MBA2568 Stop Trying to Go Viral: The Real Way to Grow an Audience That Buys

Summary

Podcast Summary: The $100 MBA Show - Episode MBA2568 "Stop Trying to Go Viral: The Real Way to Grow an Audience That Buys"

Release Date: January 3, 2025
Host: Omar Zenhom

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In the episode titled "Stop Trying to Go Viral: The Real Way to Grow an Audience That Buys," host Omar Zenhom delves into effective strategies for building a sustainable and profitable audience without relying on fleeting viral trends. This comprehensive discussion outlines actionable steps for entrepreneurs aiming to transform their business ideas into thriving ventures by focusing on long-term audience engagement and conversion.

Introduction: The Myth of Virality

Omar begins by challenging the common misconception that virality equates to business success. He states, “90% of content that goes viral doesn't lead to making any money. No meaningful sales or business growth” (01:01). Instead, he emphasizes the importance of cultivating a loyal and engaged audience that is more likely to convert into paying customers.

1. Building Trust Over Seeking Attention

Omar underscores the necessity of building trust rather than merely grabbing attention. He explains, “You're an entrepreneur. Your goal here is to build a relationship with your audience, to build trust with them so that when they're ready to buy, they don't go shopping around, they come to you for your products and services” (01:45). Trust is established through consistent, valuable content that addresses the audience's needs, fostering a reliable connection that encourages loyalty and repeat business.

Action Step: Commit to creating content that solves your audience's problems. Focus on delivering value consistently to earn their respect and trust.

2. Understanding Your Audience's Needs

A deep understanding of the audience is crucial for effective content creation. Omar shares his experience with his software company, Aninja, where recognizing that his customers were solopreneurs needing simple, integrated tools was pivotal. He notes, “I understood how frustrating it could be to try to Frankenstein all these different pieces of software to just run a live event” (04:15).

Action Step: Engage directly with your audience through surveys, emails, or social media to identify their biggest challenges. Tailor your content to address these pain points and offer relevant solutions.

3. Prioritizing Depth Over Reach

Omar advocates for valuing a smaller, engaged audience over a large, passive one. He states, “A smaller, engaged audience is far more valuable than a massive passive one” (06:30). By nurturing a dedicated email list and fostering meaningful interactions, entrepreneurs can build stronger relationships that lead to higher conversion rates.

Action Step: Focus on nurturing your email list and engaging deeply with your audience on platforms like social media. Provide exceptional value to encourage loyalty and participation.

4. Creating Evergreen (Timeless) Content

Timeless content remains relevant and valuable over time, unlike viral content that quickly becomes outdated. Omar highlights, “Timeless or evergreen content continues to deliver value over time. It positions you as an authority because you're talking about things that don't change the fundamentals of your niche” (07:50). Evergreen content ensures sustained traffic and ongoing engagement, supporting long-term business growth.

Action Step: Identify and create content topics within your niche that remain relevant and useful over time. Develop resources such as blog posts, videos, or podcast episodes that can be reused and shared continuously.

5. Focusing on Conversions, Not Just Traffic

Driving traffic without focusing on conversions is ineffective. Omar explains, “Traffic without conversions is meaningless” (09:05). The primary objective is to build trust, convert leads into customers, and ultimately drive sales. He contrasts high-traffic viral posts with lower-traffic posts that yield better conversion rates, emphasizing the value of quality over quantity.

Action Step: Develop a lead magnet—such as a free guide, checklist, or ebook—that solves a key problem for your audience. Use this to convert social media followers into email subscribers, and nurture these leads through consistent, value-driven communication.

Bonus Tip: Consistency is Key

Consistency plays a critical role in building a loyal audience. Omar shares his personal commitment to regular content creation, stating, “The creators and the business owners that win are the ones that stick it out, that really just commit to doing this over and over and over” (13:00). Maintaining a consistent content schedule ensures ongoing engagement and reinforces trust with the audience.

Action Step: Establish and adhere to a content schedule. Batch create content to maintain a steady flow, allowing for flexibility and sustained productivity even during busy periods.

Conclusion: Embracing a Sustainable Growth Strategy

Omar wraps up the episode by reiterating that chasing virality is a distraction from building a meaningful and profitable business. He encourages entrepreneurs to focus on creating valuable, evergreen content, understanding and addressing their audience's needs, and prioritizing conversions over mere traffic.

“Virality is tempting guys, but it's not a strategy, it's a distraction. Instead of trying to chase being some sort of influencer, some sort of Internet famous person, focus on building trust” (14:00).

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Key Takeaways:

1. Build Trust Over Attention: Establish meaningful relationships through consistent, valuable content.
2. Understand Your Audience: Identify and address your audience's specific needs and pain points.
3. Prioritize Depth Over Reach: Focus on a smaller, engaged audience rather than large, passive followings.
4. Create Evergreen Content: Develop timeless content that remains relevant and continues to attract and engage over time.
5. Focus on Conversions: Aim to convert traffic into leads and customers through effective lead magnets and nurturing strategies.
6. Maintain Consistency: Uphold a regular content creation schedule to sustain audience engagement and trust.

By implementing these strategies, entrepreneurs can build a loyal audience that not only engages with their content but also becomes a reliable customer base, driving long-term business success.

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For more insights and resources, visit 100mba.net or check out their YouTube channel at YouTube/@100mba.

Transcript

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90% of content that goes viral doesn't lead to making any money. No meaningful sales or business growth. Now you might get some likes, but it doesn't build a loyal audience or a sustainable business. Today I'm gonna show you the real way of growing an audience that actually buys from you and it has nothing to do with chasing trends. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA show where we help you start, grow and sc scale your business with our practical business lessons here on the podcast. Three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday Today we're going to be breaking down why chasing virality is a distraction and why you should focus instead on growing an engaged audience that converts into paying customers. My hope is that this episode helps you change the way you think about audience growth forever. Let's start with step one, and that's focusing on building trust and not attention. Social media has trained our brains to try to get people's attention as much as possible so that they can like us. But you're an entrepreneur. You're a business builder. Your goal here is to build a relationship with your audience, to build trust with them so that when they're ready to buy, they don't go shopping around, they come to you for your products and services. Yes, viral content grabs attention for a moment, but trust is what keeps people coming back to you and that's really what you're looking for when it comes to converting your audience members who are viewing your content into customers you want to Build trust over time through that consistent, valuable content. Our podcast, this podcast, the Hundred Dollar show didn't just explode overnight. It grew steadily with consistency, every day, every week, every month, every year. Over 10 years, I've been able to build an audience that trusts me when it comes to starting, growing and scaling a business. So as an action step for you, I want you to start committing to creating content that solves the problems of your audience. That's really we need to focus on. Don't try to grab their attention or make them share because they think it's silly or fun. It has to be valuable if you want to earn the respect. Start small and be consistent. Over time, you're going to find your loyal following are starting to like and share and love your stuff because you're valuable. That leads me to step two, understanding your audience's needs. The better you understand the people you're talking to, the more they're going to feel like you can solve their problems just merely by being able to describe what they're going through. Again, viral content doesn't really focus on that. It focuses on entertainment. But you're an entrepreneur. Your business thrives when you address your audience's pain points because you become the solution. You. You become the authority to help them out. I quickly understood this when I was building my software company with Aninja over 10 years and understanding that our customers are solopreneurs, small business owners. They don't like complicated software. They want an easy software to run their webinars that does all the marketing for them. I understood how frustrating it could be to try to Frankenstein all these different pieces of software to just run a live event. So I really talked about that pain point because I was able to say, hey, I know what you're going through. And that's why I created this solution, my product. So your action step is to survey your audience right now. Or you can just engage with them directly, like send them an email or, you know, get on a call with them or DM in social media, Find out what their biggest challenges are and then create the content that you're producing on social media around that pain point, around those challenges and then provide your solutions. Step three, prioritize the depth over reach. A smaller, engaged audience is far more valuable than a massive passive one. Remember, you are in business. Your job here is to engage with your audience so that they can trust you and then buy your products and services. You want that trust to lead to loyalty and again, ultimately sales. When you focus on nurturing your email list instead of trying to chase social media followers, then you're really thinking about, how can I get people to love myself so much, they go to my newsletter, and then the newsletter becomes another level of trust building. I learned this from a buddy of mine named Matthew Kimberly, and he taught me that you need to build a newsletter that when people see your name in their inbox, they can't wait to open it up because they know it's good stuff in there. It's almost like they're getting free product every single time you send them a newsletter. The value is just that great. They're just in love with your newsletter. And that really changed my perspective on how to nurture my audience and give them value and show my authority by actually caring and helping them week after week. And we revamped our newsletter because of that advice. And it's been a few months. It's been about five or six months since we've done that. And we've seen an incredible change. Our newsletter has exploded when it comes to its statistics, its open rates, its click rates. And this leads to a more engaged audience that's deep in our content. So that one day when I send them an email, say, hey, we have something that you might want to buy, they are ready to buy. They don't need to be convinced. They're convinced already just by being a newsletter subscriber. So your action step is to focus your efforts on the platforms, like your email list, and even on social media to engage deeply with your actual content to see how you can give the best value so that they could say, oh my gosh, I love this person's information. I'm going to make sure I check it out every day or every week on the newsletter. Treat it like it's a product you're selling. Step number four, create evergreen, or what I like to call timeless content. Viral content is trendy. It fades quickly. It doesn't really last very long, and it's not something that you can use later on because that trend kind of moves on and it's kind of old news. Timeless or evergreen content continues to deliver value over time. It positions you as an authority because you're talking about things that don't change the fundamentals of your niche of your subject. Here's an example. Some of the most successful podcast episodes I've published, as well as blog posts, have been on timeless content. On content that is relevant today as it was a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. They still drive traffic to our website. They still get us people signing up to our newsletter that then leads to sales. So this is something to really think about. How can I create content that will serve me not just today, but tomorrow and years to come? So action item for you. Identify the topics in your niche, in your world that deal with your audience. That doesn't change. That's valuable, that's timeless, that will be able to be used or shared over and over for years to come. Whether that's long form blog posts or videos or podcast episodes. What kind of content will stand the test of time? What if you can make your New Year's resolution automatic? Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids and your retirement. And listen, you don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you invest the spare money you've got right now. You can start with $5 or even just spare change. You don't need to feel like your financial wellness is impossible. 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[A]

Step 5 this is where we bring it all together. You're going to focus on conversions, not just traffic. Traffic without conversions is meaningless. Okay? Your whole job here is to build trust. Build an audience so that you can turn them into leads and then those leads become custom. You're in the business of making money and adding value to the world, not becoming an Internet celebrity. For example, I rather have a post that has a thousand views that gets me, let's say 200 email list subscribers. Wow, that's an incredible conversion. I'd rather have that than have a viral post that has a million views that gets me, you know, 20 email subscribers. No, at the end of the day, I'm a business. I care about the subscribers. I care about the leads that I can turn into sales. Not that a million people saw my post. Great. Wonderful. They're gonna forget about me the next time. They just scroll into Instagram or Facebook or whatever. I want conversions. So as an action step, the easiest conversion that is gonna help grow your business is taking them from social media and having them be part of your newsletter, be part of your email list. And the best way to do this is to create a lead magnet. A lead magnet is basically a product that's free. A guide, a checklist, a cheat sheet, an ebook, a course, an email course. Whatever it is, it's something that you can offer your audience that solves the main or key problem they have so that they can be like, hey, this person actually helped me. I got a win from them, and it was free. I love this person. I love this brand. Then you're gonna nurture them because you're on your email list week after week with your newsletter. A couple examples. On our website, we have a whole bunch of templates that people could use, like a P and L sheet, like a lead magnet template, if you want to create your own lead magnet. And that's our lead magnet templates. And you can check them out over at 100- MBA. NET templates. We also have another lead magnet called our escape plan, and it's on our homepage. And you could just go to 100- MBA.NET See it there? And it's just serving the main pain that our list has, our audience has, which is how to quit my 9 to 5 and start a profitable business. That's our escape plan. Shows you the steps, gets you started. All right, now I got a bonus tip for you. And this is something you need to apply to everything I talked about today, and that is to stay consistent. Building a loyal audience takes time. The creators and the business owners that win are the ones that stick it out, that really just commit to doing this over and over and over. Right? This podcast didn't reach millions of downloads overnight. We have over 300 million downloads. That didn't happen just like that. It happened day after day. Staying consistent. I've been doing this for 10 years. If I didn't have any success, it would be weird. And that's the power of consistency. So your action step for this bonus tip is to stay consistent by having a content schedule. Put it in your calendar, Google Calendar, whatever you use. When are you going to write that blog post? When are you going to create those videos, those social media posts? When are you going to create that podcast episode and when are you going to do it? Every single week. Make it a repeating task so that you are on a deadline every week to be consistent. A quick hack when it comes to that. If you publish a piece of content once a week, don't just do one content piece once a week, batch it. Do three or four a week and that way you have some lead time and you can go on holiday sometimes. All right, so let's tie this up into a bow. Virality is tempting guys, but it's not a strategy, it's a distraction. Instead of trying to chase being some sort of influencer, some sort of Internet famous person, focus on building trust. Focus on understanding your audience and creating content that converts into customers. Right? Remember that loyalty is what you're looking for here. People buy from people that they trust and when you do that over and over with consistency, you're able to turn them into leads, then become customers. Thanks for tuning into the Hundred Dollar NBA show. If you are listening to this podcast on a podcast app and you prefer to watch your content, go ahead and check us out on YouTube. It's [e-mail] YouTube. If you are on YouTube right now, pop in the comments below. What is your biggest takeaway from today's video? Which action step really resonated with you and you're excited to start? First, is it step one focusing on building trust and not attention. Step two Understanding your audience's needs. Step three Prioritizing depth over reach. Step four Creating timeless or evergreen content. Step five focusing on conversion and not just traffic. Or maybe it's the bonus tip where it's all about consistency. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. And don't forget that we publish three days a week to help you start, grow and scale your business. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a beat. I'll see you in the next one. Take.

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