7CEO 047: Building Your Target Audience With Brian Clark

The 7-Figure CEO Podcast

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Brian Clark is the CEO and Founder of Rainmaker Digital which “provides tools and training for content marketers and digital entrepreneurs”. They’re the company behind Copyblogger, StudioPress, and Rainmaker Platform. Initially, they built individual companies that reached 7 figures or more that were eventually rolled into one company (Rainmaker Digital) in order to provide a holistic solution for entrepreneurs and content marketer. They currently have 65 employees, most of them virtual, and they ran $12 million in 2015 revenue.

Brian is an 18-year veteran of online businesses. He started out as a business lawyer, but didn’t enjoy his profession and quit to start his own company in 1998. He realized the potential of the internet and combined it with his passion for writing. He grew an audience and email list by writing about pop culture and things he loved, but didn’t know how to monetize what he was doing. So, he transferred his efforts and created content and a service-based business around his business law skills. He was doing content marketing before it was called that. He learned by watching other businesses and marketers, teaching himself marketing and copywriting. By 2005, he was well over 7 figures, but was burned out and doing all the work himself.

LINKS

Email your top take-aways and learnings to [e-mail]

Rainmaker Digital: http://rainmakerdigital.com/

Permission Marketing by Seth Godin: http://www.sethgodin.com/permission/

MyCopyblogger (free training for content marketers and entrepreneurs): http://my.copyblogger.com/

Rainmaker Platform: http://rainmakerplatform.com/

Apply for a Breakthrough Call with Casey: CaseyGraham.com/Action

LEARNINGS Building A Company That Will Last

You have to be willing to say “No” to 98% of opportunities that come to you so you stay true to your long-term success of really helping solve the problems of your audience. There will be plenty of opportunities that come along that seem like good options and could generate quick profits, but may ultimately hinder the bigger vision of your company. You must determine what you’re motivated by and stay true to what you want to build. Begin with the end in mind.

Having Low Employee Attrition

The majority of Brian’s employees and partnerships came from the audience he created with the valuable content they continued to release. All but three of his hires have worked out in the last 18 years and he credits that rare success mostly to how well-aligned people are with the values of the company when they’re hired. People knew what they were getting when they were hired because they already knew so much about the company and culture Brian built.

Process-Driven Business

Most entrepreneurs are not process-driven. In order to scale a business, you’ll need to create processes and often times that requires bringing in someone who it process-oriented. As the entrepreneur, you’ll need to be willing and open to adopt a new way of doing business.

Getting Your Business Growth Unstuck

Often many businesses get stuck because they try to use the same marketing message and strategies that got them to their current success. Oftentimes, to continue growing, you must change and pivot your message to reach a different crowd. You often can sell to the “low hanging fruit” one way, but will have to change your message to reach the next sphere of potential customers. You should start with this smaller change before you scrap your product and try to reinvent what you’re doing.

Email Is Not Dead

The stats still show the most effective sales engine is email. Email marketing is not going away anytime soon. So the most important activity of your business regardless of industry is collecting email addresses.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

You need to narrow down your audience to a small group of people who relate with what you’re talking about. Your message should be polarizing to attract the exact right person and the rest of people should either ignore your message or be turned off by it. If you try to appeal to a broad audience you will fail.

Feeling Stuck In Your Business?

I’m currently offering free 30-minute Breakthrough Calls to help business owners, presidents and CEOs with their current business challenge. If you have over $400K in annual revenue and would like help, schedule your free Breakthrough Call today.