her the passion and understanding to empower Women to breakthrough their blocks to achieve abundance in their lives. Her book “Branding Yourself For Success - How to attract clients that say YES!” reached number 1 on Amazon.com’s best seller list in 2 categories.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Cindy Donovan WildFireConcepts.com
Building an email marketing list that I can connect with, share my journey and what I’m creating and the new discoveries I find that helps marketing online easier and more successful (and hopefully more fun!) With everything I create, I work in some way to add a viral angle to it, either by having an inbuilt affiliate program, or simply adding share buttons - and then automating as much of the parts as I can, while still being able to provide a human connection and presence.
Bio Cindy is a mother of two and businesswoman who, at the age of just 29 was diagnosed with cancer, dropped out of university and has gone onto become cancer-free and establish a seven-figure business working from home! While undergoing aggressive cancer surgery and treatment, Cindy created her first membership website as a way of distracting herself and engaging her ‘down time’ productively. Cindy grew to be so passionate about her website and about the power of the membership model and internet marketing that she formally withdrew from her studies and threw herself into her newly launched company. This online hobby-project became the inspiration and later success for Cindy’s co-creation of IM Wealth Builders Ltd. (together with John Merrick & Soren Jordansen), where they generated a multi-million dollar membership and WordPress based empire, responsible for millions of dollars in digital profits, giving almost $1,000,000.00 of that to affiliates!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
In my marketing I try and be true to myself, because people relate to people - and, with literally billions of people out there - the opportunity to find and help a core group of people who ‘get you’ is totally achievable. Don’t try to be someone else, use your marketing online as a chance to learn more about yourself, what excites you - and then share that with your followers until they become a tribe.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? One thing at a time... It’s FAR too easy to become overwhelmed, distracted and give up, when success (as cliche as it sounds....) could be right around the bend. First thing I’d do is build a website. I still remember the first time I tried to set up Wordpress... it took me about 2 weeks... now most hosts have a one click option - so it’s totally achievable for anyone... even if it takes you a couple of hours of focus time, watching some youtube tutorials.
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Continued • Install hosted (not free) version of Wordpress, costs a domain name ($10?) and hosting ($5-$10 a month) Put a good theme on it (ViralLoop.io <- hint hint... lol) • Sign up to the (free) Amazon Affiliate program, they pay you when people click and buy. • Sign up to an autoresponder - MailChimp has a free account option • Add some way to build your list (InstaGenius.io lets you build the list and make Amazon commissions) And then focus on traffic, starting with free methods until i had some cash to invest in Facebook ads or other advertising methods. OR - if time was short and I just wanted to start building a list without having to learn anything, I’d use a service like http:// covertcommissions.com to build the pages, manage all the mailouts etc for me. Then you can be building assets that are yours, while learning with the traffic training at the same time.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Sabrina Ricci DigitalPubbing.com
Bio I’m an indie author and a podcaster. My goal is to help other writers build their platforms and create great content, and I do that primarily through my blog Digital Pubbing (http://digitalpubbing.com). I also teach online courses on how to create ebooks, and have written for a number of publications, including Huffington Post, LA Review of Books, Cosmo, EPUBZone, and Digital Book World. Additionally, I co-host a podcast about dinosaurs with my husband, called I Know Dino (http://iknowdino. com).
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
I had a two-fold approach: network with influencers and build my mailing list. The first part involved reaching out to people who I admired, and I had already been following, and connecting with them. Then when I created something I thought would help out their audience, I was able to pitch them my online course or book. The key was to share something with them that would benefit their followers. The second part involved setting up my mailing list and offering new subscribers a free incentive, such as a book or special content they couldn’t find anywhere else. Through my mailing list I was able to find beta readers for my books, and they’ve given me very thoughtful feedback and helped me market my work.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? If I was starting today, I’d focus on building my mailing list. Having a list makes it much easier to let people know when you’re launching something new. And if they’ve signed up to your list, they’re already a fan and want to hear about your work.
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Advice Shawndra Russell ShawndraRussell.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Focus on sharing other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s content and commenting on and liking their content and share quality content from reputable outlets. Be a giver, not a pusher!
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Blogging. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked with so many businesses who wish they would have started blogging much sooner because there are so many benefits to blogging regularly.
Shawndra is a freelance writer, digital media consultant, and author of five books based in Asheville, North Carolina. She loves helping businesses create better content and is a proponent of employee advocacy. She is the proud owner of a caboose, a craft beer geek, and always planning her next trip.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Steve Shockley StormShock.com
Consistency. Consistency of quality, and consistency of when products are delivered. If people like your content and know when to expect more, they will come back.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would focus on bringing new products to market as quickly as possible. For a writer, that means writing and publishing as fast as you can to build a catalog of books to sell. Be prolific.
Bio Steve Shockley grew up with an intense interest in science and art. He graduated from Virginia Tech with degrees in business, computer science, history, mathematics, and studio art. He began his career as a programmer at IBM and spent a decade examining patent applications for the U.S. government. Steve now writes books and invests for a living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with his wife, dog, and three kids.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
24
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Wes Lucus WesLucus.com
I built my audience by getting out and meeting people. My target market is entrepreneurs, so I went to chamber of commerce events, networking groups, meetups, and coworking spaces just to get to know people. Of course, these events can be very busy, and it’s difficult to have quality conversations, so I followed up with the people I met to arrange a time to get to know each other and deepen the relationship.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Wes Lucus, MNLP MTD MHt, works with people all over the world to show them how to understand what really drives them. Author, Keynote Speaker, Master Hypnotist, and Certified Executive Coach, Wes is a leader in the field of business development and human potential. Starting his first entrepreneurial venture at 15, and starting several of his own businesses, Wes has experience in building, running, and selling small business, as well as consulting for other entrepreneurs.
I would start a meetup group centered around my target market, and host free events at least a couple times a month. At each event I would position myself as the expert, do some speaking, teaching, or connecting other people, as well as facilitating an engaging activity. Not only will people join the group from meetup, but it’s also an easy way to leverage your other networking activities by inviting everyone you meet to attend your next event.
Wes currently lives in Orange County, California with his wife and two children, and supports entrepreneurs and professionals in workshops, mastermind groups, and private coaching.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
25
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Tami Brehse TamiBrehse.com
Creating in-depth content on my blog and promoting it on channels like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit. Pinterest is far and away my biggest source of new subscribers. For each piece of content I write, I try to also create at least one related opt-in (i.e. a freebie like a worksheet) so the reader can engage further and join my email list.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio I spent the start of my career as a television news anchor and reporter in markets around the country. From there I dove head first into PR and marketing, overseeing strategy for clients like the City of Boca Raton, the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and Origins Behavioral Healthcare as an account manager at one of Floridaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest PR firms. I now oversee marketing strategy and execution for clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors, making sure all facets are working together to produce stellar results.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If I were starting fresh Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d place a much, much heavier focus on video. Between YouTube and all of the major social media players now offering a Live component, video is where the attention is.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Josh Sklar Heresy.Agency
I wrote a book about the ad industry, involving many of the top people in the business to activate their networks and generate a lot of press and interest in what we were up to in my agency. I was able to use their quotes from interviews and contributions within the book as conversation starters, thought provokers, and areas of controversy to stoke the fires and draw people in and get them to stay as an audience.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
As global digital Creative Director for several ad agencies owned by WPP – the world’s largest advertising and branding company – Josh Sklar’s commitment to breaking new ground led to an unbroken run of successful, results-driven, award-winning digital campaigns for some of the world’s most prestigious brands, including: Heineken, Nokia, Cisco, Visa, Coca-Cola, HP, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Singapore Airlines, Pfizer, General Motors, HSBC, and the US Department of Defense. Today, Josh is the President, Creative Director (and Chief Heretic) for Heresy, a virtual marketing and branding agency that rejects the status quo; and for the past 17 years has written a regular digital marketing column for trade journals such as “Marketing Magazine”.
I would examine topics within my space that have people concerned or hyped up and, depending on my brand personality, put out hypotheticals or controversial statements to get people interested in helping spread the message and create funny/emotional/powerful, but pithy content to encourage people to willingly spread it to their followers. Either as a branded meme image or a short video that features me speaking in my brand voice. The point is to build your audience not contribute to the zeitgeist with another anonymous viral piece.
Josh spent two years interviewing more than 130 advertising luminaries from around the world about the future of the industry and authored a best-selling book and Kickstarter-funded continuouslyupdated iPad app titled “Digital Doesn’t Matter (and other advertising heresies)” with a foreword by Jeff Goodby, AdWeek’s “Ad Man of the Decade.”
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
27
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
David Bradley DavidJBradley.com
I took a slow-and-steady approach to building my audience by getting involved in different online communities where my market participated. I would answer question and share high quality information without any sales pitches. Over time, trust built as I created real authority by providing value to others, and my audience grew stronger.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio David Bradley is a digital marketing strategy expert, best-selling author, consultant and coach. David has worked with venture-funded startups and 9-figure corporations to help them develop and execute digital strategies.
Whenever I coach new entrepreneurs and agency owners, I reinforce one principle that I neglected to address for far too long in my business: deep specialization. This typically manifests in specializing in one specific industry, but it may also be from specializing in one specific skill. Best of all, if you can provide one specific skill to one specific industry, you may end up on a goldmine.
David has also worked with several marketing agency owners to help them grow their business into a more sophisticated and profitable company. David has helped agencies who have a full client list and years of experience as well as plenty who had just started their agency with Davidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s support and guidance. After talking to hundreds of agency owners throughout the world and providing training materials to over 10,100 individuals, David has found that there is one question to ask yourself as an agency owner: â&#x20AC;&#x153;How can I win clients when there are so many well-established agencies fighting for the attention of every business I reach out to?â&#x20AC;?
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
28
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Justin OBrien CoursEnvy.com
Building an audience starts with providing something of VALUE for free! What service or product do you sell? What is some service, tutorial, guide, how to, etc. that you can provide for FREE? Once you identify and build this “giveaway”, you will have officially created your email collector/opt-in secret sauce ingredient to growing your email list!
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Justin OBrien began his path into marketing and entrepreneurship as an engineering major. During his spare time in college, he taught himself website coding and SEO (search engine optimization). He would research niche keywords, develop affiliate marketing websites around them, market and then flip them for a profit; this process helped eliminate all his college loans before graduating! Over a decade later, Justin has built, consulted and helped market 500+ businesses! After finishing in the top 8 for the Entrepreneur Magazine 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year, Justin launched Coursenvy.com with several engineering and marketing partners to begin to build in-depth courses and share their knowledge with the world!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
My first strategy for free leads, is via Instagram. Instagram allows you to put a website link below your profile bio. So it’s on this website page you want to create a lead capture form for your free product or service or incentive. Go to your competitors Instagram profile and find relevant posts (posts that relate to your free incentive in your Instagram profile link). Click on the LIKES and COMMENTS of that post. These are basically curated LISTS of users to target your marketing efforts because they are ENGAGED users! Follow, Like, Comment…REPEAT! Besides this Instagram process…you can repeat it verbatim on Twitter! First, make sure to update your twitter profile URL to a new custom lead capture form page catered to twitter audiences. Second, PIN a tweet about your free incentive, including your lead capture form URL of course… to the top of your Twitter profile.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Tom Corson-Knowles TCKPublishing.com
Content marketing. I try to add as much value to my audience as possible by sharing helpful blog posts, videos, and podcast interviews.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would definitely focus on creating and promoting great content. The internet is still young, and folks who build an audience now by creating valuable content will be reaping the rewards for many years to come.
Bio Tom Corson-Knowles is the international bestselling author of 27 books including The Kindle Publishing Bible, founder of TCK Publishing, an independent publishing company specializing in guerrilla marketing, and host of The Publishing Profits Podcast show. Tom has taught more than 60,000 authors how to write, publish and market their books like professionals through his online training courses, including Ebook Publishing School, a free training program that shows authors how to publish and launch their first book.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
30
Grow Your Audience!
Advice Ryan Biddulph BloggingFromParadise.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Following my fun was the top strategy to build my following. Having a passion for blogging meant I saw outcomes like money and traffic as extra’s or bonuses, which was the perfect energy for growing a successful venture.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Same exact way I did it; follow my fun.
Ryan Biddulph is a blogger, author and world traveler who’s been featured on Richard Branson’s Virgin Blog, Forbes, Fox News, Entrepreneur, Positively Positive, Life Hack, John Chow Dot Com and Neil Patel Dot Com. He has written and self-published 126 bite-sized eBooks on Amazon. Ryan can help you build a successful blog at Blogging From Paradise.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
31
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Trudy Rankin WestIslandDigital.com
I started building my audience by reaching out to people in my contacts list and LinkedIn connections and asking them to join. I also put an invitation into my email signature. I got a good response to my initial efforts because I kept it very personal and “non-templatey”. Now that approach is a great one to start with, but I think you can spot the catch … it just doesn’t scale. At some stage your networks are going to run out.
Bio Trudy works with Vision Australia to run a pilot program teaching blind and partially sighted people how to set up online businesses. It can be extremely difficult and intensely frustrating for blind or partially sighted people to find meaningful employment. Setting up a business not only means that they can employ themselves, but can give other people the opportunity of employment. In addition to the work with Vision Australia, Trudy Rankin is a digital strategist, an online business coach and a consultant. She helps people set up and use online and internet technology to grow their audience, their business and their careers. She has a Master’s degree and has over 15 years experience in the corporate space. She has held CIO (Chief Information Officer) and other senior management positions. As a digital strategist and coach, Trudy has also helped more people than she can count figure out the next steps they can or should take when facing a pivot point in their business or career.
Over time, I found that, for me, Facebook ads were the quickest way to build a list of interested people and that a good nurture sequence would keep them on that list. This is great, if you have the marketing budget for it. For people that have a limited (or no), budget for ads, getting people to share on your behalf for free is a great tactic. I’ve recently been experimenting with SmartBribe … software that lets people share your content with their networks in return for getting access to something that they value. This could be a free lead magnet containing written or video content or even a discount for your product or service. That audience-building tactic basically builds on the concept of viral marketing…or in other words, micro-networks sharing with micronetworks. If you want to know more about how that works, check out Nick Kolenda’s great guide at https://www.nickkolenda. com/viral-marketing/). You’ll be glad you did!
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? It was really easy to get that first small list going. The trouble was,
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Grow Your Audience!
Continued when I first started my business, I didn’t really know what services I should be providing (crazy, right?). That made it really difficult to know who I should be getting onto my list. So I stopped inviting people to join! Dumb thing to do…. I should have listened to Pat Flynn’s advice and just kept going. If people weren’t interested in what I had to say, they would have unsubscribed, but the ones that WERE interested would have stayed on. And I’ve have a much bigger list now. So if I were starting today, I’d tell myself to stay focused on building my email list of really relevant contacts. No matter what!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
33
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Cheryl B. Engelhardt CbeMusic.com
Building my audience came with being authentic, real, and bold. Not giving a cr*p about what other people thing, and not trying to please everyone. This is when my blog posts started to get me signups to my mailing list, when speaking in public actually attracted people who were in line with what I was up to. I bring authenticity into how I pitch (I could dork out on pitching for days, and did a ton of research to find the most effective way to pitch anything to anyone, now a process I call The Perfect Pitch).
Bio Cheryl B. Engelhardt is a composer, singer/songwriter and creative career coach. She’s released four piano-pop records, toured the globe with her band, and written music for nationally-airing ads like Honey Nut Cheerios and Lowes. Cheryl is passionate about supporting entrepreneurs and musicians through workshops and courses offered on her website www. InTheKeyOfSuccess.com. Cheryl lives in the Hudson Valley in New York with her mountain climbing husband and basset hound. She also hosts a podcasts, writes a blog, and started a new year’s resolution to do yoga and meditate every day - two things she’s never done consistently - and she’s hasn’t skipped a day yet)
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? This is something I would have tried to be way better at when I first got started: pitching powerfully instead of meekly asking for help. There’s such a difference and it’s all about communicating clearly what it is you want, and presenting it as an opportunity. That and I wouldn’t be so worried about rebranding everytime I came out with a new product!
34
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Colin Gray ThePodcastHost.com
Live events are invaluable for building relationships and growing your network and business!
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Ask your target audience what problems/struggles they have, then write blog posts and record podcast episodes offering answers to them.
Bio Colin has been teaching people how to podcast since 2007. He’s worked with Universities, businesses and hobbyists alike. He started The Podcast Host to share his experience and to help as many people as possible get into Podcasting. He runs Podcraft, to spread the art of podcasting, and does the Mountain Bikes Apart podcast whenever he can. Who doesn’t like to talk bikes, after all!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
35
Grow Your Audience!
Advice David Baer BaerOnMarketing.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? My email list is my biggest asset. Most of the content I create, be it on social media, my blog, or elsewhere, is intended to drive people onto my list.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Um, I’m going to sound like a broken record, but the answer is list building. 100%.
David Baer is a digital marketing consultant specializing in marketing funnels and Facebook advertising. He’s been marketing online since 1996, when he started using email to build lists to sell classical music concert tickets. Since then he’s worked as a traditional marketer in the arts and wine industries. He started his consulting business, Baer On Marketing, in 2011 to focus on helping businesses make profitable choices using the internet.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
36
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Eli Natoli EliNatoli.com
Helping people without expecting anything in return — and making sure every communication with them delivers something valuable and useful to my people. Something they can use, put into practice and see results from. For me, this is about building trust, which means I have to do more than just pitch people. I need to prove the benefit of following my advice, of implementing my ideas.
Bio
That’s a matter of consistently showing up, spending a lot of time making sure what I put out there is of value. Constantly striving to do it better. Talking to people like human beings instead of “pitching” to them.
From digital product management to strategic marketing, Eli Natoli has been helping serious entrepreneurs grow their businesses faster and take them further for nearly 20 years.
Once there’s at least one person that wants to be part of your following, it’s your job to keep producing something of value for them. When they can use what you give and see results, they’ll hopefully tell or refer someone else. Now you’ve got two people; you just doubled your audience.
Together with her husband Joe, a User Experience consultant, she has built a successful software design and development firm, and has architected, marketed and launched eight successful online training courses and two books, with more on the way in 2017.
This is the way. You keep working at it, keep showing up and keep delivering value.
Eli’s unique approach to strategic, service-first marketing is responsible for enrolling more than 60,000 students for those courses, and their products are returning six-figure revenue — consistently.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Eli now dedicates her time to teaching experienced and aspiring entrepreneurs how to do what she’s done: start and grow their own businesses, attract clients, redefine and improve their marketing and generate consistent cash flow.
• Maps out who my audience is and clarifies the most important problems I can help them solve.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
Doing the research and spending the time to develop a well-structured and deliberate content strategy from day one, that:
• Enables me to consistently deliver content they care about, expect and hope for; content they’ll want to read and share.
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Grow Your Audience!
Continued
• Serves as a blueprint for freebie products that they can put to use to get them on my list. • Details how my messaging will remain relevant and valuable for them over time, in order to gain trust and build authority. • Spells out exactly how I’m going to integrate (and deliver) this content into every stage of my prospects’ journey.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
38
Grow Your Audience!
Advice Stoney deGeyter PolePositionMarketing.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Developing content that people want and using social media engagement to spread the word. And, truth be told, we could be doing both of those things better, so let me add this: Always be improving!
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Building my audience. If you don’t have an audience you don’t really have anything at all.
Author of The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!, Stoney deGeyter is also the CEO of Pole Position Marketing, a results-driven web presence optimization and digital marketing agency established in 1998. In addition to business training events, Stoney has spoken at nationwide conferences, such as PubCon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), WordCamp, and Affiliate Summit. Stoney’s articles about how to navigate the digital marketing landscape are featured on Pole Position Marketing’s E-Marketing Performance blog and have been published on Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and Search Engine Journal.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
39
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Kelvin Dorsey KelvinDorsey.com
I have built the majority of my audience (my list of subscribers) via publishing books on Amazon.com. All my books have links that either take them to my website or offers them a free PDF in exchange for their email address.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
I would do two things. 1. Learn copywriting and direct response marketing.
Michael Jordan plays ball. Steven Spielberg makes movies. I teach email marketing. Everyone has a talent. “Kelvin Dorsey is a curious character and that’s what makes his material so magical! If you want to have success in marketing you need to go well beyond giving good content; you need to STAND OUT from the crowd! In this book as well as his more extensive PLAYBOOK, he shows you how to do that so folks will actually “long for” your emails and then BUY your creative solutions, again and again! Highly recommend this and anything he writes. He’s one of a kind ! Kelvin is a bestselling author on Amazon.com in the online marketing space and has published four books on sales and marketing. Dubbed the Email Marketing Maverick, Kelvin’s methods are unconventional, to say the least, but that’s probably why his methods work so well.
2. I would create an enticing free offer for my target market in exchange for their email address and grow my list as big and as fast as possible. For an online marketer, your list of subscribers becomes your greatest asset.
Kelvin specializes in email copywriting and helps his subscribers and customers write emails that drag in sales.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
40
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Serena Greenslade DoNotMumble.com
I was a late comer to social media but I did realise that having a website was of little use if no one knew it existed. I spent many hours writing articles for online publications and getting myself listed in as many online directories and information sites as possible. I put videos on Youtube but my target audience was not made up naturally of social media users at the time.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
I’m Serena Greenslade and I’ve been teaching people to speak clearly and confidently since 1994. I qualified in 1994 as an elocution teacher gaining my A.N.E.A. since then I’ve taught lecturers at Bournemouth University, trainee doctors for the NHS, sports coaches, business people, tele sales personnel, health care workers, stroke victims, at schools and with national charities.
If I was starting my business today I would do much the same but as time has moved on so has the increase in blogging sites and I would certainly learn how to benefit from blogging and Youtube as well as building my website.
I specialize in one-to-one private lessons for children and adults and workshops for businesses although now that I live in central Portugal most of my teaching is by Skype. I’ve also written articles for various magazines worldwide, an academic paper and have published three books about speaking with confidence. As well as teaching children and adults who have English as their first language to speak clearly I also teach an increasing number of people who speak English as an additional language to soften their accents, although I strongly believe that even with an accent people can be taught to speak clearly so that they can be understood
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
41
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Franki Kidd FBKWrites.com
One tactic I used to grow my audience was to create classes on a thirdparty platform. As an example, I have several classes on Skillshare an online learning community for creators and makers. The site offers thousands of on-demand classes (with thousands of users) in a wide variety of subject areas from business to creative. I was able to borrow their audience and because of my hard work obtain thousands of students that I contact anytime I want to share information or to let them know about my latest projects.
Bio Franki B. Kidd (FBK) is a seasoned writer’s writer - whatever that means - it sounds good. She blogs at FBKwrites.com. She’s “Frankie” of the Frankie Johnnie writing team and books. She has a Degree in English and completed the sequential program in writing for Film and Television at UCLA.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would focus on building an email list. That is something I did not do until well after becoming an online entrepreneur, and I’m still working on building a list.
As a freelancer working through several online sites, she has helped hundreds of people who want to write a book but don’t know where to start. She’s created hundreds of outlines and written countless nonfiction books. She now teaches people how to write and self-publish their own books by teaching online and through her seasonal nonfiction writing boot camp. She enjoys helping entrepreneurs achieve success with writing, marketing, and selling books.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
42
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Kiara Smithee KiaraCollectives.com
Stealing the attention of my competitor’s followers.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I always recommend a company focus on content. The content is the store-front of that brand so you want to make sure it’s of high-quality.
Bio Kiara Smithee is a journalist and media marketing professional. Having graduated from the School of Journalism at San Diego State University she has had the opportunity to work alongside many media professionals. She worked in the news department at NBC San Diego and in the Promotion Department at Channel 6 the CW. She took charge of the marketing campaign for a non- profit called Caravan-2-Cabo; an organization that brings musical instruments to the orphanages of baja mexico and promotes the US Surf Open of Mexico. Her leadership of the marketing campaign resulted in over $200k in proceeds/donations for the event. Kiara now teaches marketing classes online for a company called Skillshare and runs marketing campaigns on the side pro-bono for local San Diego non-profits.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
43
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Maddy Osman The-Blogsmith.com
There are a number of tactics I integrate to consistently build my audience and create inbound leads for my business. The fact that I’m a writer helps, because I get a free advertisement on all my bylined articles, of which there are many. I’m also very involved in different networking groups and am always meeting new collaborators online or in person. Adapt this strategy as your own by always trying to meet people and be helpful, but don’t ever be a pushy salespeople. Connections will eventually turn into something more, but you can’t force it.
Bio Maddy Osman creates engaging content with SEO best practices for marketing thought leaders and agencies that have their hands full with clients and projects. Some of my most well-known clients include Search Engine Journal, Sprout Social, and WPMU DEV. Learn more about her process and experience on her website, www.The-Blogsmith.com and read her latest articles on Twitter: @MaddyOsman.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Your personal brand proceeds you, and will help make the difference between getting hired, or someone else getting chosen over you. So If I were to start over, I would make sure that my personal brand was amazing before quitting my full-time job, to make it easier to get highquality clients right out of the gate.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to LovePeopleMakeMoney.com build your audience? Kelly McCausey
Bio Kelly McCausey is an instigator of communities. She works with smart business owners to fine tune plans and projects that attract and serve a community of people they love. A podcasting pioneer, she loves to shine a light on others. Today she hosts live events, runs a coaching mastermind and enjoys a laid back lifestyle, spending a ridiculous amount of time dancing with her first grand-baby.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
Podcasting. I actually launched an Internet Radio Show back in November of 2003. Back then you had to build your audience just about one person at a time as few understood they could listen to a radio program online. In 2004 when the word podcasting was first spoken, I quickly jumped in. I’ve been creating audio content ever since. Being early to the game, I found I could create deeper relationships than most of my competitors. People feel trust quicker when they’re listening to you week after week. I was blown away to see a community forming around me, people who wanted to take my advice and hire me to consult with them on their business ideas. It changed my life, set me free from debt and the day job and opened hundreds of doors.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Community. I focus on attracting and serving a community of contemporaries and customers and recommend the same to others. Whatever you’re doing, you can begin to create resources that serve your target market and create a space where they can gather and build relationships. Have a light hand, don’t be a dictator, let the community become what it wants to be and stand ready to meet every need you can.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice Lisa Jacobs MarketYourCreativity.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? Statistically, Pinterest has been the number one referrer over the years. That platform is unlike any other on social media in that pins live on forever and gain more popularity over time. It’s compound interest on your marketing efforts.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio I’m Lisa Jacobs, and I help inspired entrepreneurs showcase their talents, strengthen their weaknesses, and build their most profitable business imaginable. During my 10-year career, I’ve built and succeeded at two different types of businesses. The first was a product-based online store, the Energy Shop. The second is my service-based business and blog, Marketing Creativity.
If I were starting from scratch right now, I’d create one irresistible opt-in (that was as valuable as any product I planned to sell in the future) and use it to build an email list. An email list of interested customers shapes your business for the better like nothing else. Those are the people who are going to teach you what they want to click on, what they’re willing to exchange money for, and how much you can control and predict your profits going forward.
I offer marketing strategy in the form of books, online courses, and private consultations. My revenue exceeds a quarter of a million dollars annually, putting me in the top 8% of highest earning websites on the internet. I know how to make businesses make money, and nothing matters online unless customers stick to it. My marketing strategies have a laser-focus on the numbers that matter in business, and not views, visitors, and followers.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
46
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Sesan Oguntade SesanOguntade.com
Participation in forums in the same niche online. This is where people who want to really listen to my message are located. I use Google search engine to find these types of forums. I register and begin to participate. Usually, I try to include keywords in the title of my post on these forums because I want this to come up in search results. I use my signature to a good effect here. I include a gift enticing people on the forum to visit my website. I only try to concentrate on high trafficked forums learning from the mistakes I made earlier when I was joining forums which are low trafficked.
Bio Sesan Oguntade is an author, seminar facilitator and a Christian personal development expert. He has authored several books that have provided useful solutions to problems in the education industry and on Christian personal development. He is also the founder of the Christian Business School, a platform which trains business people on how they can begin to do business with the fear of God and also trains employees on how they can begin to carry out their duties in their work places with the fear of God.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Later I began to put free books on Smashwords and Amazon kindle with a free gift in these free ebooks to entice users of the books to visit my website to subscribe to my email newsletter. On Amazon kindle, you need to request for a price match after you have published your book before Amazon can change the price of your book to free. The book must be also be free on any other platform you have published it.
He also publishes the JobZone Newspaper and heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the convener of the Book Profit Skills Development Seminars on this platform. He has facilitated several skills development seminars for teachers and students in several schools. Some of the books already published are: 1. Billion-Dollar Freebies Strategy 2. 33 Effective Christian Strategies to Grow Your Business. 3. 27 Christian Ways To Improve Your Job Performance.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
47
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Kirsten Oliphant CreateIfWriting.com
I built my audience in a few ways. I connected with people through speaking engagements, through Facebook groups, by guest posting, and when people find me through the podcast and podcast interviews I’ve done. Like building traffic, it’s a good idea to diversify discovery opportunities.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio Kirsten Oliphant is a writer with an MFA in Fiction and has been blogging for over ten years. She hosts the Create If Writing podcast, where she helps writers and bloggers build an online platform without being smarmy. Email is her BFF and she is the author of Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers. She has been named one of Houston’s Top 25 Social Media Power Influencers for 2015 and 2016 and has spoken at events such as BlogHer Food, the MediaVine Publishers Conference, Podcast Movement, and Social Media Day Houston.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If I were starting today, I would focus on building relationships with other people. Not just people who are influential “above” me, but by partnering with other people who are on the same trajectory or have similar goals. It’s so much easier to grow when you find other people passionate about growing with you!
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Christiaan Baas FamilyBase.org
Start with your first audience, start at home. To me that is key, because at home you have to be real/authentic, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be yourself.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? If I was to start again today I would focus on becoming an expert in one area, rather than spreading my attention and having broad knowledge.
Bio
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more important to give real value to the few than no value to the masses.
Husband of 1 and Father of 4. I am a teacher at heart. Originally from the Netherlands, we currently live and love in South Africa. My motto is to build intentionally strong connections and inspire others to do the same. As Founder of the non-profit FamilyBase, I have run over a hundred Communication workshops and training sessions in both business and family setup, equipping hundreds of people from all continents, across cultures and languages. My number #1 secret to success: Live intentional & connected!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
49
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
George Weiner WholeWhale.com
Early on we spent time joining the conversations around conferences and related themes, focusing on adding value to the audience. Then we looked at our data to see the best times to post, which influencers to talk to and then repeated what was working.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio George is the Founder and CEO of Whole Whale, and the co-founder of PowerPoetry.org. Prior to Whole Whale, George was the CTO of DoSomething.org. Under his leadership, the organization became an innovator in social media, mobile technologies and social cause. During his 7 years at DoSomething.org, he oversaw the complete overhaul of the site twice (winning a Webby Award and nominations), helping to build a community of over 1.5 million young people taking action.
Building a list of the conversation topics/hashtags our audience uses and the micro-influencers that lead the thinking. Then work to build relationships with them as well as content that resonates. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d probably also throw some money at our intial Facebook posts to target competitor pages and exact audience demo.
George founded Whole Whale in 2010 with the goal of helping more nonprofits benefit from the digital strategies he was using at DoSomething. Since then, George has worked with over 50 nonprofits to increase cause awareness, multiply meaningful online engagement, and train teams to implement strategic use of data and technology. He is also a speaker at conferences and workshops around nonprofit technology.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
50
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Frici Barabas Udemy.com/FriciBarabas
Give away something valuable for FREE. I gave a away my first course on Udemy which helped me gain a following and now I am doing the same with Bundles for Good. Think long term and forget the cash. It will come soon enough. I also gained a following via Instagram. I built multiple accounts. The tactic is the same, give something valuable for free.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been making my mark online for 3 years now. I started out by building a WordPress website (failed), then I got into affiliate marketing (kind of failed, too). Then I started to sell T-shirts online. I failed at the beginning but this time I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give up that easy. I got into Instagram and I also started to teach what I know on Udemy and Skillshare. I also have website called Digital Lifestyle where I share free information about the topics I know. I got into social media and I realized that building a brand online is crucial in whatever you are trying to acheive online. Now, I work as social media marketer and content crafter.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
Provide value as much as I can, best to my knowledge. Give, give and give.
51
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Gundi Gabrielle SassyZenGirl.com
Kindle Publishing (non fiction) - THE absolute fastest way to grow an audience. Add a lead magnet (free report, check list, cheat sheet, related to the book topic) in the beginning, middle and/or end of the book, learn how to set up your book so Amazon promotes it for you (aka Amazon SEO) and see a daily, constant stream of new subscribers and social media followers coming in. Nothing else has been even remotely as fast this.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Gundi Gabrielle is a Top 100 Business Author, Internet Entrepreneur, former Carnegie Hall conductor and Digital Nomad. She is the Founder of “SassyZenGirl - #ClaimYourFREEDOM”, a platform that helps newbie entrepreneurs, authors and bloggers turn their passion into a thriving business, and loves teaching internet marketing in a fun, easy to understand way.
Writing a Kindle book series right from the start. One book every month or two for at least a year. Complement that with regular guest podcasting, guest blogging and influencer outreach. Network and build relationships constantly.
Her flagship internet marketing series “The Sassy Way....when you have NO CLUE!” has helped thousands around the world start their first successful blog, produced multiple #1 Bestselling first-time authors and helped numerous new businesses start with a sassy internet marketing strategy. Her brand new marketing course “Dream Clients on Autopilot” is about to launch. (Click the link for more info.) Her legendary posts “How to Chill with the M-Word”, “Sassyliscious Brand Explosion” and “The NO Fluff/NO BS Blueprint for turning your Passion into a thriving Business” have gone viral and are still entertaining (and educating) thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs - and marketing phobics...:)
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
52
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Molly Suber Thorpe PlurabelleStudio.com
When I started my freelance hand lettering career, Pinterest and Instagram didn’t exist yet and businesses barely used Facebook. I interacted via email with lots of fellow freelancers with whom I referred and shared clients, and was an active commenter and guest writer on various blogs. Today my following continues to grow largely through social media — specifically Instagram, Facebook, and Etsy — but signing on clients is almost always done through my website, where I strive to keep my portfolio updated and prominent. Guest posting on other accounts and actively engaging my audience are still invaluable, though.
Bio Molly Suber Thorpe is a graphic designer, calligrapher, teacher, and author. She is credited as a driving force behind the modern calligraphy movement and achieved renown for her book, Modern Calligraphy: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in Script Calligraphy. Since its release, Modern Calligraphy has sold over 65,000 copies, been translated into Chinese and Spanish, and was named one of Amazon’s “Favorite Craft Books” of 2013. Her second book, The Calligrapher’s Business Handbook (2017), guides lettering artists in crafting a thriving freelance career, and has been an Amazon Bestseller in the Calligraphy and Business of Art categories. In 2016, Molly founded Calligrafile.com, a curated database of resource links and products for calligraphers, hand lettering artists, type enthusiasts, and creative freelancers. In addition to teaching in-person calligraphy workshops, Molly is also a successful Skillshare.com teacher.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? These days, you can’t start a career as a successful freelance artist without an active social media presence. That said, your actual work is and always will be your number one most effective advertising, so I’d probably go about starting a business today just as I did when I actually started — I’d dedicate ridiculous amounts of time to honing my craft, finding my own artistic voice in the crowd, photographing my work beautifully, and sharing it any way I can.
Molly’s work has been featured in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart Weddings, Los Angeles Times, Country Living, Buzzfeed, and Style Me Pretty, to name only a handful. Her client list includes Google Cultural Institute, Martha Stewart Weddings, Michael Kors, Fendi, J. Jill, and Victorio & Lucchino.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
53
Grow Your Audience!
Advice Faye Brown FayeBrownDesigns.com
Bio
When I started teaching online I wanted to make sure all my classes would really help my students with an element of the design business - whether that’s branding yourself, or focusing on an area like typography. To build my student following I wanted to stay true to offering helpful advice that wasn’t too overwhelming or unachievable. My audience has built through being consistent with this approach and students returning to take any new classes I offer.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
I’m a graphic designer and animator from England. After completing a degree in Graphic Design and winning a student D&AD, I spent 10 years working in London as a motion graphic designer. I designed for title sequences, music promos and commercials. Clients included BBC, ITV, Discovery Channel and Syfy. Since going freelance I work on a lot of branding projects and illustration. I decided to share this knowledge and began teaching online 5 years ago in subjects such as typography, creativity and branding. I love helping people get their business or career off the ground and help them master the art of branding and design.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Setting up a nice area for filming and trying to make my classes look more coherent. I look back on some old classes and think there’s a lot I would do differently now but it’s all a learning curve.
54
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
John Shea NoShameIncome.com
Most definitely partnering with other online marketers and launching products together. I managed to get thousands of new people on my email list this way, if you have a good idea you can present to someone to help you launch a product this is a great way to make a lot of sales and build an email list at the same time.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio “I run the online blog No Shame Income where I share what’s working for me in the world of online marketing.
I would start teaching other people skills I have, regardless of how “simple” they may seem to you. Someone else could likely learn something from you, start charging for your knowledge.
I started learning about online marketing as a way to generate additional income, I enjoy connecting with others and helping people achieve their goals. I have experience with Amazon, eBay, eCommerce, Social Media, SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Podcasting, Lead Generation, Landing Page Design, Wordpress & More. I have created all kinds of courses on different topics such as Amazon, SEO and starting your own Podcast.”
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
55
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Kay Franklin KayFranklin.com
When I first started out online my top traffic sources were from writing articles and posting helpful advice on forums. I was also writing posts on my own blog (it is very important to have visitors coming to a website you actually own!) and overtime this has become more visible in search engines. As time went on, I started writing kindle books and found it both enjoyable and effective. So I would say that today, most of my audience comes from search engine traffic and kindle books.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Kay Franklin is a work at home mum living in the UK. She originally trained as a laboratory research scientist and later on as a secondary school science teacher. After starting a family she decided to begin her own business working online. She now uses her research and teaching skills to educate others on how to build an online information business and has produced a number of successful training programs based on her own experiences.
I would still focus on filling my own blog with a variety of content but at the same time I would write kindle books and either have one available for free permanently or regularly put one of the books on a free promotion.
Today her specialties include building Wordpress websites & blogs, creating information products (video courses, audio training programs, ebooks) and kindle publishing. In her spare time she especially enjoys camping and the outdoors, plays a number of musical instruments and loves animals.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
56
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Gregory Diehl GregoryDiehl.net
The success of my books has largely depended upon getting immediate social proof as an unknown author so that people could trust my message was valuable. I don’t have a large social media following. Instead, I have focused on the concentrated strength of a relatively fewer number of endorsements. When even a few people can honestly attest that what you have to say is unique and meaningful in a specific way, it has a profound effect on your target audience who identifies with you in the same way.
Bio Raised in California, Gregory Diehl soon embarked on a global quest for learning, self-discovery, entrepreneurship, and inquiry. Gregory has lived and worked in 50 countries and continues to help others along the path of self-fulfillment through exploration. Gregory’s books, Brand Identity Breakthrough and Travel As Transformation, are Amazon bestsellers. His podcast, Uncomfortable Conversations With Gregory, taps into the core of self. He is the co-founder of Identity Publications, an organization that shares valuable messages through the production of promotion of books, courses, and videos. Gregory likes to kidnap felines from streets around the world.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? The strength of my brand derives largely from my tone and the depth of the topics I discuss. As a beginner, I was more bashful about coming out full force with myself, unfiltered, as I inevitably offend or turn off some people. Now I know expressing myself fully is the key to my success.
57
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Leslie Friedman Leslie-Friedman.com
High quality, specific, value packed lead magnets have been most valuable when building an audience. Between offering free webinars, 21 day challenges, and printables, I’ve been able to get the right audience for my product and market to them more effectively.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio Leslie Friedman is a Best-Selling Author, Image Consultant, and Professional Speaker. She specializes in helping individuals and businesses harness the power of personal branding to effectively alter their appearance and actions to guarantee personal and professional success. Leslie is a two time best-selling author for her books, Game Changers and Dressing your Personal Brand. Leslie attended the University of Georgia for Fashion Merchandising and Parsons the New School for Design for Fashion Design. For almost a decade prior to entering the consulting world, Leslie was a practicing fashion designer and her collections have been in numerous fashion shows including MercedesBenz Buffalo Fashion Week in New York.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
I would spend lots of time and energy in the research phase. Before you start ANYTHING (building your brand, creating a product, etc.) research the heck out of your audience and what they want. Knowing your target market inside and out sets you up for instant success and helps you avoid costly mistakes (like spending time and money marketing to people who will never buy your products).
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Lisa Buyer LisaBuyer.com
Networking on and offline. You need to get out from behind your screens and network in real life to solidify connections when possible. For example going to conferences and speaking at events, even online events such as webinars. Live video makes it possible as a next best thing to real life so leveraging the use of Facebook Live can help add dimension and personality to your personal or business brand.
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
I’m a social media expert, influencer and author of Social PR Secrets. Next book: Digital Detox Secrets. My specialty is blending the power of public relations (PR), social media optimization (SMO) and search engine marketing (SEO).
I would first focus on creating a blog and writing as much as possible for other publications to create authoritative content on the subject matter you want to be known for. In addition I would identify the media, bloggers and influencers in the targeted space and start interacting with them via social and do whatever you can to help them out in a selfless way. Be creative and giving.
Since 2007, I’ve been speaking at national and international conferences on social media and search marketing as a way to leverage public relations. Conferences include Pubcon, SMX, SES, PRSA, AllFacebook, AllTwitter, Zenith Digital Marketing Conference, University of Florida, BYU, MediaPost, ClickZ, Online Marketing Institute, San Francisco University, SFIMA and more. I love to do keynotes, workshops and breakout sessions whether it’s at a conference, corporate headquarters, Skype or even Starbucks. I’m the editor of Social PR Chat. You can also find me writing on LinkedIn, Medium, Search Engine Journal.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
59
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Cathy Goodwin CathyGoodwin.com
I’ve used content creation and public speaking to build my audience. I began with articles and blog posts, and now promote my content on social media, webinars, videos and podcasting (just starting now).
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
If starting today, I’d create more courses and webinars. I’d pay more attention to my statistics.
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is a professional copywriter who specializes in helping independent professionals and small business owners who want to grow their business with a compelling online presence. Many writers will help you become a better storyteller. My website, products and consulting will help you use storytelling to become a better business owner. I am a speaker, comedian, published author and former college professor. I’ve lived all over North America, including Alaska and Canada. Now in Center City Philadelphia, I live with 2 rescue cats and a mixed breed adopted dog.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
60
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Naresh Vissa NareshVissa.com
I’ve built my audience primarily through having a mailing list to collect leads. I drove traffic to my list primarily through my books PODCASTNOMICS and FIFTY SHADES OF MARKETING.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Focus on capturing traffic by starting and building an e-mail list.
Bio Naresh Vissa is a media, marketing and publishing entrepreneur and product launch and marketing specialist. He is Founder and CEO of Krish Media & Marketing - a full service online and digital media and marketing business consultancy, agency and solutions provider, utilizing strategies to streamline sales and branding processes. Vissa has worked with leading publishers, corporations, and media firms to improve their bottom lines through marketing. He is also the author of the #1 bestsellers PODCASTNOMICS: The Book Of Podcasting... To Make You Millions and FIFTY SHADES OF MARKETING: Whip Your Business Into Shape & Dominate Your Competition. Vissa graduated Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University’s Honors Program with degrees in broadcast journalism, finance and accounting. He earned a Master’s Degree from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice Mike Omar MakeMoneyFrom HomeLionsClub.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? I’ve always put out quality and free information (information that is good enough to charge for). I also ask my audience to tell their friends and family about me. If you’re good to your audience, they’ll happily do it, and as we all know, a recommendation from a friend is the best advertising.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Mike Omar graduated from the University of Florida in 2006 and moved to NYC that year to work in finance. He got a job at a commodities trading firm and less than two years later the economy crashed and he was let go. Due to the terrible job market at the time, he was forced to find new ways to make money if he wanted to stay living in New York City.
I’d focus on all these smaller niche apps that are out there that we don’t think about often but have millions of active users (in other words, not facebook, instagram, youtube...things more like musical.ly, periscope, there’s lots of them!).
He taught himself basic web design and started freelancing his services for people on Craigslist (and was forced to quickly learn more advanced web design during this time!). In addition to this, he started buying and re-selling sports and concert tickets to make some additional money. Through his ticket brokering experimentation, he started learning about how to make money on Ebay and continued experimenting from there. His first “passive income” project was a website that sold an e-book (that he wrote himself) that taught people the basics of how to make money buying and re-selling events tickets (price: $27). Even though it took several weeks to get his first sale, the first time he received an email that an e-book was sold, he fell in love with the “passive income” business model and continued to build his online business from there. The website was made years ago and it continues to make passive income to this day: http://howtobecomeaticketbroker.net . He now owns over 160 websites that make some level of passive income and continues to come up with new projects and ideas to grow his business.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
62
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Priya Florence Shah BlogBrandz.com
I have relied heavily on blogging, SEO and content marketing to build an audience. The most important of these is niche blogging, which has helped me create a strong personal brand.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio I’m an author, online publisher and social media marketer. My passion for online publishing started in 2001, and I went on to publish a number of websites and blogs. Foremost among them is Naaree.com, ranked among the top 10 women’s magazines in India and the top 100 women’s blogs globally. I also founded a social media agency called Blog Brandz and provide social media services to a number of clients, including Fortune 500 companies.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
It takes hard work and commitment to build a massive social presence and, while it was much easier to do years ago organically, today one does require outside help, as from a social media agency or an assistant, in order to achieve that. It also takes commitment to create content on a consistent basis - both curated and original - that one can use to keep one’s social channels updated. The first thing one must do is create a social media strategy so that you understand who you are trying to attract and why, and a social content strategy to decide the sort of content you will create and share with your audience that keeps them engaged with your social channels. Publishing a blog or a YouTube channel or sharing photos and videos on your Instagram are some of the ways you can create content to keep your audience engaged.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice Candee Fick TheAuthorToolbox.com
The top strategy I have used to build my audience has been developing a quality product and service that is easy for customers to recommend to others. While I have built an online platform including a website, blog, and social media accounts, the word-of-mouth from happy customers has done the most to build my audience and email list.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio Candee Fick is a multi-published award-winning author in both fiction and non-fiction, and coaches other authors in all things business-related. She is also the wife of a high school football coach and the mother of three children, including a daughter with a rare genetic syndrome. When not busy with her day job or writing, she can be found cheering on the home team at sporting events, exploring the great Colorado outdoors, indulging in dark chocolate, and savoring happily-ever-after endings through a good book.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
If I was starting today, I would focus on learning as much as I can about my ideal customer, then get my message in front of them in a way that addresses their pain points and offers a solution. I would keep the focus on meeting their needs in a truly helpful way and less about promoting myself. “How can I help you” goes a lot further than “Buy my book” or “Hire me to be your coach.”
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Michael Dickson MichaelMDickson.com
Online courses. Mingling through Facebook groups and speaking with authors and entrepreneurs about what they’re after has built my audience ten fold. Because of their candor, I’ve been able to create targeted online courses that answers the toughest questions my niche is looking for.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio
Building an email list. 75% of my sales come from my email list either directly or by referral. My second highest vertical is “search engines” at 5%. Email is king.
Michael M Dickson is a Best Selling Instructor, published author, and entrepreneur. He teaches story structure, novel outlining, and entrepreneurship, having successfully taught thousands of people his unique techniques in each area.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
65
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Mindy Gibbins-Klein MindyGK.com
An open and random approach to social media. I connected with as many people as possible and accepted all requests, and in 15 years, this has led to over 100,000 connections! Some people say they will only connect with people they know, but I believe you never know where a connection could lead and you never know who that person knows!
Bio
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Mindy Gibbins-Klein MBA FRSA FPSA is an International Speaker and Executive Coach specializing in turning experts into thought leaders and published authors. Mindy has authored and co-authored eight books, including 24 Carat BOLD about which Seth Godin said, “This is the first thoughtful book I’ve seen on what it means to become a thought leader. Practical and inspiring at the same time.”
If I were starting today, I would do more video. Years ago, video was not available, so I’m just getting into it now, while still writing my articles and books.
Mindy is Founder & CEO of The Book Midwife®, an elite book coaching company, and Panoma Press, a cooperative publishing house for business and personal development authors. Her business is a certified womanowned business with WeConnect International and she is passionate about helping female business owners compete, succeed and feel fulfilled. Her TEDx talk “Sometimes You Need to Change Yourself to Be Yourself” has nearly half a million views, and it showcases Mindy’s passion for helping people from all under-represented groups to become leaders, and for all people to approach life more thoughtfully.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
66
Grow Your Audience!
Advice Nick J Lechnir LeapFroggingSuccess.com
Bio
I made the mistake of not inviting my Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections to subscribe to my newsletter, thinking that I would appear desperate and scammy. Once I overcame that hurdle, I invited everyone in my list to sign up, and my email list went from under 100 or over 1000 subscribers in a matter of days. I never received even one negative consequence by doing this, so my fear was holding me back the entire time, until I decided to finally overcome my fear.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
My name is NJ Lechnir. I am a designer, developer, researcher, and writer for more than 20 years. I grew up in the Midwest United States, and was always afraid of speaking in public. I’ve always been quiet, introverted, reserved, and plagued with intense anxiety. I decided to finally do something about it in my late 40’s by joining Toastmasters, and now I am the VP of Public Relations for my local club. I’ve taken the best of what I know and put it all together to create a fresh innovative system to deliver powerful presentations and speeches. Then I wrote a book and published it on Amazon. It is called “Leapfrogging Success - 5 Simple Steps To Powerful Presentations and Public Speaking for Nerds, Techies, and Introverts”. It reached #1 in the Public Speaking category during it’s first week in May 2017. I help people who suffer from extreme speech anxiety by teaching them to overcome intense fear, anxiety, doubt, and limiting beliefs, and then helping them become outstanding presenters and speakers. I show exactly how anyone can use my step by step system to achieve success at levels never before possible. If someone like me can do it, I know anyone can.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
I would focus on engaging my target audience as fast as possible by writing touching heart-felt stories that people can relate to, while still being relevant to my niche and providing exceptional value to my audience. I would share content consistently on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media channels, and build up my impressions and email subscriptions as quickly as possibly. One tool that I use that has helped me greatly with this is Crowdfire.
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Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
John Lee Dumas EOFire.com
I created free, valuable, and consistent content to an audience that grew to know like and trust me.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would niche WAY down into a topic, service that audience and slowly expand out to a bigger audience once I received initial traction and momentum.
Bio John Lee Dumas is the host of Entrepreneurs ON FIRE, an award winning Podcast where he interviews Entrepreneurs 7-days a week. With over 1800 interviews, 1.3 million monthly listens, and an annual revenue of 7-figures, JLD is just getting started on his Entrepreneurial journey.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
68
Grow Your Audience!
Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Ann Evanston AnnEvanston.com
My #1 strategy for over 20 years has been speaking to sell my service. Even on stages where “selling is not allowed” I am still able to list build with 90% of the audience signing up. Converting via strategy session on the phone with people after speaking on the ”no sales” stages is super easy because I already have the “know, like and trust” factor happening. High end packages are easier to sell from the stage, so speaking 4-6 times a year is an easy 6 figure income.
Bio Ann M. Evanston MA, works with creative, intuitive entrepreneurs on how to step into their personal power, own their message, and bring it to the world…in person, online, and when they speak in a compelling and influential way. She ignites them to bring their message forward in a way that enlightens ideal clients to become buyers saying YES! Combining this work with her psychology background her true Warrior power comes in showing healers how to heal themselves and their businesses so they have the success they want. After all, the biggest battle is within! She has been featured on The Huffington Post, Spark and Hustle with Tory Johnson, and Showcasing Women, and has spoken on stages globally. About.com named her one of the “Top 6” Marketing consultants. She is a published author of: “The Influence Factor: The Journey to Discovering your Influential Voice.”
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Well, I think I would do the same since it has been so successful! But, as I age (20 years a small business owner), passive income becomes more important. So building joint ventures to sell the online, self-study version of my service is paramount.
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Advice Hannah Priore SubconciousMindExpert.com
What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience? I put my course on a high traffic website such as Udemy and a lot of people were naturally interested in it and found it through the keywords I used.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would focus on building a brand around something that I am genuinely passionate about and provide unique content around that target topic.
Bio Raising Your Awareness Speaker” Hannah Priore, is a modern day Warrior. Facing many hardships growing up in the city of Tucson she could have given up on life from the very beginning. She experienced sexual abuse at a young age and dealt with parents who had an unhealthy marriage. She started providing counseling to her parents at the age of 6 and she taught kids in elementary school during recess about God and spirituality. She began to face extreme depression in 6th grade when she was faced with bullying because of her mom’s skin color. From overdosing to homelessness, low self-worth, and pain, Hannah graduated from high school and went on to be a hairstylist. Then she ventured off into different fields to see what she enjoyed best. Today, Hannah is a Speaker, Consultant, Healer, Internet Marketer, and Mind Expert. This expertise in life allows Hannah to deliver messages that have Lasting Impact, Change, and Personal Inspiration. Hannah Priore is a multi-talented, skilled, passionate and inspirational spirit. Her presence alone is exhilarating and comforting. Hannah is always full of fruitful and positive energy and just being around her motivates and enlightens people both mind body and spirit. She is very eager to share what she has learned to expand your awareness with all that life has to offer. Her main passion is helping people transform their lives and helping people remember the power that is within them.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Joe Pardo SuperJoePardo.com
Being consistent, and showing that I live the life that I’m presenting to my audience.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I would still focus first on what makes me happy. I love what I do and do what I love. It has helped me turn my hard work into what pays the bills.
Bio Joe Pardo, a New Jersey-based business consultant, has always believed that society starts with you, and that to change society you must first change how you think. In early-2014, Joe decided to leave his family’s $100 million business and pursue his dreams of starting his own business. Joe Pardo founded the “Dreamers Podcast: Business Lessons From Those Who Live Their Dreams” to build his platform of helping business owners pursue the business and lifestyle of their dreams. Joe is now a consultant to entrepreneurs and multi-million dollar businesses all over the world. Helping them grow by focusing on the “T.O.P.” (Team, Offer, and Process). Find out more about Joe at SuperJoePardo.com!
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Paolo Pelloni PaoloPelloni.com
My top tactic is pretty classic, lead magnet with value and periodic content focused on value not on selling something.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? Today, I would focus more on public speaking with “bites” of practical advice that is immediately actionable.
Bio I am passionate about public speaking and I have been delivering training on it since 1995. Seminars, coaching, video-courses, individual sessions for executives or politicians to help people spread their messages successfully. Now with video & social media too. Hundreds of people after attending my seminars become more effective speakers (and happier too). My training style is very engaging and based on actionable points. I love to quote “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire”. I have a background in sales and marketing for different multinational companies including IBM and Anixter. I love my wife, my daughter, helping others and good food.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Davy Sims DavySims.com
Top strategy for building an audience is not new; listen first, then talk.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? If I were starting out again, I would do nothing different. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do - be a DJ - but was always open to ideas the opportunities which is why my career has been so interesting. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve not made a lot of money, but I have had great experiences.
Bio Davy Sims has won broadcasting and new media awards in London, New York, Dublin and Belfast. He worked in BBC radio for most of his career, mainly in Radio Ulster but also in London as senior producer then chief producer in BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. In 2001, he became Editor New Media in BBC Northern Ireland and was part of the team the revolutionised BBC Online which became BBC New Media. Davy began experimenting with podcasting in 2008 and produced several series for the Irish Football Association and Momentum â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the former representative body of the Information Technology industry in Northern Ireland. Davy now spends time between Northern Ireland and Slovenia. He occasionally lectures on Radio Production for Journalists in Dublin and on Journalism and Emerging Media in Ljubljana.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Cathy Presland CathyPresland.com
Relationships and being open to experimenting. For example Udemy was an experiment for me -- I had no idea what would come from it (and no expectations that anything would come from it!), and it turned out I was in the right place at the right time with something that people wanted to buy. I don’t obsess results and I don’t micro-analyse the data. I’m more focussed on relationships, engagement and value. Am I doing work that makes a difference and that excites me? Am I engaging with people who inspire me (peers and clients and customers). If I get that right then the business usually works itself out.
Bio
I’ve also outsourced. For example when I was building one of my websites I relied on other people to create content. But it has to be quality -- again I come back to the questions ‘am I delivering value and am I working with people who inspire me?’
Cathy Presland works with leaders, policy-makers and politicians to do the transformative work that creates real change in the world. An expert on transformational leadership, both personal and professional, Cathy inspires leaders to look beyond themselves when they make their life and business decisions. She works with organisations and individuals who are driven to make an impact with what they do. A former international economist and policy adviser, she draws on more than two decades experience in Europe and Africa, working with heads of governments, international organisations and NGOs. Cathy is a respected motivational speaker, teacher and facilitator. She holds an MPhil in Political Economy and is a certified Transformative Coach.
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
Finally, consistency. It isn’t sexy but it works. Pick something you enjoy doing and do it consistently. For example I write to my email list every single week. I’ve been doing that for years. I love to write and it not only serves my relationship with them but it flexes my writing muscle week in week out.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on? I know you’ve heard it before but I’m going to say it again -- relationships. You already know people and you can get to know more people. Focus on service and only service, don’t think about what you can get focus on what you can give. Gret connections and unexpected opportunities will come from that. Success doesn’t come in a straight line; we do things and something else happens. Yes, we need to be in momentum but we don’t control the direction of travel.
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Advice What was the top strategy or tactic you used to build your audience?
Ricky Shetty DaddyBlogger.com
I use a combination of blogging, video blogging, podcasting, and social media. The foundation of my internet marketing following was starting my Daddy Blogger website 5 years ago and all the other marketing strategies complimented my blogging.
If you were starting today, what would you focus on?
Bio Ricky Shetty is the founder of the popular DaddyBlogger.com website where he writes about parenting, fatherhood, and family travel. Ricky is also the owner and operator of DigitalNomadMastery.com, an online training program focused on helping people become Digital Nomads. Ricky has been to 72 countries on 6 continents and is currently traveling around the world with his wife and 3 young kids. You can find out more about Ricky on his website: http://www.DaddyBlogger.com/about
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
I still think that blogging is a good foundation to build up your brand on and direct people back to your website. I also would focus more on my Email Marketing right from the very beginning. If I had concentrated on building my Email List, I would have become even more successful in a shorter time.
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Thank You! Thank you for reading. I hope you are able to implement some of this advice to grow your audience. One good idea, followed through on a consistent basis can have a massive impact on your business. It can take a long time to build a following and gain traction. Success comes from continual improvement, consistently getting your content into the world and continually learn new skills and technologies. The Influencer Bundles for Good runs from October 12 to 16, 2017. There will be dozens of course, books and resources offered at one low price. If you are looking to become a professional blogger, podcaster, speaker, author or just become a successful online entrepreneur, you are not going to want to miss this sale. It only lasts 5 days! The best part is that 25% of my proceeds of the sale are going to support Courageous Kitchen, a great charity helping refugees in Bangkok, Thailand. All the best, John Bardos
Influencer.BundlesforGood.com
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