By far, one of the most common questions I get online is “how do I know who the right people are to back my idea!?”. I mean, audience building is not just about people. Is about finding the right people to back your idea.
I’ll put it like this. If you have 5k followers on social, but no one is interacting with your content, then you’re not talking to the right people (or delivering the right message for them). You’re not getting fully funded this way (check how you can do it in 90 days here)
So without further ado, here’s my take on how to identify the real people who will back you.
What do I mean by “the right audience” to back your idea
Let me say it right now: THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS to success. To have a real audience, real people behind their real phones checking out your content and buying your product there’s no magic formula.
Can you buy followers or an email list? OF COURSE! Will this be the organic engaged real audience you need in order to create sales, the audience who will back your idea? Probably (99% sure) not.
So the first step to build an audience, following, and email list is to learn who your audience is.
If your answer is: “My audience is everyone!”, you’re wrong. Thinking like this is the perfect way to build the wrong audience. Let me give you an example:
Your product is an eco-friendly pair of travel shoes.
You target everyone who likes shoes.
You have a 1000 people audience.
It converts less than 1%
No one is engaging with your content
No one is buying
What went wrong? you might ask.
Well, not everyone who identifies as a shoe lover, is a hiker/traveler. Probably this audience is more related to liking high fashion shoes or city shoes.
Is there anyone in this audience who will like/buy your product? Probably yes. But you would have soooo much people buying and engaging with you if you had a more narrowed down audience. If you were talking to the right people.
See? Not every product is for everyone. And that’s ok. There are enough people in the world for you to find that group who’s passionate about what you’re creating.
Step 1. What problem are you solving?
Paper and pencil in hand. Ready?
Write down right now: What problem does your project solve and why did you create this product.
An example of answers could be:
“My eco-friendly travel shoe uses sustainable resources that are more durable than the average shoe. I created it because I’m a hiker and I was having to buy shoes every 3 months, and that got me thinking about how much waste of resources…”
This tells you so much. Let’s list what we can infer about your audience from this origin story:
- People looking for eco friendly alternatives
- People living a less waste life
- Hikers
- People interested in greener alternatives
- Eco friendly travelers
Brainstorm all of your group ideas and go to step 2.
Step 2. Go to Facebook
No, you’re not targetting people through ads yet. But you going to use Facebook, and any other forum-style website you can think of or that you’re already familiar with: Quora, Reddit, Youtube videos, etc.
Go to the search bar and search for the keywords you’ve come up with, and click on the Groups button. More likely than not, you’ll actually find a lot of groups of people who have formed communities about a very specific topic.
Did you ever think this many people would be interested and talking about hiking?
Go into the group and start looking at the conversations, the questions, the struggles, the problems, and solutions people are coming up with. This is getting to know your ideal audience. You’ll find out if they would care or not about your product idea.
Something else you can do is making google searches for the keywords with the word “blog” and check out if other people are talking about this. If people are having conversations online about the problem you’re trying to solve.
If you find people actually discussing what you’re planning to do, then you know you have a niche group, who is resonating with the same ideas you’re having. These are the most probable people who will back your idea.
You have to know the who before the how.
Final thoughts
You might be surprised by who is the right people who’ll be interested in your idea, and that’s what you have to discover. The audience for your product. This takes a while, and the more you’re engaging in conversations online, the more you’ll get a sense of what people are looking for as alternative solutions to the problem you’re trying to solve.
Please share this article on LinkedIn if you liked it – would mean a lot to me. And since you’re already there, check the Facebook group for crowdfunding creators!
We’re here to help you crush your crowdfunding campaign and fund your dream. Our team has helped creators successfully launch and raise over $13 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We’re so excited to help you on this journey to launch!
