Ask Steph: What can I do to re-engage my audience and sell to them after months of silence?

Today I am answering a question from a listener who wants to re-engage with their audience following a period of silence. They are seeking to understand how to best share content that will not only re-engage these people but also grow their audience. In this episode, I'm sharing:

– How successfully sharing content builds audience engagement and promotes new growth
– The importance of showing up consistently as an instrumental means of re-engagement
– Evaluating our commitment to social media and seeing this as a nurturing platform
– Strategies for attracting a new audience
– Knowing when your audience will be ready to buy…the why, what and how behind nurturing for success

Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

Today’s question was from an anonymous listener. And the question says, 

What is an example of a tried and true weekly breakdown of content creation and promotion? In other words, what does a typical week of a community builder/course creator look like? I currently have a tiny email list that I haven’t engaged in a long time and a small social media following of around 155. But I have been pretty quiet on there as well. How do you recommend re-engaging my audience? Getting them invested again and starting to attract more people? What are my best next steps? Continuing from the previous question, how long is it appropriate to wait? Before I start selling my course/group program.

So there are a couple of different things to unpack. And I'm going to start with the first part of your question. What does a typical week of a community builder or course creator look like? And I think this varies a lot, but most, or at least the ones that I'm seeing that have been quite successful. 

They are sharing at least one piece of longer-form content each week, they are sharing a podcast episode or a blog post, or a YouTube video. And they are emailing their list at least once per week. And they might be also sharing content on social media. 

I think that's like pretty low down on the list of priorities compared to email and the longer form content. They're then doing things that get their content and their business in front of new people. And that might be running paid ads. It might be networking. It might be pitching for media and podcast interviews, interacting in Facebook groups, and building partnerships. There are a lot of different things that they can do, but they're doing that. They're putting in the time and effort to get their business in front of new people. 

They're not sitting around hoping that if they put up the right post on Instagram, the algorithm will show it to more people and they'll get followers because it just doesn't work that way.

For me in my business, this whole process looks like three podcast episodes a week. Three emails on my list. Content that I'm sharing in my community almost daily. 

The content that I'm sharing with my community, a lot of the time, it's little voice notes. Sometimes it's short little messages, sometimes it's me just saying, Hey, this podcast episode is live today, pop over and listen to it. I'm also creating daily biz boosters emails, which I don't create daily. These are my daily emails, and my daily business tips get sent out as an email. I batch these a month in advance and then they get scheduled and they go out each day. 

I'm also sharing social media content sometimes a few times a week. That comes and goes in waves. It depends on how much energy I have, and how much time I have. But I generally will always be sharing three Instagram stories a week because that's promoting the podcast episodes. And then if I have the bandwidth to create other content for social media, I'll do that as well. 

And then in terms of actual audience growth, I spend my time on Facebook ads. I do podcast interviews. I teach other people's courses and memberships and masterminds. I speak at events. I write guest articles. I do all of those kinds of things to get in front of new audiences. Then the second part of your question, let's unpack that. 

 

So you said if I currently have a tiny email list that I haven't engaged with in a long time and a small social media following, but have been pretty quiet on there as well. How do you recommend re-engaging with my audience and getting them invested again? 

I would start by committing to showing up every week with longer form content for at least 12 weeks. And, you know, that's 12 blog posts or 12 podcast episodes, 12 YouTube videos, which isn't actually a lot in the great scheme of things. 

And then I would commit to emailing this longer form content to your subscribers each week. If you wanted to re-engage them a little bit quicker, you could potentially create some kind of new lead magnet or freebie and send that to the people who are already on your list, just like a real bonus value add. 

But I would really start by showing up with that content consistently. Do you want to be on social media? That is a question for you to reflect on because if you do, then commit to nurturing that audience as well. I think it's really important that we stop thinking of social media as a method to grow our audience, and rather as one of our audiences to nurture. 

We grow our audience by doing audience growth right. We grow our audience by stepping outside of what feels comfortable and what we're already doing. And we do things that get us in front of new people. And when it comes down to it, there are really only a few ways to grow your audience. And that is paid advertising, publicity and media networking, partnerships and then content marketing, because even when you are content marketing, your content won't always organically find the right people. We still need to get out there and find these people. And your content is what makes them stick. 

 

In the next part of your question, you did ask about starting to attract more people to your business. Go back and listen to episode 580. You'll see a link to this in the show notes as well. It's called Coaching call: What to do when your existing audience is for a completely different niche to your new one?

And then also go back and listen to episode 562. How can I grow my audience for my online course launch? Now in both of these episodes, I am coaching students who are struggling to reach the right people and I'm giving them some practical ways that they can. Get in front of those right people and grow their audience. And then the final part of your question. 

How long is it appropriate to wait before I begin selling my course slash group program?

This is not so much about being appropriate. It's not so much about how long is appropriate, but more about how big is the gap between where they are right now and where they need to be ready to buy from you. 

Because if you email them now, or you start posting about your courses, now they will probably think, oh, who is this person? If it's been that long. Or even if they do remember who you are, they probably don't trust you enough to buy from you right now, since you haven't demonstrated any kind of consistency with your content. 

And you haven't invested any time into nurturing your relationship with your audience. I mean, really, how long should you wait, how long is a piece of string? I would say no less than 90 days. And that's 90 days of showing up consistently with longer form content, emailing your list. But it's also still going to depend on a few other things, you know why did they follow you or subscribe to you in the first place? 

Is it the same topic that you are selling your program on? Or did they sign up for something completely different? Because if they sign up for something different, or maybe they've already solved this problem that they have, that they signed up to learn about, then they might not be the right people for what you are selling them. 

The other thing to consider is what they need to know to be ready to buy from you. And go back and listen to episode 582, which has an Ask Steph episode. How can I structure long-form content that converts into sales? Where I share a bit of a deeper dive into that. And then also how much they need to trust you before they will invest. 

And this is going to really vary on the price point, but also how many contacts they have with you as part of that program. So, for example, a higher ticket group program with lots of touch points with you. That's probably going to need more trust than a lower-ticket self-paced course.  So three things to consider why are they following you or subscribing to you what do they need to know to be ready to buy from you and how much do they need to trust you before they will invest?

Pin it?