How to Grow Your Audience with Storytelling

In today’s episode, I’m unearthing 3 tried and true strategies to help you grow your audience with storytelling.

Every business owner I talk to these days has a common challenge: and that is to grow their audience.

For me, an audience is made up of people who are interested in what you’re doing and the message you have to share. Ideally, these audience members have goals and values that closely align with your own approach to life and doing business. Some of your audience

members may be current customers and clients while others could be considered FUTURE customers and clients.

So how do we do this? How can we grow an audience that’s filled with people who know, like and trust us enough to pay attention to our message and respond, whether that’s through online engagement or by making referrals or by becoming a paying customer themselves.

To answer this question, I’ve put together 3 storytelling strategies that can help you cultivate connections, nurture leads and convert your audience into paying customers.

The first strategy is to lay the groundwork.

You need to get your hands dirty, and digging out the core message of what you want to share with the world, who you want to share it with and why. Because there are a lot of people out there who are selling the same type of thing you are,

whether it’s web site design or productivity coaching or aromatherapy or just about anything.

The question is: what makes YOU different from everyone else?

Remember, if your ideal audience sees themselves reflected in the messaging of your social media posts or email subject lines, for instance, then they’re more likely to pay attention and click to learn more.

The second strategy is to plant the right story seeds.

Once we know what we do, why we do it and who we’re doing it for, it’s time to grow our audience by planting the right story seeds.

Story seeds are important, because what we plant is what will grow. And I’m no green thumb, but I know for sure that when you plant an avocado seed, you don’t get a rose bush.

So we want to be sure we’re planting seeds that will lead to the right results for our customers AND grow our business at the same time. So we’re looking to plant ideas and solutions that motivate our target customer not only to take action, but to follow up with us to learn more once they do.

By planting story after story that directly speaks to our ideal customer’s pain point and shows her what’s possible, we’re able to take her from overwhelmed to overcomer. And if we can demonstrate that transformation by giving her example after example through authentic and truthful storytelling, then our brand message becomes so much more powerful.

The third strategy is to frequently water our audience with plenty of fresh content.

I’m a big believer in showing up consistently for your audience. Because you need to serve your existing audience well, before you can ever attract NEW audience members. If you’re offering fresh and relevant content that engages and excites your existing audience, people are going to SHARE that content with others. And when they do, audience growth is inevitable.

To hear the full episode of "How to Grow Your Audience with Storytelling", click here.