Find Your Fans

Your ideal reader is looking for you. Searching for the value you can bring into their lives. They want to connect with you - even if they don't know you yet.

This isn't some 'Secret' style message of putting the word out to the universe and expecting that she will provide you with an onslaught of business leads.

This is a cold hard numbers game:

Let's say you have a passion for "uniquely designed floral competitive hamster racing gear"; something that only 1 in a million people understands. There are currently 3.2 billion internet users. That means that there are 3,200 people who share your 1 in a million passion and have the ability to share it WITH you.

These are your ideal readers - you just need to find them.

How the heck do you find your fans?

One person at a time.

The secret to creating a successful blog, business or cult is not to reach out to everyone who might have an interest in what you’re doing. You will waste your time (and money) catering to the wrong crowd. Instead, a targeted system allows you to pinpoint exactly who you should be reaching. The key is to find your one perfect audience member.

This is the audience member who is your biggest fan. They read every word you write. They sign up to every newsletter and fangirl over every piece of content you put out.

When you have your first ideal reader you can find more like them. By finding this first true fan you can build an entire tribe of like-minded people. This is your audience but it all starts with your ideal reader.

Your ideal reader is unique to you.

For example, if you’re creating a cookbook based around quick family meals your ideal reader is going to be vastly different from someone who is creating a novel about an 11-year-old girl who doubles as a super sleuth.

They are both books so we could market them at a broad audience of “English readers” but this doesn’t really narrow down the intended audience.

A better ideal reader profile for these books would be “time poor mothers looking for healthy alternatives to take-out” or “girls in grade 4-6 who are interested in mysteries”.

Finding your fans

So now you understand the importance of finding your fans how the heck do you do it?

• Step 1. Complete this worksheet.
• Step 2. Create valuable content for the Ideal Reader that you identified in the worksheet.
• Step 3. Share value WHERE YOUR IDEAL READER ALREADY SPENDS THEIR ATTENTION.

I'm not sure if you noticed but the final part of 'step 3' is pretty important. There is no use in you spending all this time and energy identifying your ideal reader and creating valuable content for them if they never find it. So, make it easier on yourself and figure out where your ideal reader is already spending their time and attention. And go there.

Remember, don't just go and share links to your content hoping that the spam lords of the internet will help you. Go, connect with your audience where they are and then provide valuable content in a genuine way.

Going back to the "uniquely designed floral competitive hamster racing gear" for a second. You may already be a part of a "competitive hamster racing" Facebook group where active discussions are happening about the best gear to dress your fastest hamster in. This is the perfect forum to not only find your ideal reader but to begin your relationship to them. Don't just jump in and spam the group with links to your latest blogs. Curate your link sharing to specific conversations that are taking place - if someone is talking about the latest helmet trends and you have a blog post that summarises why floral helmets are more aerodynamic then you can go ahead and share that specific blog post with that conversation. This adds value. Always add value.