What to talk to your audience about

Fittingly, my online course journey started back in 2012 when I bought my first course.

It was Jon Morrow’s Guest Blogging course, teaching people how to get featured on top blogs and online magazines.

I wanted to use guest blogging to promote a side business, so I stumped up my $600 and dived in. Less than a year later, I found myself working for Jon as a part-time instructor for that very same course.

One of my side tasks for Jon was replying to comments on a blog post that he’d written inviting readers to post links to their own blogs for review. New comments would arrive every day.

And so over the next few months, I reviewed hundreds and hundreds of blogs, on every topic imaginable.

After a while, one thing became clear…

Most people didn’t have the first idea of what to write about.

Their topics were all over the place. Some were too broad. Some were too personal. Some were just plain random.

Many people would write about any topic they thought might interest their audience.

But here’s what I realised…

Your online audience doesn’t expect to get everything they need from one place or person. Instead, they’ll “assemble” their own league of trusted experts, each one focused on a separate area.

That means if you help freelancers get more clients, you don’t have to talk to them about how to run their accounts as well. Let someone else do that. (Maybe even collaborate with that someone else.)

So when building an audience for your course, here’s what to talk about on your blog (or podcast or social media channel)…

Talk about the topics and problems that immediately surround your course (or future course). That way, you’ll attract people already interested in the area your course inhabits.

And if you don’t have a course idea yet, pick one problem you know you can help with and talk about that. Then pick another. And then another. Notice which gets the most interest and engagement.

The bottom line is that if you really want to build an audience, you need to talk to people about something.

Might as well make it something your future course buyers care about.

See you soon,

Glen