Make Marketing Suck Less

Where are You Leaving Your Audience Behind?

My favorite tool for helping get my clients about a million percent more strategic with building their audience and growing their business is a tool that's not very rebellious at all. In fact, it's super duper old school, so old school that people don't really talk about it anymore. And maybe because I'm using this tool, maybe that makes it a little bit rebellious since people aren't talking about it.

Yet this old school tool moves you past just thinking about your audience, your niche, your ideal customer Avatar in very broad terms when you're creating your messaging and your marketing and it moves you into thinking about the current relationship or a lack of relationship you have with them.

So what is this tool that I speak of? Well, that's exactly what you'll be finding out on this episode of the Rebel Rising Podcast. And once you know about this tool, you'll be able to figure out exactly where your marketing and your messaging might be leaving people behind.

Tune into the audio:

But before I tell you what this tool is, let's give a quick shout out to the sponsor of our show because the sponsor is the reason I am able to create this podcast for you. Today's episode is brought to you by the 3 Word Rebellion messaging intensive. If you're a business owner, speaker or entrepreneur who doesn't do business the way everyone else does, and you find it tough to sell your ideas because they are so different  that people have a hard time wrapping their head around them or you just have too many ideas and you end up overwhelming your audience and you need focus so that people see the clear benefit of what you do, then you need to check out the 3 Word Rebellion messaging intensive.

In the intensive, you and I create your 3 Word Rebellion, your customer journey and all the business and all the messaging your business needs to grow for the next three to five years and beyond. This intensive has helped my clients grow their audience, fill their client roster because their business is the only option to their people, and it's filled their inbox with people seeking out their expertise and telling them how their work has impacted them.

If you're thinking yes, Michelle, that's exactly what I want. Then book a Free Strategy Session with me to discuss how the 3 Word Rebellion intensive can increase your impact, influence, and income. Go apply now! Now it's time to go on with our show.

So what's this old school, very unrebel-like tool that will help you better understand your customer journey? It's called the customer awareness spectrum.

Have you heard of it before? And if you have heard of it before, are you using it to create your messaging that promotes your business? So what is the customer awareness spectrum?

It is the journey that you take people on where they go from uninformed and unaware to being a heck yes to your business, your message, and what you offer.

So let's dive into the different stages of the customer awareness journey. And then I'm going to talk to you about where you might be leaving your audience behind.

So the first phase of the customer awareness journey is the unaware phase.

They don't know about you, they don't know about your business, they don't know about your solution, and they're not even sure they have a problem that you could help them with.

Now, when they're in the unaware phase, they know they might have some kind of issue.

So let's say the issue is this: They don't know if their business is making money or it's just not making money, but they don't understand what the actual problem is. Because there could be multiple reasons why a business is not making money, right? It could be the business model, it could be how they're doing sales. It could be the website, it could be their funnel, it could be their messaging. There are so many different problems to be solved when we have that general issue. And this segment is the hardest one to reach because they're completely unaware of their, kind of like an ostrich with their head in their sand. But it is worth it because this is the largest group of people out there and it's the place where audience growth can occur.

So when you're talking to these people, you're bringing them into the fold and then getting them into the next phase of the spectrum, which is the problem aware phase.

And I like to think about this phase in that you are helping them diagnose their problems. So if somebody is like, I'm not making any money in my business, you could create content around that to help them diagnose the problem they actually have.

And the purpose here is to go deeper with them on the problem because they're not looking for a solution yet and they're not even sure what the right solution might be. So go deeper with them.

What is this problem really costing them? And you're preparing them to find a solution which moves us to the next phase solution aware. Now they know they've got a problem and they're out there looking for a solution.

So this is the time where you can start talking about how you approach the problem in order to solve it.

This is the time where you can give them a reason to believe your product or service is the right one for them.

So you get to talk about what you do and how you help people and feature your clients. This phase is always super fun and once they know about your solution, it is decision time.

So this is the product aware phase.

So it is time to help them make a decision, make a yes or a no. They now know you are the solution. So now they just need some extra help in figuring out if they want to buy it. And this is the time for your call to action. And if they decide to be a buyer, they move into the most aware segments.

These are your true believers, your hardcore fans, they love you already. They love your product, they love what you do.

So those are the phases of the customer awareness spectrum.

So let's look at where you could be leaving your audience behind because I can guarantee you that you're probably not touching each segment of that spectrum.

I mean I have a big problem in this area and I will share with you where I'm falling behind and not talking to my audience. So we're going to go in reverse order, starting with the most aware product aware segment. And I already have talked about this problem in the episode on true believers.

So whenever somebody tells me that their audience is not growing, what I find when I start working with them is that they're only talking to their most aware product aware segment.

They're only creating messaging for the people who are already super fans and love what they do. They have already purchased and they are focused on taking them just deeper into the work. And we do this because these people are the most fun. We are not having to persuade them. We love talking about what we do and taking our raving fans even deeper into our work. And plus for many of us this phase, it's way more intellectually interesting.

For me, it's way more interesting to critique different political campaigns that I'm seeing against like these 3 Word Rebellion creative constraints that I have. It's so much more fun for me to do that. But the issue here and where you're leaving your audience behind is that we are not helping people diagnose their problem or we're not creating messaging on why our solution is the right solution for them.

Not to mention we aren't even talking to new audiences, we cannot grow our audience if we're only talking to our true fans.

On the other hand, you've got the pendulum swung in the other direction and you're not addressing the segment at all, what you're missing out on his return clients and people who can be ambassadors of your business because they can talk about their experience with you and why it matters.

So we have to create some content for them, but they can't be our sole focus. And the big symptom here is slow audience growth, a plateau in sales. So let's move now to focusing on solution aware. For many of you, you love to talk about how you solve a problem. You get to highlight your clients, share case studies about your work. But if we are stuck here or we skip this phase altogether, that's a problem because we need to constantly connect how our solution solves a problem. So we have to reach back to those problem aware folks talk about the problem and bring them into our solution.

When we're too solution oriented, we're not helping those people who have a problem and all of a sudden they get frustrated because they don't know how to solve it. So we just can't skip it. And I'll be the first to admit that this is my biggest weakness in my customer journey. I don't spend a lot of time here. Now I know I spend time talking about the 3 Word Rebellion, the 3 Word Rebellion book. But what you most likely don't know about the work I do with businesses is that I do this work, I do this customer journey, work with my clients so that they are addressing all of these different segments. And then I help them find the signature stories that support each of these points along that journey and allow them to emotionally connect. But I don't do a great job of talking about that.

So yeah, you might know, I help people create 3 Word Rebellions and I do so much more.

So when we don't talk about the solution, people don't fully understand what we're capable of. And that causes frustration and it causes your most ideal people to go and find someone else.

So talk about your solution. But if you're always stuck just talking about your solution, you need to make sure that you are reaching back to those problem aware people and marketing to those unaware people so that they can diagnose their problem.

So the final place you could be leaving your audience behind is the problem aware and the unaware segment. So this is the phase where I love to spend most of my time. Like it is great for new connections. It's great for audience growth.

But if you're spending all your time here, once again, you're leaving your audience and frustration because they don't know how to solve the problem and they're going to find someone else who can do it for them. And if you're not spending enough time here, your audience won't grow.

It is that simple.

My intention for you is to start thinking about your audience and the content you're creating, aiding or them in a more strategic and intentional way.

Ask yourself, what segment is this for? Am I helping the people in the problem aware? Am I focusing on solution aware? Then create your content from that place. And I'd love to know from you, where are you leaving your audience behind? Find me on Instagram DM me and let me know where you think you are leaving them behind.

Remember, we have to be intentional with our marketing and our messaging so that we create messaging that is moving people along the customer journey in a systematic and strategic way.

And it helps people get to the point where our service, our product becomes the only solution they want.