Find your Audience (and Lead Them!)

Seth Godin talks about groups of people that want to be lead — as Tribes.

I typically refer to them as a Crowd … simply because it's more congruent with how I've always spoken about it.

Just know this in this context, a tribe and a crowd is the same thing.

Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world.

It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most organizations can build isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.

Instead of looking for customers for your products, you seek out products (and services) for the tribe. – Seth Godin

By now you should understand that targeting a narrow audience (a potential tribe), and polarizing your message, is the only way to go.

It's the only way to win. Microsoft doesn't get this. Apple does. They produce products for their tribe. And their tribe will do irrational crazy shit (from the perspective of the "outsiders") to get every new Apple thing.

I know. I'm one of them. I have friends that are too. But I also have friends that can't stand anything Apple. And that, my friend, is the whole point!

… cos a tribe/crowd only works if there are insiders and outsiders.

As an aside: On May 26 2010, Bloomberg reported that, Apple overtook Microsoft Corp. to become the most valuable technology company in the world — with a market value of $222.1 billion.
It's also the second-largest U.S. stock by market value, behind oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. Not bad for a little tech company that creates products for a narrow audience of "insiders", huh? :)

But how do you find a hungry, insanely passionate and irrational crowd?

Well … there is no "magic cookie-cutter formula". Go here. Do this. Push this button. Click that link. Voila! You now have a hungry crowd…

Hahaha! … No, no!

Truth is … I'm glad it isn't that easy. Nothing worth having should be easy to acquire.

It takes some work … and it takes some digging.

Also keep in mind that the niche (read: a narrow category) should ideally be need based. Someone looking for a solution to something. You should meet this need. Solve the problem. Relieve the pain.

Niches that are need based are driven emotionally.

Identify these emotional hot buttons and use them in your marketing message to resonate and connect with your audience like glue. (More about how to do this shortly.)

Here is a list of resources that I use to help seek out pockets of people worth targeting:

And here's an article I wrote in January 2010 on how to find a niche using Google's little known advanced wildcard search queries. This is super-ninja stuff for most people.

But prob'ly my favorite place to "hang out" at and conduct and validate solution research — is Amazon.

Once I've found something that I feel can solve a specific problem — or help an insanely passionate group of people move towards a desired outcome — then I head over to Amazon.

I typically only look at the 5 star and 1 star ratings. I'm not interested in the people on the fence. I want the extremes. The extremities. The edges.

I want to know what people LOVE … and what people HATE. This tells me a lot. It helps me identify the triggers and hot-buttons of an audience. (Hint, hint!)

And it helps me understand WHY certain people purchase a particular product in the first place.

This is seriously powerful shit!

Seth says in this video that, "You can make change and have influence merely by leading people who want to go somewhere."

Here's how to go about doing this…

How to get people to add themselves to your autoresponder list … so that you can start to establish a relationship with them.

You then get the opportunity to build trust and rapport … use stories to suck them in … and within the context of that — make money — and lots of it, over and over again!

Click here to continue to Step 4 of 5…