Coaching call: How can I grow my audience for my online course launch?

Today I'm coaching Tiana Karamihas, a Cavoodle coach who is struggling to grow her audience ahead of her first online course launch. She's the first person in her industry that's doing what she's doing, so she's struggling with Instagram and with growing her email list. How can she grow her audience ahead of her launch? And how can she get media attention as the first person in her industry?

In this episode, we chatted about:
– The different types of media coverage and how to come up with compelling angles to pitch.
– Who to pitch for media coverage and where to find their email addresses.
– How to grow your audience using Facebook Groups without being spammy or breaking rules about self-promotion.

 

Today, I'm really excited to be coaching one of my Launch Magic students, Tiana Karamihas, who is a Cavoodle Coach & Brisbane Cavoodle Breeder. She's struggling to grow her audience ahead of her first online course launch. 

Tiana is the first person in her industry that is doing what she's doing. So she's really struggling with Instagram and with growing her email list. 

We're talking about how can she grow her audience ahead of her launch. And how can she get media attention as the very first person coaching Cavoodle owners.

 

The different types of media coverage and how to come up with compelling angles to pitch

 

I am growing my audience currently over on Instagram, e-mail list, and I also have a podcast myself. And I'm just struggling to reach more Cavoodle owners in the beginning stages when they're getting a puppy or right before they get a puppy. 

 

Something that comes to mind straight away for me is a lot of mainstream media, especially here in Australia, that talks about how cavoodles and I wonder if there's an opportunity for you there with the mainstream media to reach those new audiences.

Because social media is great for connecting with people who are already following you. It's really hard to reach new people these days. 

So doing a Google news search just for Cavoodle and seeing what comes up in the last 12 months. That's exactly looking at who wrote that and then coming up with some angles that you can pitch them. 

It comes down to education for people who are looking to get a Cavoodle and just understanding how to find a good breeder because the influence a breeder has on the temperament of a puppy is huge and people don't understand that. 

 

Articles and Guest posting: The two separate things in media

Articles are written by the journalist and guest posting is where you would be writing the article and you're pitching it to a publication.

They're slightly different. The journalists might be the ones who are writing those articles on news.com and like those really big publications where they might have interviewed a couple of families who've got cavoodles and they're talking about why they're the most popular dogs.

Whereas on the other side, guest posting is something where you would be writing and positioning your expertise. 

So the things that most families don't consider could go into either, some of these publications even have a way that you can just reach out and publish. you literally send them your Google Doc with the article you've written.

 

Who to pitch for media coverage and where to find their email addresses.

I guess changing everyone's mindset about finding a good breed, the thing to keep in mind when you are reaching out to these mainstream publications is you're probably going to reach more of the people who are thinking about getting a cavoodle rather than those who already have a cavoodle. 

And so when you're coming up with those angles, or even if you think of them as headlines, think about what would make a compelling headline to somebody who hasn't yet got a cavoodle. 

I guess coming up with those angles is probably the first and most important one because how newsworthy your story is will determine whether it gets published or not.

And this is the most challenging part – coming up with those angles. It's compelling for somebody to click on that article and read it because journalists have a job. They have to create content that people want to read. They need to make sure that their articles are getting lots of views, so they're not going to publish something that people don't click on.

So we need to find those angles and straight away you are the only cavoodle coach. That's pretty cool. That could be a really compelling story. Like, meet the Brisbane woman who is coaching owners of the most popular dog in Australia, the most popular breed in Australia and that's a really interesting, potentially newsworthy topic.

 

How to play on hot topics for newsworthy articles

There's a controversial debate over vaccinations and socialization for puppies, and a lot of people tend to keep their puppies locked inside the house because they haven't received all of their puppy vaccinations yet, which for health reasons is fantastic, but for socialisation reasons, it's not. And that leads to separation anxiety and social anxiety. 

So it's more about educating people on how they can make a balance between those two things, health-wise for the vaccinations, but then socialisation-wise for the temperament. 

That's probably going to be newsworthy. You might even pitch that as more just like a general topic relating to dogs. And trust that a certain percentage of the people reading that article might be thinking of getting a cavoodle.

So say that they've already written an article about why Cavoodle is the most popular dog, you would say, I really appreciate these points that you made in this article. I'd love to write a piece talking about the other side of the story, which most people don't consider before they get a cavoodle.

And these news articles, usually have a place where you contact the person who wrote the article or the actual magazine or wherever it's being published.

 

How to grow your audience using Facebook Groups without being spammy or breaking rules about self-promotion

Facebook groups are where the audience is located. There are Facebook groups of those Cavoodle owners, Australia Cavoodle, and people ask all their questions there. So that's where your audiences are. 

Every time somebody asks that question, You say, Hey, I'm Tiana. I'm a Cavoodle coach and breeder. I talked about this on my podcast. Here's a link to listen if you want the full deep dive. Because straight away now somebody's going to know, they're gonna sit up and listen. They're going to be like, Oh, Tiana knows what she's talking about. She's not just somebody putting in their opinion, just another cavoodle owner who's adding their opinion.

And they're going to go and listen to your show. They're probably going to download your ebook. Somebody's on your email list now. You're simply giving them an answer to their question and honestly, hanging out in those groups and seeing what questions people are asking, that is going to give you content ideas for your podcast.

And then the final thing that I'm going to suggest that could work really well with those groups is a long-form post in the group. So a lot of these groups obviously won't like you jumping in there and posting like, Hey, here's my blog post, or here's my podcast. Click to listen to it. 

But what you might say is you might do a long-form post inside that Facebook group, and it might be something like five things that, or as a Cavoodle coach, here are five things I've noticed most new Cavoodle owners get wrong, and you're just writing all of that in that same Facebook post.

And then at the bottom, you say, Hey, I also have a podcast. I have the Cavoodle Coach podcast, and this is where you can connect with me on Instagram. You would put those things at the bottom, so if somebody's reading that post they're getting so much value, it's not spammy. it's not super self-promotional. And then at the bottom, if they want to learn more from you, that's where they can find. 

 

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