The Keyword is: Audience
In List Building 101 we looked at the Approach, Invite, and Tactics. In 201 we will look at how to cultivate another type of list: an audience. We will be looking at the Mindset, Transition, and Follow-up needed to cultivate an audience.
An audience isn’t just a list of people, but a group of people actively engaged in your communication pipeline, business life-cycle, and business lifestyle. These can be cultivated in every platform, it just depends on your niche. Some niches will do better in LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
1. Mindset – You must know, walk and talk like your target audience
People are already wanting and searching for the products/services you offer. They seek community with other people like them as a method of “finding somewhere they belong.” This reduces anxiety, post-decision dissonance, and builds trust within the products/services. If you are wanting to engage with them more, then you have to make sure the language, messaging, imagery and brand elements are consistent across the board.
Although people may not want to be on an email list, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to be in an exclusive group.
2. Transition – Generic Fan to Exclusive Member
Since Facebook can have a high return on investment (ROI) on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) relationships, we’ll be focusing our attention there.
After you have likes and followers on your page, you should absolutely engage your fans on a regular basis with solid content. This can be very time consuming but if you are as invested in your business and niche, these should come more naturally over time.
During the use of your products, promotions and other things, invite people into sales and events. Make these exclusive to Facebook too! Having people on your email list and in Facebook creates more touch points and more likely to purchase your goods/services.
In general though, Social Media ROI is lower than Email Marketing. Feel free to ask your Facebook Audience to become a part of your Email Audience since you will have email exclusive offers there too. But what happens when they don’t buy anything or sign up for email?
We highly recommend inviting them into an Exclusive Private Facebook Group. Facebook has even done complete web and app revamps of the Groups feature (May 2019) and they understand the power and value of groups.
Create an Exclusive group dedicated to additional content, better offers, or additional support. Do what makes sense for your business and niche. Even a group for only people who have purchased your products/services so they can inspire other shoppers with recommendations. At this point, that cultivated audience can run with input from you, on what to purchase next or how to engage other new people.
3. Follow-up – Thank you is another phrase for “Hello” and “Welcome”
A common misconception when building a list and audience, is that once a user signs up for an exclusive Facebook group or email list, you just let the platform do the rest of the work. This is a huge lost opportunity.
If a user has additional time, after converting into a lead they are more than happy to continue reading or watching your content. On your “Thank You” pages, put opportunities for them to re-convert.
For example, if a user converted on your website for the email list, on the “Thank You” page, invite them to join your Facebook page for even more exclusive offers and live videos feeds. Likewise, on your Facebook page, its okay to mention that a promotion is only available to people on your email list and then provide a link for them to signup.
See the below example from HubSpot.com on how to do this:
