JANUARY 5, 2024

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Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

Get Your Audience

Yes, your audience shares characteristics. After all, you picked a target audience interested in your content tilt to shape your content and marketing strategies better.

But your audience members don’t take the same path to get to the doorstep of your content business. And they rarely arrive at the same time.

Here are five things to do to juggle those interactions with audience members who share similarities but don’t share the same timing and motivational moments:

1. Detail your audience stages: Understanding the levels of your audience allows you to capture their experience more easily. I like to start with a simple three-tier system, but you should create and label what works best for your business. The three tiers include:

• Entry level: Visitors who sample your content. You can’t track them individually, but data, such as new visitors to your site, can help shape the picture.
• Subscribers: This audience has provided their email address or mobile number because they see value in your content. You not only can contact them directly, but you can use that first-party data to track their activity.
• Paying customers: These people have spent money with your content brand. With their direct contact information, you can track their engagement and spending history.

2. Walk through your content experience: Have you ever jumped on your content platform(s) wearing the hat of an audience member? What promotion or product first attracts your attention? What do you do next? Then what do you do? Have you reached a dead end and moved on to another site or channel?

Walk down the path wearing the hat of each audience tier. How does the experience differ for someone who just learned about your content products compared to someone who has consumed your content and bought your products for a while?

Don’t just walk the path alone. Ask three to five people who represent different tiers in your audience to give you feedback.

For example, a newsletter entrepreneur could look at your subscriber list. Reach out to someone who signed up in the last month and opened one or so newsletters. Then, find someone who has been a subscriber for a little bit and opens up at least once a month. Finally, pick a subscriber who signed up for the paid version.

3. Sell an entry-level content product: Your goal may be to convert your audience into buyers of your premium product. But don’t miss the opportunity to engage audience members who can’t afford or aren’t yet willing to pay those premium prices. Add entry-level-priced content products.

For example, an entrepreneur who charges three or four figures for their online courses might add a quarterly class offering for just one or two figures. (You don’t even have to create the class from scratch; just reconfigure some existing content into the short format.)

It’s a good way to let your audience test the paid waters in your business. Then, when they are able or ready to invest more, they know where to go.

4. Create an advisory board: When I worked in newspapers years ago, the editorial board had a once-a-week meeting with its advisory board. This group of interested community members would give their perspectives on a multitude of topics. It worked well because the editors could hear directly from voices that they didn’t hear in the newsroom.

Content entrepreneurs can do something similar. Ask your community their thoughts on your editorial plans, content products, pricing, etc. Assemble a group of people who represent multiple facets of your audience. You should look to be as inclusive from both demographic and socioeconomic perspectives. But make sure to be inclusive from your audience tiers, from newcomers with mild interest to your most rabid fans.

5. Revisit your audience regularly: Don’t think about your audience analysis and understanding as a one-and-done activity. Schedule time every six months or so to explore the analytics to see if your audience makeup has changed and if their behavior has changed. Use that information to update your audience tiers, content engagement paths, and content advisory board membership.

How do you learn about your audience? Have you ever made a surprising discovery that changed what you did? Reply to this email or send a note to Ann@TheTilt.com.​
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• Joe and Robert go in depth on the X evolution and how to truly differentiate your content. (This Old Marketing)
• Join us at 12 p.m. US EST Tuesday for the first 2024 edition of Tilt Your Business: A Mastermind for Expert Creators.​
• CEX early bird pricing has officially ended, but we are offering an additional 25 passes at that rate. Once they are gone, they are gone. Get yours now!​
• ICYMI: Know When To Outsource In Your Creator Business and How To Hire Freelancers​

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