How do I start to build my audience for my online course or membership?

I’ve built my course but sales are lackluster, well actually, abysmal. First, deep breath. It’s ok. This is more common than what others will lead you to believe. Sure, you think everyone’s making $10k, $20k, $50k per month.  I can promise you, they are not. Don’t get me wrong, of course there are success stories and you can be one of them but unless you already have a huge following, you won’t start out with the money rolling in. 

Now that we’ve come to terms with reality, what do we do? Yes, you can work on your sales page, the copy, the SEO, do ads, etc. All of this is important and will come into play in time. But, you know what’s really important?  You! Do people know you? Do they hear your voice? Do they get that you understand their plight? If not, it’s time to let them get to know you. 

Step 1:  Lurk and Listen

Now in order to implement step 1, Lurk and Listen, you’ll need to have previously defined your niche and honed in on your target audience. Let’s say you're a vegan chef that has created the “The Vegan Mom’s Guide to Replicating Your Favorite Comfort Foods Course”. Your audience is vegan moms with young kids. 

Start by selecting one social media platform. The criteria for selecting your ONE platform is, two fold.  One, your people are there and two, you are comfortable with it. Also, notice I said one platform. And the reason for this is simplicity. Make it easy enough for yourself that you will stick with it. 

Once you’ve selected your platform, search your hashtags, find and follow your people, watch their posts and videos.  Understand their language. What are they talking about? What’s their pain point? Is it school lunches? Is it difficult finding options at the grocery store? Do they want to replicate comfort foods with vegan alternatives?

Once you get a lay of the land, jump in. This brings us to Step 2. 

Step 2:  Add value

Share a recipe for your vegan mac n cheese and add in where you found the ingredients on sale. When you hear moms dishing the dirt about the school cafeteria and its lack of options, you mention the new delivery service you started using that actually delivers vegan options to the kids at school. Guess what, now people are listening.  You’ve connected.  You’re their kind of people. 

You had that freebie ready to go, waiting patiently for its debut.  Now’s the time. You see a mom mentioning she’s having such a hard time creating recipes that her family enjoys. You mention that you put together 3 yummy vegan breakfast recipes that are perfect for school days. Would anyone like them? A few moms jump in and say, “yes”.  We’ve cracked the code! Now the sales flood in, right?  No. 

Step 3: Keep going

Now you keep going.  You keep creating. You keep answering. You keep responding. You write blogs, you share ideas. You start a small private group on your chosen social media platform and begin to invite your new connections to join.  And, you continue …. Then, it happens, your first sale and maybe a second. 

Now that you have a nice (albeit small) group, you realize that in addition to the course, there might be value in doing a group coaching program. You go for it. You introduce a new recipe each week and the group discusses some of their best local vegan finds and dish the dirt on the not so great options. 

You now have the beginning of your vegan mom empire. The best part, those moms all know other like-minded people, so they share your group with their friends. Ever so slowly, you have created something special.  Congratulations!