AP 0271: I’ve Identified My Target Audience. Now How Do I Find Them?

AskPat 271 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, what's up, everybody? Having a great day today, I hope you are too. This is Episode 271 of the AskPat Podcast. Thank you so much.

We have a great question today from Angeline, but right before that, I do want to thank today's sponsor of this episode, and that is ZipRecruiter.com. So, whether you are just a solopreneur, you're working on your own, or you are part of 100-person company, and you're looking to add more people to your payroll, go ahead and go to ZipRecruiter.com to help find your next recruit, because they make it easy. Instead of having to post job descriptions out on all the different job sites, you can post it one place: ZipRecruiter.com. And they'll go out and post to all the job sites for you with just one click, easy click of a button … And they also find the top candidates from all those sites as well, so check it out. You can go to ZipRecruiter.com/Pat; you can check it out for free. Again, ZipRecruiter.com/Pat.

All right, now let's get to today's question from Angeline.

Angeline: Hi, Pat. My name is Angeline of Your Sensible Girlfriend's Guide to Life Podcast, and blog. So, I'm launching my first product and I'm wondering, what is the best way to find my customers? My product is an audio course for 35-year-old women and older, called “Mr. Right, Right Now: How to Attract Your Soul-Husband Immediately.” So, the thing is, I know the kind of woman who this product would speak to. They're smart women, successful women who are willing to do personal development work, open to the laws of the attraction, and would be into the psychology of understanding a man. But how would I go about starting find these people? They're not necessarily the types of women who do searches for dating tips, or hanging out on dating sites. But they're the kind of women who are always into bettering themselves with smart information. So, how do I find out where they're hanging out online,? Is there some way or tool to figure that out? I would so appreciate any advice that you have for me. And I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do for all of us. You are really such inspiration to me. Thanks, Pat.

Pat Flynn: Angeline, thank you so much for the question and your kind words … And also your amazing audio quality; it's just awesome. Obviously, you have a podcast, and you're doing things right; your voice is amazing. So, let's get to your question here. So, you are launching a first product, and you're trying to look for the audience where you can sell this product. And I think it's important to understand that there's two ways of approaching the product creation process. That is, you can build an audience first, then use that audience to help you determine what that product should be and then launch. And then obviously, you have a product at that point, and an audience to help sell that product. And there's the other approach of understanding what the pains, and problems, and issues of a certain niche is, and not necessarily having an audience yet … But building that solution, and then finding that audience …

And there is no “one way” that's better than the other; there are pros and cons to each. Obviously, the “pro” of having an audience first and tapping into the audience is you have that audience already as potential customers, when you're done with your product. The “con” about that is, you have to take the time to build that audience, and it can take a while … For some brands, years.

When you create your product first, you obviously don't have that audience, but you have a product, and you have the authority. And if you can get that product in front of the right people and find that audience, then it can be really profitable for you, and help kick-start the launch of your brand as well. One person that comes to mind who did this recently is Caleb Wojcik, who a lot of you know is my videographer. He launched his new brand at DIYVideoGuy.com, and he launched that with the help of a new product, for an audience that he didn't even really build yet. Now, some people knew him as somebody who had helped people like myself with video, and that helped a little bit. But really what helped him, and what I think is going to help you the most Angeline, is if you find influencers out there who you can help, related to whatever content you have to share … And if they have an audience that matches your target audience, that's definitely the way to go.

So, you want to find and connect with different influencers in the space that you're in, who has an audience already. So you can essentially come in and offer … And whether it's a JV partnership, where you share a part of the commission with those people, or you just happen to know who these people are and you run ads and things targeting those certain people. It can be very profitable. Essentially, you just have to find out where these people hang out. And like you said, it can be a little bit difficult, but I have a few tricks for you that could work. And one of the best tricks you could use is, using Facebook. And you don't necessarily have to run ads, although I would recommend doing that … And running test ads on certain demographic and types of likes and interests, to target and hone in on who your audience is all on that platform. But I think the best thing to do is take advantage of Facebook's “graph search” or their … It's not new anymore, but it's a very high-end search bar that they have there, and there's a really cool trick you can do. You can type in something like, “pages liked by people who like ____ (blank).” “Blank” being another page, for example. So you can type in, “pages liked by people who like smart passive incomes.” So, let me put that on here right now and see who comes up. So, this is essentially … And you want to make sure that you're on the “pages” tab. These are essentially pages … The people who like smart passive incomes, or who are fans of the “Smart Passive Income page” on Facebook; these are other pages they're fans of too. This is really important, because when you can find one … You might have a certain influencer in mind for yourself Angeline, and you can type in, “Pages liked by people who like” and this person. Not only do you have this person as an influencer, but you find all these other influencers in this space as well that you could potentially connect with. And down the road, maybe sooner than later, you can run ads and target these pages or people who follow these pages as well. That's one of the tricks with Facebook advertising is, you can target people who like a specific page, and this is one way to find out what pages you should be targeting and who those people are.

So, again, “Pages liked by people who like Smart Passive Income.” At the top, I see, Entrepreneur on Fire, so John Lee Dumas. Under that, I see Amy Porterfield, which is actually where I get this trick from, so thank you, Amy. Derek Halpern, Tim Ferriss … So, these are all people who like my page and these pages as well, so that's really cool. Now, you can even narrow it down even more. So here are some things especially for you in that niche you talked about. “Pages liked by women who like … Let's just put “Dave Ramsey” or “The Dave Ramsey Show” just to see what happens. So, now I'm getting results like “The Fly Lady,” “Brendon Broushard,” “100 days of real food” “Crock Pot Ladies,” “Pottery Barn,” “Target” … And that's really interesting. So, these are pages who are people, who like the Dave Ramsey show, but women … And there are other pages they like as well.

So, that can give you some a lot of great insight, at least places to where you can go and see what the conversations are about. And that's what you really want to do, is that that's going to help you insert yourself, and potentially this product, in front of people who you know are your target audience. The worst thing you can do is just try to send e-mail blasts to everybody in the world, because obviously not everybody in the world would need this. But you want to find out the people who do need this, and at least you know, it seems like you know a little bit about who your avatar is who your ideal customer is; this is how you find them.

So, again, using this trick on Facebook … So, again, just for more time, you can type in, “Pages liked by women who like The Dave Ramsay Show,” or maybe because you're talking about personal development, maybe it's “Marie Forleo.” So, “Pages liked by women who like Marie Forleo.” And then I can find that here, “Ali brown,” “LKR Social Media,” which is Laura Roeders' site. “Derek Halpern” … I know a lot of women who follow Derek, “Chris Carr,” “Alexis Neely.” These are names I don't know but would be worth researching. “Lewis Howes”—of course he's there, he's a hot-looking dude, and yeah.

So, hopefully that helps you, Angeline, at least gives you some direction. You know, there's a lot of things you can do to find places where you can then promote. But I think this might be a great place to start before you start reaching out to certain people, who you can then potentially create a partnership with, and that sort of thing. And that's a whole ‘nother set of things you can do from there. So, Angeline, thank you so much for your question. And if anybody has any suggestions for Angeline as well, make sure to use the hashtag #AskPat271 on Twitter, so we can continue this conversation, and I think that would be really cool. So again, hash-tag #AskPat271, and thank you, Angeline, for the question. An AskPat t-shirt is definitely headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page.

Thank you again to ZipRecruiter.com, which is today's show's sponsor, for just making it easy for you to add a new people to your business New recruits that are awesome because they help filter through all the different job sites for you. Again, making it easy to post job descriptions but also to find the right people to add to your business and to help you out with growing. So ZipRecruiter.com/Pat; there's no other way to do it. So, ZipRecruiter.com/Pat.

And lastly, as always, I'd like to end with a quote, and this quote is from Theodore Roosevelt. He says, “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” I wish I knew that when I was little, 'cause I was shy and too scared to talk to people. Not anymore—well, sometimes I am. But anyway, thanks so much. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.