Dan Martell - Building an Audience Before You Launch

00:00:00.520 Build in an audience before you launch.

00:00:03.720 That's what I want to share with you guys today.

00:00:05.800 It's something that I've done for every one of my companies

00:00:08.180 and I get asked all the time.

00:00:10.140 You know, there's this misconception

00:00:13.240 that a lot of people feel like

00:00:15.360 you can launch a product and you're gonna have success.

00:00:17.240 You know, if you're familiar with Basecamp, right?

00:00:19.680 Product from 37 Signals.

00:00:21.280 When they launched it, they went from like no traction

00:00:23.840 to 5,000, 10,000 a month in reoccurring revenue.

00:00:26.680 But what people don't remember or don't realize

00:00:29.760 is they had a blog with 50,000 to 100,000 unique visitors

00:00:33.360 every month visiting it, called Signal vs. Noise.

00:00:36.800 So that blog was actually the community

00:00:39.520 or the audience they created

00:00:41.220 way before they ever built the product.

00:00:43.860 So I think that that's a really important idea

00:00:46.360 to understand and how to do it, right?

00:00:48.720 So what I'm gonna teach you guys is this framework

00:00:50.500 called people, content, and events.

00:00:54.720 So the people part, how do you start getting

00:00:56.500 the right people engaged?

00:00:57.600 Well, there's a bunch of ways to do that.

00:00:59.000 The first one is forums.

00:01:00.600 You know, think about all the different places

00:01:02.440 that your potential customers might be engaging with,

00:01:05.140 asking questions, sites like Quora.

00:01:07.900 You can actually search on Google for forums colon

00:01:10.320 and search keywords and find, you know, different sites.

00:01:13.180 I mean, there's all these amazing forums

00:01:15.280 on these weird niches all over the internet

00:01:17.660 that you can start participating in,

00:01:19.960 talking to customers, asking them questions,

00:01:22.560 and building those relationships to really guide things.

00:01:24.720 Twitter is an amazing resource,

00:01:26.600 another one that I've always used,

00:01:28.220 where you can actually just ask a question.

00:01:30.260 You know, when I was building Flowtown,

00:01:32.060 one of the things I did is I went on Twitter and I said,

00:01:33.720 hey, have you ever searched for a person's email address

00:01:37.820 plus LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook?

00:01:40.260 Because what we had was this tool that allowed you

00:01:42.080 to give an email address and get all the social data.

00:01:44.360 So then people started replying.

00:01:45.620 They're like, yeah, I've done that, yeah, I've done that.

00:01:47.080 And I started saying, hey, can we get on a quick call?

00:01:49.460 And really my motivation was to obviously learn

00:01:52.020 why they were doing that, what was the circumstance

00:01:53.820 or the situation, but also to build those relationships.

00:01:56.720 I think the people part is one of the most important

00:01:59.420 and there's just so many ways for you to engage people online

00:02:02.860 to start building those relationships

00:02:04.260 way before you ever launch your product.

00:02:06.700 The second one is content.

00:02:09.160 You know, there's this great quote that says,

00:02:10.700 teaching sells.

00:02:12.160 And I think that that is the essence of a great blog.

00:02:15.580 You know, teaching information, sharing resources,

00:02:19.000 doing roundups of products in your industry

00:02:23.180 to build an audience of an ideal customer

00:02:25.380 that you can then eventually introduce a product to,

00:02:27.760 very much like Signal vs. Noise did,

00:02:30.300 37 Signals and Basecamp.

00:02:32.060 You know, I've done personally, I mean, every company,

00:02:33.980 if you think about it, every company I've ever worked on,

00:02:35.720 for the most part, were solutions for entrepreneurs.

00:02:38.600 So I've been blogging at DanMartell.com

00:02:40.520 about business and entrepreneurial challenges forever

00:02:43.280 because it gives me an unfair advantage

00:02:45.160 every time I launch a new company,

00:02:46.820 I have that audience built, right?

00:02:48.780 And I think if you don't have that,

00:02:50.400 it's something you can start doing now.

00:02:51.820 So you can start teaching your audience

00:02:53.600 what things you know about that industry,

00:02:55.380 and build that group of people that are interested in

00:02:59.880 eventually getting the product that you launch.

00:03:02.360 You know, and the third one is events, right?

00:03:03.920 So people, content, and events.

00:03:06.280 Events is where you go and you attend

00:03:08.660 and you meet people in the audience,

00:03:09.960 because what you're doing is you're meeting people

00:03:12.360 that have the same affinity or interest

00:03:14.120 or passion around that topic,

00:03:15.840 and it's probably gonna be that kind of person

00:03:18.380 that's gonna buy your product, right?

00:03:20.280 The ideal, if you can do this, if you feel confident,

00:03:22.980 you really want to build an audience before is to get on stage.

00:03:26.380 You know, recently I was interviewed for a book called

00:03:28.480 Traction, I think it's chapter 19, check it out.

00:03:32.180 And I talked about how I use speaking engagements to really

00:03:35.180 growth hack, my growth hack Flowtown and Clarity.

00:03:38.580 So, you know, events are just this really amazing opportunity

00:03:41.880 for you to get face time with your potential customers.

00:03:44.480 And it can be as simple as attending.

00:03:46.980 You can even organize your own event.

00:03:48.580 There's a lot of great products that have been spun out of

00:03:52.580 large events that were created,

00:03:54.300 and you can even just go to other events,

00:03:56.540 either paid events or meetups.

00:03:57.940 I mean, go to meetup.com and check all the different

00:03:59.980 meetups in your location or around your city

00:04:03.080 that bring together your potential customers.

00:04:06.300 Go there, talk to them.

00:04:08.100 Guys, I'm really passionate about building that audience

00:04:10.580 before you launch your product.

00:04:12.140 It'll help you not only validate the idea,

00:04:14.020 but also build real momentum so that when you launch,

00:04:16.700 you get some sales, hopefully enough to quit your day job

00:04:19.700 and really go full force.

00:04:21.460 people, content, and events.

00:04:23.220 That's my story.

00:04:24.300 That's what I want to share with you guys today.

00:04:25.660 I really appreciate you guys watching these videos.

00:04:27.620 I want to ask you guys to leave a comment below

00:04:29.400 if you've done any of these.

00:04:30.860 How did that work for you?

00:04:31.860 What was the strategy?

00:04:32.760 Share with the community that we're building below.

00:04:34.960 I'm really excited.

00:04:35.780 I want to challenge you guys to live a bigger life

00:04:38.580 and a business, and I will see you guys next Monday.

Dan Martell - June 08, 2015

Building an Audience Before You Launch

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