Borrow Other People’s Audiences

Our previous blog post challenged you to flip your marketing funnel and grow your business through one-to-one relationships. This is known as relationship marketing. Today’s related blog is about the power of borrowing other people’s audiences. This is next-level relationship marketing, and the idea is to leverage your relationships with the people who have influence on the people with whom you’d like to work.

The power behind borrowing other people’s audiences comes from the fact that you’re also borrowing their brand authority. Speaking to someone else’s audience becomes an indirect referral; after all, you wouldn’t be featured if you hadn’t been vetted, right?

If you haven’t been consistently leveraging other people’s audiences to increase your visibility, it’s time to change your efforts. Current, previous and “almost clients” are the low-hanging fruit of growing your business. To fuel that momentum, you need to make yourself visible to new audiences. That’s why the midsection of the “Flipped Marketing Funnel” includes looking at your second-tier business relationships.

Let’s break down some of the ways you can leverage other people’s audiences for your business…

Be the guest: There are many different ways to be a guest on other people’s platforms. What podcasts do you listen to? Would you be an appropriate guest for any of those? Even better, do you personally know anyone who has a podcast? If so, would you be a good guest for their show(s)? Whether you know the podcast host or not, here’s a tip: Before you reach out, leave a positive review — not just a rating. Then apply to be their guest.

Think about the people with whom you network. Do they have a blog, a Facebook group or a podcast? If so, offer to create custom content that enhances what they provide. Content creation can be a huge challenge for businesses. For example, many businesses have blogs that they struggle to keep up with. By writing a blog post for them, you will help create content that grows their engagement and SEO and gets you exposure to their audience, thus boosting your SEO, as well. Just make sure that you ask for your name and a link to your website to be included in the post.

Most coaches and consultants have Facebook groups. They also hold training sessions on Zoom. Reach out to those with whom you’ve had contact and offer to enhance their group’s experience by providing some special training. The training doesn’t always need to be specific to the field in which the coach or consultant works. For example, a coach that teaches how to start a business is catering to an audience of new entrepreneurs who may also need insights on everything from building their brand, website creation, business operations and finance. Think about what you have to offer their audience and pitch a training or information session about that.

Form partnerships: Your referral partnerships can be either formal or informal. Informally, you can partner up for workshops, events and even service offerings. If you’re a photographer, for example, consider partnering with a make-up artist and a wardrobe consultant for executive or branding shoots. The goal is to forge partnerships that enhance your offer and can be promoted to multiple audiences.

Also consider creating formal referral programs for which you pay a percentage of your sales to a referral partner that helps you gain business by promoting you to their audience. You can even set up a referral tracking system that will automate the program for you.

Take the stage: Think about what conferences and events you could speak at, and don’t limit yourself to local events. You could be a featured speaker at both in-person and virtual events, locally or nationally.

Begin with events in your industry. Typically, there will be at least one major annual industry event for which there is almost always a call for speakers. Additionally, search for smaller, local events in your industry, as well. It’s important to seek out a variety of opportunities and keep track of your results.

You could also host your own event and invite guests to speak. Your speakers will want to promote the event to their audiences, which will gain each of them (and you) exposure to multiple markets.

Pitch the media: Publicity increases the visibility of your business while establishing credibility with your prospective clients or customers. When you earn media coverage, you borrow the media outlet’s audience by gaining influence over their market.

We created a course called Peerless Publicity that includes eight core lessons on how to earn publicity and make the most of it. In a nutshell, it’s about reaching the right media with the right pitch. You need to know which media outlets your prospective clients follow, from podcasts to local news and even national media, and understand that journalists seek compelling stories. No matter how great your clients think you are, you’ll need to have an angle to pitch to journalists — one with a story that’s both interesting and informative.

If you’re interested in learning how to leverage the power of publicity for your business but you’re not quite ready to hire an agency, head to peerlesspublicity.com to learn more.