⚡MC - Build an Audience First // Build a Product ✅

(From the latest issue of the Marketer Crew newsletter)

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Why "Build an Audience First" is terrible advice

If you want to start a business and your first step is building an audience, you're doing it wrong.

Building an audience first is like trying to make your home warmer by breathing hot air on your thermometer. It may read 70, 80, 96.8 degrees, but your feet will still be cold.

A couple of years ago Insider published an article about how Arii, an Instagram influencer with 2.6 Million followers, couldn't even sell 36 t-shirts.

So what went wrong? And where does audience building fit into the overall journey of creating a sustainable business?

It all starts with your target customer. Who are you targeting? What do they need? And what are you prepared to give them?

If you build your audience without first thinking about what you want to sell you may get trapped by them.

For example, let's say you want to build a SaaS for mid-sized startups. You used to work at one and you think you have a great idea.

You decide that as you build it you should tweet about it. #buildinpublic and all that junk. You tweet and tweet and code and code. Then when you've finally built up your audience and launch your SaaS.....no one buys.

Why? Because your audience is comprised of other #buildinpublic indie hackers like you and not mid-sized startup employees. At this point, you have two options.

Ditch the audience: You realize you've been building the wrong audience for your product. You stop tweeting, upgrade your LinkedIn to platinum premium diamond status or whatever and start messaging mid-sized startup employees.
Ditch the product: You feel a loss-averse about ditching your hard-earned Twitter audience. You switch your product to something they want. Perhaps a Gumroad course on how to grow your Twitter audience.
Regardless of which option you choose, you're still throwing away half your work. Wouldn't it be better to figure out if your product is viable before doing the hard work of building an audience?

Last February Adam read Alexander Chernev's Strategic Marketing Management. This diagram shows 4 different situations you can fall into when targeting your customers with clarity.

If you build your audience first you run the risk of looking like the "Shot in the dark" circle. Even if you end up with the "Shotgun" circle, you've wasted a lot of effort on people who aren't going to buy and you may get confused as to who your customer really is.

Long story short. Take the time to understand your target customer before you build an audience because you may build the wrong one or you may not need to build one at all.

Why "Build an Audience First" is brilliant advice

Example 1: Josh $500k in a week 🚀
@Joshwcomeau pulled in $500,000 in a week for a course he pitched to his 40k followers.
It took him a long time to gain those followers but $500k in a week is serious. What would have happened if he launched to an audience of 50?

Example 2: Gumroad $5M in a day 🚀
Gumroad raised $5M in equity crowdsourcing in 24 hours.
Despite their own audience, their angel investors also have well over 1M social media followers. What would have happened if they launched to an audience of 500?

Audience is King 👑
If you have an audience you can make money.

Which audience? 🤔
Do not build an audience for the product you are building.
That may seem like dumb advice but you may well decide to change your product and will by implication lose audience interest.

Build an audience around:

You
Your brand
Your niche.

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⚡MC - Build an Audience First // Build a Product ✅

Why "Build an Audience First" is terrible advice

Why "Build an Audience First" is brilliant advice

1. In 2020, two-thirds of google searches ended without a click

2. 9 reasons good salespeople fail

3. 5 Interesting learnings from Smart Sheet at $400,000,000+ in ARR

4. Common B2B challenges and how to solve them.