Do you ever feel like you’re banging your head against a wall when it comes to attracting the audience you want to serve?
I know it’s a big challenge for my Online Visibility Challenge participants as well as many, many others doing business on the Web. When I started my web-based business in 1996 (yes, that’s 20 years ago!), the challenge wasn’t attracting people to visit your website or sign up for your email newsletter. The challenge was that hardly anyone was using the web for business. Most people didn’t have an email address!
That means those who were publishing an email newsletter a.k.a. ezine didn’t have any trouble building their email lists. Remember, there were no social media networks competing for attention so our primary goal was to attract subscribers to our email newsletter. And, all you had to do was put a form on your website and say something like Subscribe to my Free Newsletter. And, people would because it was a novelty.
The novelty wore off pretty rapidly. Now, twenty years later, figuring out what your audience wants from you so they will opt-in to your list, takes more thought, relationship-building and research.
If you’re wondering why no one is opting in to get your blog updates or subscribe to your e-newsletter or get your free e-course, then it’s time to do some research.
You’ve got to know what your audience wants from you. It’s not about what you want to give them. Important distinction there.
When is the last time you asked your audience what they want?Create a poll
It’s simple. There are so many ways you can gather intel from your subscribers and social media followers. But, you need to ask.
One of the easiest ways is to create a series of one-question polls.
Both Twitter and Google+ (classic) allow you to create and post polls. You can also use a tool like PollDaddy. All three can be embedded on your blogsite so you can get a range of responses.
Twitter polls are live for 23 hours.
See: Motivational Quotes – Love Them or Hate Them? [Poll]
Google+ polls are open indefinitely. Go ahead and vote on the poll below. You don’t have to leave the blog!
Only by asking and listening to the responses you get, will you know want kind of content to create for your free gifts to build your audience, blog posts to attract visitors, and status updates to get more engagement.
Ask one question
One question polls require you to ask a clear question and provide a choice of responses. While you’ll get deeper and more concrete info from a multi-question survey, you can still learn a lot from polls. By asking just one question, you reduce most of the barriers people have about taking the time to respond. By offering choices, you reduce the barriers even more.
You can also simply ask one open-ended question, like Chris Ducker in the tweet below.
If there was ONE blog post that I could write for you, what would it be and why?! https://t.co/Hahy5jdI2i pic.twitter.com/tnWBww7zkN
— Chris Ducker (@ChrisDucker) January 7, 2016
What kind of questions should you ask?
It depends. 😉
It depends on the nature of your business and what you want to know. Sometimes you may hear crickets when you ask. If that happens, try again. It’s all about experimentation to find what hits for your peeps.
Some examples for poll questions are:
- How often do you use [tool, service, social network]?
- What’s your favorite [tool, service, social platform]?
- Do you use [social network, service, tool]?
- How many blog posts do you write per week?
- Do you like X?
- How much time do you spend on X?
- What type of business are you in?
The key thing is to ask questions that give you information you can use to hone in on how you can connect better with your audience and give them more of what they want.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it…
- Create a poll about something you want to know from your audience.
- Share the poll on your blog and social networks
- Post it on my Facebook page so I can take the poll and share it.
- Use the hashtag #PollChallenge so I can easily find your poll.
Got questions about attracting your audience? Ask me in the comments.
