One of the biggest challenges facing emerging entrepreneurs, bloggers, and designers today is growing an audience from virtually nothing.
How do you get started? How do you reach people when they don’t know who you are?
The Internet is chock full of answers to these questions: SEO, social media, networking, etc. But there’s one method that tends to get overlooked in the flashy-ness of modern marketing.
Asking.
It sounds almost too simple to work, doesn’t it? But let me explain with a personal story.
Before I began my career in the marketing world, I was just another aspiring writer working in the labor industry. During this time, I started a niche blog with nothing more than a few Facebook friends and family members as an audience. I had never heard of digital marketing. My knowledge of social media was limited to my own personal profile. I knew nothing about SEO, and I certainly didn’t have a budget to promote myself.
Yet, over the course of a year, I was able to expand my audience to a global readership, bring in thousands of visitors, and even had the chance to discuss my content on some prominent podcasts within my niche. And how did I do it?
I asked.
I looked at the other writers within my niche who had found great success, and I began to pursue them. First through social, eventually through email. I reached out to as many people as I could with one simple request, “Would you mind reading my blog?”
And it worked! I remember the day I woke up to an email from one of my favorite writers telling me that he’d read my blog, loved it, and would promote it on his website—a site that averages millions of visitors a week.
Just like that, I had an audience.
You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish by simply asking. Of course, you have to hustle. You have to be persistent. You have to make something worth sharing, and above all, you have to be patient. You can’t expect to blow up overnight. But in my experience, most successful people are willing to reward good work. They’re willing to support up-and-comers. If you’ve got something to show, find someone to show it to. Look for the people who are crushing it in your field and ask them for their attention.
We live in a world where everyone is accessible. Everyone can be reached. The distance between you and anyone else on the planet is a click away. There’s no reason you shouldn’t advantage of that.
