One of the most intriguing methods of connecting with your audience is to provide pertinent education. It will let your fans and soon to be fans know what you know, but more importantly keep them connected with you because they want to know more of what you do.
Every authors dream is to share their works with the public. They write to be heard and yet most authors struggle to feel comfortable with marketing their books and especially themselves. This technique of providing educational programs on your site in a membership format is the easiest method of not only providing that education, but connecting with more experts from around the world.
The technology today has helped authors connect with people from all over the world. Most of my first radio interviews were conducted live in the radio station, which was limiting because of the travel time to get there. But today, we can be interviewed from any station in the world without leaving our homes. Yesterday I was interviewed on a Google Hangout. It was simple to set up, all I needed to have was a computer camera, microphone and Internet connection.
We recorded for two hours and then the video was automatically uploaded to his YouTube channel and I was able to grab an embedded copy of the interview and place it on my site within a few minutes after we wrapped it up. It couldn’t have been easier!
He suggested I use the same process to create small video vignettes to place on my YouTube channel and on my site to provide an expanded connection with my audience. It’s a great idea and for some reason, it is easier for me to do than sitting in front of the video camera. And the great thing about YouTube formatting is they automatically format the videos to comply with any cell phone.
When you want to expand your content beyond your own, you can always contact other authors and experts in your field. Thankfully, social media has broadened our ability to reach out to virtually anyone in today’s market place. There are no limits. I can talk with an author inIndia,China,England,Canadaand theU.S.all in the same day. There are websites dedicated to authors. Some are designed to spotlight their books while others are focused on authors. Both types of sites are perfect for finding out who else out their may be aligned with you and your works of art.
This is the perfect method of generating material for your membership site. I have my clients create a list of authors and experts they want to interview and have them approach no less than five a week to make sure they have at least one new interview scheduled each week. The person they are interviewing sends an email to their own database offering their following to listen in to the interview at the time it is scheduled. Then my client sets up a capture page to collect the contacts of the person they are interviewing. So for every interview, they are collecting new followers in their own database who trust the person they are interviewing. It is the fastest method of developing your database without paid traffic.
Each interview is then used for an auto responder release on their membership site. The industry average is with 5,000 contacts in your database, 10% will sign up for your membership site. The starting rate is typically $9.95 a month. It’s easy to do the math, 500 members who pay $10 a month yields $5,000 a month income and a great financial stabilization for most authors. And with each new interview they are adding additional subscribers.
It is important for authors and entrepreneurs alike to expand what they are doing to reach new markets. If you can conduct an interesting conversation with others, this process will make it easier for you to achieve new clients.
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