6 Tips to Grow Your Audience Fast From Scratch With $0

brand direction & styling by us for Brigitte Zeitlin Nutrition | photo by Comeplum

How do you quickly, and organically, grow your audience for your business without spending a dime? Many people have the same question, especially when they’re not ready to spend money on ads yet.

When you look at people with thousands, or even millions, of followers and subscribers, you think that it’s because they started “at the right time” and you wonder if you can build your own audience and group of raving fans and customers.

Trust me when I say this - There’s never a right time. There’s only time and whether you choose to take action and start growing your audience and your business, today.

And the truth is, anyone started from having no audience. This means you can, too, grow your audience from scratch!

Let me share with you the 6 tips you must know to grow your audience, quickly and organically, so you can reach more people with your content and run your online marketing more effectively:

1. Find out what content your target audience wants

To attract your target audience, you have to create content that they find valuable, helpful, and relevant. First, identify their biggest headaches and questions related to what you do and your expertise, and create content that helps provide the answers they are looking for.

If you want to know how to understand your audience better, try this simple method to research your audience and customers, get inside their heads, so you can give them content that they truly want.

Besides asking your target audience what content would be helpful for them, try entering keywords related to your space and market on Google, Pinterest, Quora, Youtube, and Titktok, and you will find a huge pool of inspiration from other businesses and content creators. Use this content for market research and to understand what type of content your target audience is responding to. And if you were to use any of the content as a reference, don’t forget to cite your resources.

Want to know more about how to constantly get great, high-quality, and engaging content ideas? Find out the 3 surprisingly easy ways (that work every time) to find killer content ideas that your audience craves.

And if you’re looking for a simple system to create content easily, access ​​this fail-proof system to get rid of your content creation headaches once and for all.

2. Create a clear, audience-focused social media bio

Your audience needs to know that your content is created specifically for them and that you are the “go-to” person in your space or industry. With that in mind, your social media bio or description needs to be clear and concise. It should tell people exactly what you do and who you serve.

Here are the 4 key takeaways people need to learn from reading your bio:

• Who you are

• What you do

• Who you specialize in serving and helping (this is your target audience)

• Where you can take them through what you do (this is the result and transformation they want)

If writing gives you a massive headache, read this post and learn about the 3 most common copywriting mistakes & how to fix them with these foolproof tricks to up-level your marketing copy.

Here are some more specific social media tactics to help you grow your online brand:

Check out 4 creative ideas to use Instagram DMs (direct messages) to significantly boost engagement & strengthen loyalty, and this Instagram highlight strategy every entrepreneur needs to know to make a fantastic first impression on social media.

3. Create more video content & increase engagement and reach

According to studies, 54% of consumers want to see more video content this year (Social Media Week). Studies show that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. (HubSpot, 2018) 72% of customers said they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. (Optinmonster)

What does this mean to you? Create more video content.

Use videos as part of your content marketing strategy to educate your audience, engage with them, build your know-like-trust marketing factor, and market what you do or sell. Experiment with both short and long-form videos, and different formats, such as live caste versus pre-recorded videos, and find out which ones your audience engages with and wants to see more of.

Want to create more content that your audience loves and truly connects with? Click here and uncover the 5 secrets to connecting with your audience & boosting engagement, and include these tips when you create your video content.

Wondering what tone and voice you should use in your content for your brand? Here are the 5 exercises to find the right brand voice that resonates with people.

Is creating content taking up too much time for you? See how you can easily create more content in less time.

4. Reach more quality audience through partnership and collaboration

When collaborating with other businesses and brands who have audiences similar to your target audience, you can effectively drive traffic and quality audiences to each other. Choosing the right partners is extremely important to make sure that you are attracting the right audience who are likely to be warm leads and become customers.

There are several ways to grow your audience through partnership. Here are a few popular ways to collaborate with other businesses and brands:

• Hosting a giveaway together your target audience would love

• Contributing quality content to each others’ platform

• Doing a joint live caste to add value to each others’ audience

Considering hosting a giveaway? Check out the 6 tips you can't miss for hosting an incredible giveaway that attracts your target audience.

Check out this example of how we contributed to Create & Cultivate and did a live workshop for their audience on How to Grow A Mission-Driven Brand Remotely.

5. Use a lead magnet or list builder to attract your audience

A lead magnet or a list builder is a high-value free resource that incentivizes your audience to share their email addresses with you. It helps you to grow an email list of your target audience who you can have direct communication with through emails. 

Some examples of a lead magnet are coupons and discounts, checklists, templates, e-books, swipe files, examples, resource lists, toolkits, planners, prompts, guides, webinars, video series, event tickets, giveaways, quizzes, private community, free shipping, free consultation or assessments, and catalogs.

Once you have your audience’s email addresses, continue to provide valuable content and build relationships through email marketing. Email marketing is an effective way to stay in touch with your audience, nurture relationships with them, and successfully convert your audience into customers. Unlike social media, you can reach your audience directly in their email inbox and not have to rely on social media algorithms to reach them.

Ready to start growing your email list? Check out this simple 3-email welcome sequence to engage your subscribers & make people feel excited about getting your emails.

6. Include a clear call-to-action at the end of every content

People need to be told what to do, especially when they are reading, listening, or watching content, so, remember to include a clear call-to-action at the end of your content. Tell your existing audience to check out the other online platforms where you are also creating content, encourage them to share your content, or tell them to access your lead magnet so you can consistently grow your email list.

Now, if you’ve been adding call-to-action in your social media content, but are seeing low conversions, here are 8 jaw-dropping ways to generate desire on social & turn followers into customers.

Ready to take things to the next level and invest in ads? We shared how to combine ads and your list builder to multiply your marketing, read this post and get the 5 highly-effective pro tips you should try on your next Facebook ad. 

Are you launching your business or a new product or service soon, but not sure what content to create to make your launch a huge success? Here's how to create pre-launch content that converts.

Not seeing marketing results? Here are the 7 big mistakes that are holding you back, make sure you aren’t making any of them!

And if you already have an audience and are ready to turn them into customers, click here to learn the 5-part framework to build a killer marketing funnel that works every time.