Kevin (0:00)

Are you a business owner who's been putting out content consistently, but you're still not seeing the views, followers or sales that you expected? Have you been creating videos, posting on social media, trying emails, and every trick and hack in the book, but it hasn't clicked yet? Well, if that's you, don't quit yet. You see, most business owners think when their audience isn't growing that they need to niche down or try some sort of different content strategy. But here's the truth. First of all, niching down might actually be hurting you. And, and secondly, the content strategy that you're currently using right now probably works great. There's just one misconception that's keeping things from working. I'm going to break down what's actually missing from your content strategy and why. Once you understand this one crucial concept, your content is finally going to start resonating. With the right audience, you're going to see more views, more engagement, and most importantly, more leads, better leads, and more sales, all without spending any extra time or money or effort on your content. My name is Kevin. I'm the founder of Grow the Show. I help online business owners build content marketing systems. Our goal is to grow revenue, lower marketing costs, and expand your reach, brand and authority. And here's how we're gonna do that. First, I need to explain the biggest misconception that business owners have about audience definition. I know that you've heard about this before. I know it hasn't worked for you so far. We're gonna change that today. Then I'm gonna walk you through my simple and proven method, which has been used and praised by multiple bestselling authors and seven and eight figure entrepreneurs for clearly defining your audience so that your content immediately resonates. And then finally, I'm going to show you exactly how to apply this clarity to your content so that the time that you're already spending now finally gets you the audience, growth leads and sales that you've been waiting for. Let's do it. All right, so the first thing that we need to cover is why niching down isn't helping you and might actually be hurting you. So I've seen this a million times. I've worked with more than 460 entrepreneurs, one on one, and every single one of them, we start talking about their audience definition. And across the board, every time they're like, yeah, I already did this and it didn't work, or they're like, you know, I really think I need to niche down. And you can be forgiven for believing that because Most online growth people, gurus like me, have said that over the years, it's niche down, niche down, niche down. And there used to be good reasons for why that was true. Because before 2020 and before TikTok changed the online landscape and before the algorithms were as sophisticated as they are today, you did have to niche down in order to reach somebody online. And here's the problem with niching down. When you niche down, you're saying that I'm gonna go from this being my target audience to this being my target audience, right? So for those of you who are struggling to get people to pay attention to you, the reason why niching down is making it harder for you to grow your audience, get more resonance, and reach more customers is because when you niche down, you disqualify people based on their demographics. And I hear this all the time. When I get on a discovery call with someone, I say, who's your audience? They'll give me demographic information. And demographic information is stuff like gender, age, location, marital status, parental status, things like that, right? Nationality, race, whatever it is. And all of these things rarely change. What's also tough about demographics is that these are super broad. So what most people do is they'll say, oh, I help men over the age of 40. That doesn't work. They don't achieve resonance. So they niche down and look to apply more demographics to their audience. So, okay, it's men over the age of 40 who work in tech. So career, right? But then it still really doesn't work because again, there's so many different men over the age of 40 who work in tech, and they're not all consuming the same content. The cycle that I've seen over and over again is that business owners will continue to niche down, niche down, niche down. Try a different niche, try this niche, try that niche. And they're like, what gives? There must be something wrong with me, because all these online marketing gurus are talking about niching down and getting my target avatar, and it's not working. Well, this is why. It's because you're going by demographics. The other problem with doing it this way is that every time you add another demographic to this group, you shrink the number of people. So every time you niche down, you make a smaller and smaller and smaller total potential audience. And here's the thing, and this is why you've been told to niche down so much. When you niche down, it does make things a little bit easier at the beginning, because when you say, my content is for men who are over the age of 40 who work in tech and who are dads, when you do happen to come across one of those men, they're like, wow, that's me. Oh, my goodness. Right? So it kind of works a little bit at the beginning. What's also true is that you don't have much competition when you niche down super hard. There's so few people that are talking to that specific demographic that there's no competition, and people listen to you, and your audience grows kind of by default because you're the only option. But the problem is, by niching down by demographic, you make it easier today but much harder later because you reach the ceiling way quicker. Right? Cause every time you say men who are over the age of 40 who work in tech and who are parents, right? And so those people that are in that group are like, wow, this is for me. But the problem is, this is how big your audience can possibly. So while you might get a little bump now, later, you're gonna run into huge problems. But this is why so many online marketing coaches do this, because you buy their program, they make you niche down, you get a little bump, they get their screenshot and their testimonial, and then they move on. Whereas you are dealt with the fact that for the next 10 years, you have to serve this tiny group and you have no way to grow. So because of these reasons, we do not want to completely define our audience by demographics because it's problematic. It makes it way harder. Yes, you're getting more specific, but it makes it so difficult to grow. And this is probably why you're having the issues that you're having. Instead, we want to define our audience a different way. That different way is actually gonna get you to have your cake and eat it too, because you're gonna get the benefits of niching down in that things resonate deeply. But you're also gonna get the benefits. Benefit of having a large, total potential audience because you haven't gone so freaking small with the people who would even be remotely interested in your content. So how do we do this? Well, we do this by defining our audience not by demographics, but by psychographics. Psychographics are different than demographics because, number one, they have to do with someone's mindset, Their current situation in life and their current pains, their problems, their hopes, their fears, and their dreams. Right? So it's where somebody is in their mind today. When you define your audience through psychographics, you're saying, my content is for people who are in this situation and would rather be in this situation. And this works especially well when you get really specific. Now, what's also important to understand about psychographics is that a psychographic can change at any moment at any time. Now, to really understand this difference, I want you to imagine a restaurant. And the restaurant has a problem because they're too broad, right? You see their menu and it's like one of those diners that has a menu that's like 800 pages. And the restaurant's trying to be everything for everyone. They've got fish, they've got pancakes, they've got Mexican food. And you're like, what is this? This is trying to be too many things. So the restaurant owner, like you, says, I need to niche down. We need to get more specific with what we're offering. Now, this restaurant owner originally made a huge menu because they were like, I want my restaurant to appeal to everybody. But actually when people saw the huge menu, they were like, ugh, this can't be good. There's too many things here. But for those who got past that, they saw that the tacos were incredible at this restaurant. Now, if you were advising a restaurant owner in this situation, would you tell them you need to make your restaurant only for men who are over 40 and have kids? No. Why not? Because that would be dumb. And no restaurant owner has ever done this and said, this restaurant is only for men who are over 40 and have kids. Why? Because men who are over 40 and have kids have different food tastes, which is a psychographic. They have different preferences. So what you say instead is, this restaurant is a restaurant for people who want tacos. And then kablam, the restaurant owner starts crushing it. Because everyone says, yo, you gotta go to this place for the tacos. It's all they sell. And think about it. When you've sat down in a restaurant and they have a menu and it has three items on it, you're like, yo, this is gonna be good. Right? That's what we need to do with your content. So instead of saying, our restaurant is for men who are over 40 and have kids, we need to say, our restaurant, our content is for people who, who want the thing that we are best at. And so here's how you do that. And what I'm about to share with you is my core secret sauce. I do this with every single one on one client that I work with. I sit with them, I ask them a bunch of questions, and I pull this out of them. I've done this with multiple best selling authors who then contacted me later and said, kevin, I'VE worked with several marketing consultants and you are the one who has brought me the most clarity. And I've worked with hundreds of other entrepreneurs who have been through tons of courses that did you need to define your ica, your target avatar, your target audience, and it just didn't click. And across the board they say, this is what made it finally click for me. So here's what it is. We want to define your audience based on psychographics. And their psychographics are their problems, hopes, fears and dreams. Put better, it's where they are now, which is their problems and their hopes. And it's where they want to go instead. Okay. Another way to think of this is your audience is currently at a point A, and usually they're okay with that. Maybe they're sad, but what they really want to do is get to point B, right? So when you think about it this way, your content is only for people who are in a very specific point A and want to get to a specific point B. And understanding your audience and defining your audience in a way that is specific and makes it much easier to grow simply comes down to getting really good at understanding the point A and articulating it to them. That's the key. Because while it is super important for you to understand who your audience is, it's even more important for your audience to understand who your audience is. Because when someone comes across your content for the first time, whether It's a podcast, YouTube video, social media, newsletter, whatever it might be, they need to instantly, viscerally in their soul, know whether or not their content is for them. And if you don't have a deep understanding of who your point A is, you're not gonna be able to say, here's who this is for. And so they're not gonna be able to know it's for them and they're gonna move on. Because today the cat's out of the bag. Everybody's making content. Content creation right now is like the stock market in the 80s. Everyone's on the floor running around, screaming, it's super loud. Who do I pay attention to? So I just want you to imagine that you are standing in the middle of the stock market floor in the 1980s, and it is chaos. People are screaming, running around, and suddenly behind you, you hear somebody say your name, they're right behind you and they're gonna say, you know how you're experiencing this and you'd rather experience this. I know what you need to do. And among all of the loud noise, that person is gonna Be like, what? And they're gonna pay attention to you. That's what this is like. It's describing the point A of your audience really specifically. Because remember this, people don't pay attention to you when they understand you. They pay attention to you when they feel understood by you. So if you can really clearly say, hey, my content is for people who are in this situation and would rather get to this situation, you're going to be that calm voice in the middle of the chaos and you're going to cut through all of the noise. Now I know you're like, well, Kevin, okay, how do I know what the point A and the point B is? Well, my favorite way to define the point A is what are the symptoms that they're experiencing and what are the desires that they have? The more specific you get behind this, the better. As specific as you possibly can. And this is why it's beneficial to serve people who are in a point A that you are either in now or you used to be in. Because you're going to be able to articulate the symptoms and the desires better than anybody else. And then the point B is going to be their desired outcome, identity, or an ideal. So it can be any of those things that you promise. People are really familiar with the outcome. Promise, like, oh, promise a dream outcome. What I found specifically with content is that it can be really beneficial for you to promise a dream outcome. But the problem is once people achieve that outcome, they stop consuming your content because they don't need you anymore because they achieved the outcome. I would rather create content and create an online presence that people can consume forever. Right? So that's why I like to go for an identity or an ideal. So like a couple examples of outcome versus identity versus ideal. Let's say that we create content around getting in shape. So an outcome might be, see your six pack. And identity might be the fit man, which, by the way, that is a demographic. And I'm gonna share with you in a minute why we don't wanna throw away demographics completely. Or an ideal might be ultimate fitness, right? So that's the difference between an outcome and identity and an ideal. And whichever one you point your audience to, it just depends on what you're trying to do. It's super, super specific and custom. But suffice it to say, if you can say, hey, my content is only for people who are in this point A and only for people who want to get to point B, the same stuff that you're making is going to work better. And so this Is again, the difference between getting more niche and getting more specific. Because the number of people who are in this bucket could be huge. Massive. Right? So, like, I came across an entrepreneur recently who's like, my content is for people who are anxious because they're scrolling too much on social media. That is very specific, but it is a psychographic that doesn't care what your gender, age, location, marital status, parental status, nationality, race, career. It doesn't care about that. Are you anxious because you're scrolling so much social media? Great. My content is for you. Now you're probably anxious because you're scrolling too much social media. And when I say that, you're like, wait, wait, what was that creator's name? Right, I want to follow that because that's a specific psychographic that you are in. But it's incredibly a huge, total potential audience. So do you see the unlock here? Ugh, I'm getting all jazzed up now. There's one last thing that I'll add here, which is when to use demographics. So sometimes it is valuable to use demographics. I've angled all of this content towards business owners. Now, this type of stuff works for people who aren't business owners. And if you're not a business owner and you got to this point, good on you. But sometimes it is beneficial to use demographic information when qualifying who your content is for, because sometimes there are ways of defining your audience in a demographic that does work and it contains enough of the psychographic information to work. So when I'm working with an entrepreneur who wants to better define their audience, I say, we always must define our audience with a psychographic. You can optionally include demographic information. So there's a client that I started working with recently, and she came to me and said her content was for women over 40 who are getting into entrepreneurship for the first time. And I said, okay, hear me out. Do they really need to be over 40? So if someone is 38 years old and they're getting into entrepreneurship for the first time, is your content not for them? And she was like, well, no. And I was like, okay. Have you ever had any clients who were under the age of 40? She was like, yeah, actually quite a few. I'm like, okay. Did they get great results? Well, actually, yeah, they got great results. I'm like, okay, then your content is not for women over 40. It's for women who are getting into entrepreneurship for the first time. And then my client came back and said, well, I mean, most of my clients are over 40, and it's for those who have already achieved something in their career and they're looking to escape who they were in corporate and get into entrepreneurship for the first time and stop being so apologetic. And I was like, there you go, there's your psychographics. So if you're a business owner who's defining your audience currently using demographics, invert it and say, okay, is my content strictly not for anybody who isn't this demographic? So if you're saying it's over 40 years old and you get somebody who tunes in and is 39, are they disqualified if they book a sales call with you, Are you asking, how old are you? If you're not, then that's not a real qualifier. And you're using the demographic as a proxy. It's an assumed proxy for a psychographic because that client that I was working with was assuming that the women over 40 had already been through one corporate career and were looking to get into entrepreneurship. But as we identified, that's not true. So you have permission to use demographic information sparingly when defining your audience. But really what's most important is using psychographic information. What is the point A and what is the point B? Now, if your goal with your content is to sell a product or service, if you're making product driven content, right, which is what I'm doing. So my product or service is I consult with high level CEOs and entrepreneurs on building content systems into their business. It is a specific product and service that I offer. And so all of my content is about that. If that's you, and your goal is to sell something specific from your content, you want the point A and the point B of your audience to be the same as the point A to the point B as your content. And if you want to hear somebody who has a way bigger audience than me talk about that, Google Tom Bilyeu Straight line test. Tom Bilyeu has an audience of millions and he talks about the same thing where there needs to be a straight line between the content that you're putting out and the product or service that you sell. If you're making personal brand driven content, which is more common now everybody's talking about how important it is to have a personal brand. If that's you, you still need to define a point A and a point point B. This is a huge tripping point because people who are looking to establish their personal brand, they're thinking about the stuff that they want to talk about. Well, I'm into entrepreneurship and music and this and that. And while you can talk about all those things, you still have to understand the content that I put out for. Who is it for and what is it going to do for them? What is the point A and what is the point B that I'm promising? So if you're struggling to grow your personal brand, audit that. Because I'm willing to bet that the content you're putting out is all over the place and each little piece of content is for a different point A and a different point B. But when you make all of your content for the same point A and the same point B, that's when things really begin to stack and grow exponentially. This is a very simple shift that you can make today in your content, regardless of where you are, whether you're just starting out with online business or you've been doing this for a while and you've already done multiple figures in revenue. Either way, the more clear you get with your point A and your point B, the easier it's going to be for your content to grow. It's going to be like having a much more aerodynamic car. The same strategies that you're using today to try to grow your audience are going to work better because you have clarity behind the point A and the point B. So that's gonna do it. If you have any questions about this, please let me know in the comments. And of course, if you're an entrepreneur who's doing over 25,000amonth in revenue and you'd like to bring me in to help you build this out and build a content growth system inside your business, hit the link in the description and we can chat. I have two things for you before I let you go. Number one, real quick, if you've ever gotten any value from the show, please, if you haven't yet, leave us a five star review. I get a notification every single time reviews come through and they almost always make my day. So please, please, I would love to hear from you. It really, really helps us. And then the second thing is, if you are a podcaster who needs help with production, if you are struggling with all the time it takes to make these things and you haven't yet, definitely set up a conversation with Podcast Boutique. They are the team that I've been working with for five, six years. They are my most trusted production agency and recently they added an incredible service that you're going to want to hear about. They call it Record and Forget. I've been using it for months. It is amazing. You just record your episode and send it to them. They do the content editing for you. They create titles, show notes, they can make it into an amazing YouTube video clips and of course high value production. So the content editing piece is the thing that I know people have been asking for for a long time. It is unbelievably good. All I do is record, I send it off to them, they handle the rest. And by the way, they are also closely in lockstep with me. So anytime I discover something that is working to grow and monetize a podcast, I immediately share it with them. We work to implement it with my show and then they implement it with the other shows that they work on. So if you're spending time yourself doing any of the editing or post production, or if your current post production team isn't cutting it, maybe they're an internal team that doesn't know what they're doing or they're an external team that's either too expensive or does not keep their promises, which is very common. Check out Podcast Boutique. You can go to podcastboutique.com, let them know that I sent you. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.