4 Ways to Build a Loyal Audience

I hate to break this to you, but you're not going to win over every single person.

It's just not possible.

I remember when I first got into marketing. I thought the goal was to get everyone interested in a product or service. And if not everyone, as many different people as possible.

Boy was I wrong.

When I tried to do that, I tried to get the marketing to appeal to everyone.

The result was that it appealed to no one.

Instead of trying to convert everyone into a customer, try creating a real connection with a portion of your audience. Because the people who feel a connection with you are the ones who will become loyal. Those are the people who will come back.

Those are the people who will buy.

So write to those people.

Whether you're B2B or B2C, it doesn't matter. Either way, you're still trying to appeal to a human being.

Here are four ways to build a loyal audience:

Creating a connection

As Matt Heinz, president of Heinz Marketing says, “this is more than just adding emotional triggers to your storytelling. It’s about humanizing your brand, humanizing your people.

Sharing details about what makes you tick outside of work isn’t irrelevant. It’s magnetic.

It creates connective tissues between people that carry over into business contexts. Old-school sellers called this relationship-building.

Today it’s that plus a critical competitive differentiator that puts something unique and irreplaceable between you and your buyer.”

Getting personal

A few years ago, an Oracle executive (and former UBM colleague) wrote a blog for Forbes BrandVoice® in which he talked about his mom’s passing and the great advice she bestowed. In 10 Things My Mother Told Me, Bob Evans writes:

I ask your indulgence in stepping outside the realm of business and technology because over her 95 years on this Earth, Rita Evans accumulated, generated, and shared great wisdom – and wisdom is an asset that should be shared again and again.

There was no official Oracle messaging in the piece. No mention of Oracle technology. Oracle’s only identification is next to Bob’s name in his byline. But Bob told me that he received an outpouring of thoughtful responses. That’s a great sign of building a loyal audience.

Relating to your audience

Heather Levy personalized her post with a simple confession: “I’m a sucker for first-person content.”

That drew me into the article because I could relate — I love first-person content too. Then I learned what Heather really wanted me to know — how to create a style guide for your brand.

That’s the key. Your audience needs to know you’re a person too — not a corporate bot only programmed to write from the perspective of a monolith organization. They are far more likely to trust you if they know you’re part of the real world — of their world, too.

Being yourself

In a recent Twitter chat on 2017 website trends, Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media, said, “A personal, human touch will never go out of style. Be a person. Be yourself!”