Attention: Content Creators
Learn how a farmer grew his audience from a handful to tens of thousands, got radio syndication, and landed his first sponsor in only 3 months.
(Yes! This will work for you too!)
During my first conversation with Logan Hanks of the Talk Dirt To Me podcast, he asked me a surprising question.
"Do you think the podcast is any good?"
As content creators, we all have doubts about the content we put out into the world. Even experienced creators can feel uneasy when comparing themselves to the millions of other creators out there, especially when you're struggling to get past your first hundred subscribers. But the reality is that creating content is a lot like starting to work out. At first, you're awkward, you're weaker than you thought, your form is bad, and you're secretly praying no one notices how bad you are. But soon you start making progress: your form tightens up, you make some friends who give you advice (some good, some bad) and suddenly you're starting to notice muscles you hadn't seen before. But eventually, that progress stalls, and it's at this point in your content creation journey where most content creators give up.
The Dreaded Growth Plateau
As you log in for the fourth time in as many hours to check your numbers, you're disappointed. The numbers haven't moved. You just dropped your latest episode, and engagement is flat. You've worked so hard putting this content together: planning shows, finding collaborators, recording, editing, and posting. Not to mention all the research you've done and all the strategies you've tried to boost engagement. You have been the model of consistency, following all the best practices, and what has that gotten you? A handful of subscribers, most of whom are family, friends, and the guests you've collaborated with. You lean back and start to think, maybe this is the end, maybe I'm just not cut out for this.
You're Wrong!
Content Creators are not born; they are made. Every big creator you can think of has worked incredibly hard at mastering their content and building their audiences. But hard work aside, most of them had luck on their side. Whether it was having the right network to help boost their content early on or just being on the right platform at the right time, the big creators who frequent your feed had a leg up most creators will never have. "Let's face it: if you had that kind of luck already, you wouldn't be reading this page."
Most successful creators will tell you if it wasn't for their consistency and willingness to push through their plateaus, they never would have built the audience they have. But consistency in your production of content is only half the story because even if you're the most consistent content creator in the world, it still doesn't mean anyone is going to see your content. The other half of the equation is the consistency of your exposure.
How to Create Your Own Luck (The Shortcut)
Getting Exposure Made Easy
The reality is that organic exposure is trash. Every social media platform out there is not there to help you grow your audience. They only want one thing: Ad revenue. They get that revenue by ensuring the regular everyday users are fed a consistent diet of all the things their dopamine receptors love. Have you ever noticed how rare it is to see content from a brand-new creator that doesn't already have hundreds of likes, shares, and comments? Open your favorite social media app now and see how many you can count just scrolling through for a few minutes. My guess is you'll only need one hand to count them.
So how do we beat the networks at their own game?
We run ads. Not ads like you're probably thinking; we aren't cutting together trailers of your content and begging people to watch. Instead, we use a little-known ad strategy to place your content in front of your ideal viewers and convert those viewers into subscribers.
This is how we took Logan from only a couple hundred subscribers to tens of thousands in just three months! As your subscribers grow, so do your prospects of signing lucrative sponsorship deals that will allow your content to start being the moneymaker you've always wanted.
As Logan and I's call came to a close, I assured him, saying, "I wouldn't be talking to you if I didn't think your podcast was any good". With that, Logan responded, "Let's do it."
Here's Exactly How We Grew Logan's Podcast From 100 To 10,000 Listeners In Just 3 Months:
Introducing The GroHaus Audience Accelerator
Phase 1: Branding
To start, we built Logan the digital assets needed to look like a professional content creator: Profile pics and banners, title and end cards for your videos, a simple website designed to highlight your best work and convince sponsors to work with you, along with the basics of a logo, color scheme and font selections.
Phase 2: Quality Control
Let's face it: creators are rarely the best people to review their work and suggest improvements. Either you think everything you do is great, or you want to crawl under a rock every time you have to watch your own content. Like Logan, you need someone from the outside looking in to help ensure the quality of the content you are producing is top-notch. NOTE: When we did this for Logan, he was worried we'd want him to change his content. This is not the case at all. We simply found ways for him to increase the production quality of his content using the production gear he already owned.
Phase 3: Building a Production Pipeline
As a farmer, Logan didn't have enough time to chop up his content into what we call "snackable" clips that would do well on social. So, we leveraged our own team of production experts to chop up his long-form content, transcribe the content for subtitles, and add some snazzy-looking title and end cards. Once Logan approved the clips, we would schedule his posts so he never had to worry about jumping out of a tractor to keep the stream of content flowing!
Phase 4: Promotion
Once the clips were live, we implemented our ad strategy and began building momentum. Logan was shocked at how quickly his engagement numbers shot up, even on a relatively modest ad budget. It didn't take long before his numbers started soaring. The show did so well in those early weeks that it attracted a terrestrial radio station who couldn't wait to put Logan's show on the air.
Phase 5: Getting the Sponsor
Once you cross the ten-thousand-subscribers threshold, the doors of opportunity swing open. It had barely been three months since we started working with Logan when the sponsors came a-knockin'. When they came, we were ready; the groundwork we had laid proved to potential sponsors that Logan's show was a viable marketing channel for their business, and soon enough, Logan signed an exclusive deal with one of the largest agricultural retailers on the planet. It wasn't luck; Logan took action and hired a team of people with a track record of growing audiences and delivering the results he needed. But beyond the facts and figures, he knew that we cared about his success as much as he did.
Where's Logan Today?
Logan is still one of our best clients and has now made a serious name for himself in the agricultural world. He's had stars from Movie and TV, CEOs, and plenty of other farmers from around the country sit down for interviews on his show. Just today, as I'm writing this page, he called me to tell me another booking agent from Nashville just sent him an email begging to get their latest star on the show. Logan's response: "I think we could squeeze him in."
Do you want to "Gro" Like Logan? Then what are you waiting for?!
There has never been a better time to grow a content-based business for yourself and your family. Don't wait another day to start growing your audience and sponsorship opportunities.
Schedule Your Free Content Growth Session With Our Team Below
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