Never Stop Audience Building

Wondering what the hottest topic of the podcast was this year. This episode is dedicated to that one thing. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today's a special day and it's special in a couple different ways. Um, the first one we just celebrated last week, crossing 80,000 downloads. Like, that's amazing. We just started this podcast in the spring and for us to cross 80,000 downloads in less than a year is pretty awesome. So I'm super grateful for everyone listening and downloading and all the things with the Laundry Box Podcast. But today's episode is our 50th episode. And it's really funny because I had a conversation with my mentor when I was starting the podcast. It was kind of a challenge for me to get the podcast going. It's one thing to do lives and have an audience to speak to. It's another thing to sit here and talk to my microphone in a room by myself. And it was hard for me at first. And I remember him saying, well, it's okay because you're going to want to throw out your first 50 episodes anyway. Well, we're at the 50 episodes. I don't want to throw any of them out. I think that if you've been listening listening since the beginning, things change a little bit. I get better at speaking. I get better at interviewing. I get better at finding that action item that you need in each one of these episodes. And so I'm glad you've been here for the ride. And if this is your first episode, it's a special episode because I started to compile the top 10 episodes of the year for the podcast, just like a recap. We're going to send out an email to our list. And I started to compile the top 10 most downloaded episodes from the past year. And as I was putting them into a spreadsheet and moving them over there, I started to see something with the episodes that there was a particular topic that the most listened to episodes kind of revolved around. And I thought it would be fun to take our 50th episode and really lean into that topic, review some of those episodes that are in the top 10, and talk about building your audience, because that's the topic that was flagged every one of the episodes, with maybe one, were about building your audiences. And here's the thing why that's such a hot topic. You can't start your subscription box without an audience. Like, you just can't. You can do all the other things, but if you don't have an audience, it doesn't sell. So any beginner is going to need to build an audience. And then you can't grow your business without continually building your audience. So you can't continue to add subscribers if you don't continue to build your audience and you're not even just going to stay the same. Even if you don't build your audience, your subscription level isn't going to stay the same because when people cancel, it's going to start to decline. And if you don't have anybody to take their place, you can't even stay the same. So if you don't continue to build your audience, your subscription box levels will start to decline and then you're going to get defeated. So we are constantly in building audience stages. And so whether you're new, whether you're kind of, you've launched and you have maybe 50 subscribers or maybe 100 subscribers, or if you're someone like me that has several thousands of subscribers, I am constantly building my audience. And so we all need it. And I think that's why it's one of the hot topics. We get stuck in a rut. We feel like things aren't working and sometimes we want to give up, but we just have to get creative and we have to try something new. And so today I want to revisit some of those top 10 podcast episodes of the year. And review 5 different ways that my guests did to build their audiences. So here's the thing, when we talk about audience building, if you're brand new to business, I want you to give yourself 90 days. And it's not 90 days to think about it. It's 90 days to really dig in and do the audience building that needs to be done before your launch. If you have a following, um, that's a little different. You've already built your audience, but if you're brand new and you're creating your new presence, you've got to give yourself 90 days. So let's talk about the number one most downloaded episode of the Launch Your Box podcast. It's episode number 3. It was called The Riches Are in the Niches. And I interviewed one of our members, Ann Stuccio, with A Brighter Life for Dentists. And really what we learned from this episode— so if you're jotting this down, this is episode number 3. Ann did not have an audience. Okay. Ann is a practicing dentist. She was feeling the burnout. She wanted to do something special for women dentists. Now listen how specific that is— women dentists who were feeling that same burnout that she was. She wanted to lift them up. She wanted them to make them feel good about their profession and their— and themselves and what they do. And she really went into this audience building stage as someone that— I know you because I am you. And that's what she said to me on this podcast. I know you because I am you. She was able to to her audience in a way that other people couldn't because she was a dentist. And she spent time building her audience through one connections that she had in the industry. So she knew other dentists, she knew other women dentists, they were friends with her personally on her personal Facebook page. She was in a lot of dentist groups. So she had connections with different groups. And so she started to network and she started to build her audience in a way that started really organically. With Facebook groups that she was already in. And those were one of the reasons why she started her subscription box. She could see the same feelings that she was having with, you know, herself in these groups as other women dentists were talking about their day-to-day life and their day-to-day profession. And she could see this trend. So she was getting research from these groups. And ultimately, she was making connections within the groups. And this is how she started to build her audience. And then as she launched and people received their boxes, they were sharing it with their women dentist friends. So it became this word of mouth thing. And sometimes we have the tendency to think, well, that's really specific person. Like we're not broad enough. I'm not going to reach enough people. But what happened with Anne, because she was so specific, she became known to have this subscription box for women dentists. People would find her because of that. People would know of her because of that. Very specific thing. And that's what makes it unique and special. When you can go deep into a niche, and you're going to hear this with other people that I'm going to talk about, other episodes we talked about, you can really identify your perfect person very easily. And you're able to speak to them in a way that other people can't speak to them. And they are going to come to you because of the way that you're showing up for them. So Her audience building technique was sharing that on her personal page because she knew dentists were on her page, making connections in other dentist Facebook groups. And then the networking that she did for her everyday job, this started to spread by word of mouth. That was episode 3. So that great interview is on episode number 3. It's called The Riches Are in the Niches. And you're going to hear how Anne started this having no e-commerce experience, never sold or shipped anything. And she launched her subscription and now has over $10,000 a month in sales in her subscription box business. So go check out episode number 3. The next episode I want to talk to you about is episode number 14. So in this episode, I got to talk with Tiffany from The Good Habit Box, and we broke down 4 ways to build your audience. And these are 4 great 8 ways that anyone can build their audience. With Tiffany, she was also in that brand new stage. So we're starting something from scratch and it's so hard, but there's ways that we can do it. And if we just kind of follow what other people are doing and having success at, it's bound to work for you too. So Tiffany gave me 4 ways that she built her audience from scratch for the Good Habit Box. The first one was a giveaway. We talk about this inside our membership all the time. It is the best thing to do, whether you are a brand new subscription box owner or an already established subscription box owner. Run a giveaway. You can give away a box, you can give away a subscription for multiple boxes, you can give away different things, but it needs to be for that person that would become a subscriber. And this will create some buzz. Sometimes we just need a little momentum because then we can do the next thing, and that's what a giveaway is going to do. Because Tiffany didn't very much of an audience. She said, I posted that giveaway on my business page, and then from there I shared it to my personal page. When you share from a business page to a personal page, then people can find your business, then they can go like your business pages and follow you if they're interested. So if you just post it on your personal page and you don't share it from the business page, there's no connecting link there. People then have to search you down, and don't make people be private investigators to try to find out what you're doing. But it was really smart the way that So she shared that. The other thing that she said was, I did consistent posting. She said, I posted things that would help them. She didn't have other products to sell. She didn't have things that she could post and sell. So she posted inspirational things. She posted things that would help them create good habits, things that would help them. So what could you post that would be helpful to your audience? Because then they're going to want to share it. They're going to want to repost it. They're going to want to tell their friends about it. They're going to want to tag somebody in your post. So think about that, especially when you're, you're new. How can you post consistently and give them something that will help them? The third thing that was really important for her was that she made connections. So she partnered with other small businesses for products in her boxes. So she has the Good Habit Box that teaches you how to have really established one good healthy habit every month. And so she would seek out other small businesses and buy products for her box from them. She was then able to tag them. She tagged small businesses, she tagged big businesses in this, in her post when she would share about the box. She'd basically give them a shout out and in turn they would share her content, they would share her posts and give her a shout out back. And so it was this mutual respect of buying product from somebody else, tagging that brand, tagging that small business, giving them shout outs, and they were doing the same same thing. And so she was able to build her following that way as well. And then the last thing that we talked about on her episode— it was episode number 14— was the way that she partnered with an influencer. So she loves YouTube, she was searching YouTube, she watches box openings all the time, and she found some influencers and decided to send some boxes for free. And what happened is one of those influencers open that on their YouTube channel, or maybe their Instagram. I don't remember at this point. So they were sharing that on their Instagram or their YouTube channel, I don't remember which one, and she was able to gain quite a few followers to her own social media just from opening. And she gained subscribers from that box opening. So using an influencer to do a box opening, check out their audience. She talks about their audience size, that it was a good fit for her box. So just do your own research and don't hesitate to reach out and send a free box to someone, it's a great way to build your audience. So this is all in episode number 14, 4 Ways to Build Your Audience with Tiffany at the Good Habit Box. Then the next episode I want to talk to you about was episode 31. So in this episode, I'm talking with Claudia, and she's with Shabby Boxes. And so in June of this last summer, she decided she was going to create a teacher subscription. But she knew she had to act quickly because the new school year was looming. It was right around the corner. And she said, okay, I'm going to do this. I have to launch this before the school year, or right at the beginning of the school year, because that's when the teachers will be most excited to go back to school. She knew she needed to start a Facebook page. She started an Instagram, and she had been— just recently went through training that we had in Launch Your Box about Instagram Reels. So we did a little training on how to make a reel and what you should do for a reel. And so she instantly started making reels and posting on her social media. She got a reel that had over 10,000 views and it instantly grew her audience. And she knew, okay, I just got to keep doing it. And these reels weren't anything spectacular. It was behind the scenes stuff of creating the items for her boxes. And so when you think about doing these short form videos, these reels or TikToks Just think about what you do every day. You don't think is all that glamorous or exciting, but other people want to see how you do it. They want to see what you're working on. They want to see what you're making. These make the best reels. So she started by doing reels and posting, and what she noticed was she's more of a Facebook person, but she noticed that her Instagram was getting more traction than her Facebook page. And you know, this was over the summer when we had all the iOS changes. And so she said, you know what, I don't know what's going on with Instagram, but I'm going to lean into it. And so she focused her attention on Instagram. And that's one lesson I want you to learn out of, out of Claudia's story is that when something is working, when something's going well, just do more of it. Quit wasting your time thinking about things that are not working and not doing well. Just lean into what is going well and just keep going with it. I'm not telling you to throw out the other, like I didn't want her to give up on the Facebook. But if Instagram was working, let's do more of what makes Instagram tick. And that was the Reels. And so she leaned into that. The other thing that was really interesting about her launch was that she did an early bird bonus. This is one of the really pillar, pillar items that we talk about inside Launch Your Box is having an early bird bonus for your launch. It gives people a reason to buy quickly. And so what she did is she created a subscription around teacher t-shirts. And so she decided for her early bird bonus, she was going to give a bonus shirt. So everyone that signed up by a certain date and time, they got 2 shirts instead of 1. And it was crazy. She, she was able to sign up over 100 people right during her first launch, having only spent 60 days building her audience. And it just worked for her. And so I would encourage you to figure out what's working in your business lean into that and keep doing more of it. If it's the reels, let's take time and make some reels because that seemed to be what built her audience very quickly. So lean into those things. That is episode number 31. You can go listen to Claudia's story and how she built— she launched her subscription to 100 subscribers in 60 days. Now I'm going to take you over to probably one of my most fun episodes to record because I just love Amanda's spirit. But this was episode And I'm interviewing Amanda with Mandi Lynn Plans, and I had to learn a whole lot about planners during this episode because I don't, I don't know what she was talking about. But Amanda's story is that she fell in love with this very specific planner. It's called a Hobonichi planner. She had to teach me how to say that because I'd never even heard of it before. But she fell in love with these planners and she really wanted sticker sets to go in these planners and just couldn't find them anywhere. And so she started making them herself with her printer and her Cricut. And she was a YouTuber. She loved— she wasn't a YouTuber, she was a YouTube fan. She really loved to watch things on YouTube, and she was watching, you know, she learned a lot about Hobonichi planners on YouTube. So she thought, well, I'm going to do a YouTube channel too. And it started off with just ways to plan your months. So you would do like these planning days with her. It was called like Plan With Me, I think is what she called it. And she would just go live, do her videos on YouTube, connect with people watching, and she slowly started to build an audience. She had no intentions of selling them anything, nothing. She was just making these sticker sets for herself. She was showing up on camera and planning out her month with the stickers, and people started asking her if they— if she would make them for them and sell them. And so she started to sell them in her Etsy shop and she just kept doing these YouTube things. She really hadn't even built an audience at all on social media. So she had no Facebook, no Instagram for this part of her business. But then she decided she was going to do a subscription box and you'll, you'll have to listen to the episode to hear that kind of journey from not selling anything to now I'm going to have a subscription box. But what I love about the way she built her audience, she did it with with a platform that she was very familiar with, YouTube. And on YouTube, you have to do video. So she showed up and did video. She wasn't even trying to build an audience. She was just serving people. She was hanging out with people. She wanted to meet other people that like these Hobonichi planners, and she started to build a following. And so when she actually launched her product, stuff started selling very quickly because she spent time building her audience before she ever wanted to sell them anything. Serve before you sell. That is the best way to build your audience. So now she's ready to start her subscription box. She has 600 followers on her YouTube channel, and she sold out with her very first launch with 100 subscribers out of only 600 people. That's a huge conversion rate, and she probably would have sold more, but she ran out of supplies. And so this ties into a couple of the other episodes. It's like, it's like Anne's story, the riches are in the niches. Amanda went deep into her niche, a very specific planner. She didn't make stickers for all the planners. It was a very specific planner. So when people were searching Hobonichi planner, Amanda's going to pop up. And that's something very specific I want you to learn. Don't try to go too broad. But also the way that she served her audience in a very carefree, no-pressure way before she ever asked them for a sale. I want you to think about in your own business, how can you serve your audience without ever asking them for a sale? We can all do that in some way. And so I want you to really think about serving your audience. And if you have 90 days to build your audience, you can serve the heck out of people in 90 days and they're going to keep— your following is going to keep building. And not only did she have 600 followers, but she had 600 followers, the, the right followers, the exact person that she was going to eventually sell to. It wasn't everybody. We don't need everybody in our audience. We need a very specific person. And that's exactly what Amanda did. And I just love her episode. I just listened to it again today to refresh my memory. So I encourage you to go listen to it. Um, it's episode number 33, um, on the Laundry Box Podcast. Now the last story that I want to share with you, um, in these, these were all in our top 10. So these were some of the episodes in the top 10. We've put a list together of the top 10, and those will be in the show notes if you want to just hit all 10 of them. But the last one I wanted to share with you is, um, I did an interview with Pam. From the nurse practitioner's subscription box. And I love that Pam ended up in the top 10 because she was inspired by someone else that was in the top 10. The very first one I shared with you was about Anne and the dentist. Well, Pam was inspired a lot by Anne's story. And so after listening to Anne's episode, she decided, I'm going to do a box for nurse practitioners just the way Anne did a box for these dentists. It was, it was about her. It was about something that she was very close to. She knew how to speak to that customer, but she did some interesting things to build her audience for her subscription box. Episode 38. So this is From Nurse Practitioner to Subscription Box Owner. This is Pam's story. Pam had a subscription box before, before she started the Nurse Practitioner Box. She actually has a successful nail polish box. And you'll learn about that in our episode. It's called Stella Chroma. And she decided she really wanted to lean into this idea that there really wasn't much out there for nurse practitioners. And she didn't have an audience of nurse practitioners. Yes, she's a nurse practitioner and she sold nail polish. There's two completely different things. So she decided, I'm going to set up these social media accounts. I'm going to build my audience. Sarah says we need to build our audience for 90 days. I'm going to spend the next 90 days building my audience. Clients for the nurse practitioner subscription box. And then I'm going to launch it. So what she did, and she talked about this in our episode, she started to follow different colleagues of hers. So she would follow them and then she would go one step further. Um, and she was following them from her business page. So when she would go like their page, it would say nurse practitioner subscription box followed you. So she was getting her, her little name out there because that was her social media accounts, which is genius. By the way. And, but she took it one step further and she started to look at who they followed. And she started following any of those that she saw were nurse practitioners as well. So now everyone's getting followed by this nurse practitioner subscription box. And she started to build a little bit of her waitlist, but she had people that went to her website, checked out what she was doing, and she had over 30 of them join her waitlist saying they wanted her box. But then she saw something else. She saw a conference was coming near her for nurse practitioners. Now, if you know, if you're in any kind of medical field, you know that you need continuing education all the time. She thought, well, okay, I need continuing education. There's going to be a conference where all of my perfect person are going to be hanging out. I'm going to go, I'm going to get my continuing education that I need, but I'm also going to market my box. And it's so fun the way she did this. She decided to have a t-shirt made. And a tote bag and it had her logo on it. It said, nurse, ask me about my nurse practitioner subscription box. And she walked around this conference every day with this shirt on and this bag. And she had these little 3x5 cards made that talks about, you know, that her subscription box was coming this fall. Um, it talked about what, who it was for and that she was one of them. Hey, I'm a nurse practitioner and there's nothing out there for us. And there's a little QR code on the bottom. To join my waitlist. And she left that conference with over 100 people on her waitlist, and she started to launch her box. And I remember having a conversation with her about increasing the numbers that she was initially going to do. I'm like, girl, if your waitlist has over 100 people on it, we need to increase those numbers. And she did, and she sold out within hours. And so the moral of all of these stories are that we need to build our audience, but we don't all have to build it in the same way. We need to build it in a way that feels comfortable to us, in a way that feels organic and authentic to us. And we need to get creative. It's not like a cookie cutter thing, like, okay, post this, you'll get 5 followers. Do a live here, you'll get 20 followers. Make a reel, you'll get 15 followers. I mean, if that's the case, we'd just be pumping out content all the time. But we never really know what it is that's going to stick. We never really know what our audience is looking for until we start to do things, until we start to try things. And then we can see what's happening and we can just lean into more of what's happening just the way Claudia did with her Instagram. And so I want you to think about all these episodes and you can go back and listen to any of them and get the full story because all of these ladies are very inspiring. Anne's episode is called The Riches Are in the Niches. It's episode number 3. Tiffany's episode is called 4 Ways to Build Your Audience, and that's episode number 14. Then we've got Claudia's episode. It's called From an Audience of 0 to 100 Subscribers in 60 Days. That's episode number 31. I want you to listen to Amanda's episode. Um, it is called Small Audience, No Problem. And so that's episode number 33. It's how Amanda built 100+ subscribers from an audience of 600 from YouTube. That's episode number 33. And then Pam's episode is number 38, From Nurse Practitioner to Subscription Box Owner. And if nothing else, I want you to feel inspired. All of these ladies started from zero. They all started from zero and they found a way to build an audience in a short amount of time. And literally it can take you 90 days, but we have to start. We can't think about it for 90 days and then set a launch date. We have to get to work. We have to be consistent. We have to try a giveaway. We have to do some video. We, all these different things, try any of these things and see what's working and then do more of what's working. We cannot continue to grow without an audience. Our subscription box will fall flat if we're not audience building in between our launches. So maybe you're not new, maybe you're here listening and you've got, you've got 50 subscribers or you got 300 subscribers or whatever the case may be. If you're not consistently doing these audience building activities in between your launches, you're going to stop growing. And you're going to start declining. Your focus needs to be on audience building as much as the curation, as much as the logistics. You've got to spend time on it. You have to get creative and you have to serve your audience. And that is our 50th episode. And I'm grateful for you being here. I'm grateful for you listening. I'm thankful for everyone that has downloaded the podcast and of course, everyone that has given me 5-star reviews. You guys are amazing. I read every one of those reviews. So if you have a moment to leave me a review, I would so appreciate it. And we'll be back. We'll be back in the new year for our first episode of 2022. It's been a wild ride. Thanks for being on this journey with me. I'll see you next week with a brand new episode. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.