How to Build Customers as a Creator

If you’re a Creator trying to build a business then you have two choices:

  1. Build an audience
  2. Build customers

Aren’t they the same thing?

Not at all and understanding WHY is the difference between 100,000 followers and $2,000 a month or 5,000 followers and $20,000 a month.

What Is an Audience?

Audience is kind of a universal dummy term that everyone uses.

Is your audience your followers on social media? Your subscribers to your newsletter?

Audience feels like it can be anybody.

I prefer to describe audience as the people willing to buy from you.

It doesn’t have to be now, but it should be at some point that they consider buying your offers.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

So going by this definition you can see how most people that claim to have an audience don’t have much of one at all.

And this is the difference between building an audience and building customers.

Anyone can build an audience by following the latest tips, tricks, and hacks.

All of those people running Twitter giveaways are going to be disappointed when they discover that their 10,000 new friends don’t care about the book they recently released.

When you switch to a mindset of building customers it changes your approach to business for the better.

So how do you build customers?

How to Build Customers

Building customers becomes a lot easier when you take a world-building approach. In this case, you’re looking for people that can see your world as their home.

That means you have the same world vision.

Your goals are aligned.

It makes sense for them to be there.

Odd Noodle is a place for Creators who feel there should be some meaning behind what they do and their business.

Who care about leaving a mark on the people they come across and who truly value the work that they do.

That means a lot of the traditional marketing advice doesn’t make much sense to them.

So where do they go?

They get to come here to make sense of it all.

But how do I attract them? Through the content (messaging that I put out).

When building a world, you have to make sure that your messaging is distinct.

That it feels like it’s talking to a specific individual.

So all I have to do is post random content online?

Not at all. There needs to be a strategy behind the content because that content has a job.

Before we get into that it’s important that we understand the Customer Journey real quick.

The Customer Journey

There are a lot of different ways to explain the customer journey so I’ll try to use a simple example.

Apple comes out with new laptops but you don’t need one because you have a laptop. You get hit with ads by Apple about these new laptops, but they don’t do anything because you’re good.

You have your laptop.

And yet millions upon millions of people are buying them, right?

Are you different customers? Not at all.

You’re just at a different part of the journey.

But the second your laptop breaks, then guess what?

Now you’re closer to being someone that will buy, but now you gotta do some research.

So what do you do? You head to YouTube to watch some reviews.

There are general reviews that are cool, but you’re a graphic designer and you want to see if these new laptops are beneficial to you.

And guess what you find?

Someone giving a review from a graphic designer’s perspective! This is meant for you.

This person is able to talk about the pros and cons, along with what they’d like to see improved for graphic designers. They are speaking your language.

The review is able to convince you to buy.

That’s the customer journey.

There are different phases and different types of content work well for each phase.

Audience-Building Content

Audience-building content sounds great!

But we must remember what “audience” means to people. To most, it’s just the followers and subscribers that come to you.

It’s why any business growth gurus focus on hacks to help you achieve vanity metrics.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a million followers on any platform, but if those followers aren’t there to listen to me then what’s the point?

A great way to increase your follower count on Twitter is through giveaways.

But what happens after the giveaway? Do those same people think “Oh now that I follow them I should pay attention!”

Or do they look at your account and remember that they only followed you because of a giveaway and at some point, they’ll unfollow you?

Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do giveaways. There very well could be a way to do a giveaway that attracts your future customers.

But you need to think this through.

Just understand the content that is generally meant to go viral isn’t the same one that will bring in the audience that you target.

Here is a question to start with: do you want revenue or followers?

If you don’t get to answer both, then what is your answer?

Revenue.

But what if you do want both? Then you need to think about how you create Customer-Building Content.

Customer-Building Content

There is a concept that helps me make money almost at will.

It’s called Designing for Extremes.

It’s the idea that you can look at your audience and design a solution for the extremes of that audience.

Why would you want to do that?

Because if you can design something that the extremes love, it will be loved by the people in the middle.

Odd Noodle is an example of that.

While most gurus tell you that you need to do slow and steady growth I wanted to think about how you could make $1,000 in less than a month without resorting to trickery.

Imagine a someone that just lost their job and needs to pay rent in 40 days. They want to take the creator-path so what can they do?

If I can design a solution that helps them then why wouldn’t that solution be amazing for the person that feels like they need to wait 6 months?

But Designing for Extremes isn’t enough.

You then have to consider the Customer Journey.

Let’s stick with the concept of making $1,000 in 30 days as a Creator.

The person that would be most interested in this is the one that needs that money right now or the one that has been trying for a while to make money and can’t.

Both of them have an immediate problem that needs a solution.

But what about the person that is just getting started with the Creator journey? They’ve read all of the gurus that say it’s a long and slow road so they’ve prepared themselves for that path.

They see what I’m saying about quick growth and they aren’t sure about it.

So then I need to tailor content around them and move them through the journey.

And this is why social media content can be frustrating for you as a Creator. Once you go beyond the basics and want more, it’s hard to find because:

  1. People aren’t aware that they need to create content around the Customer Journey
  2. Most customer-building content doesn’t get big numbers on social media

However, if you’re fortunate enough to come across me (*wink*) then you know that my social media posts usually lead to deeper content on this site.

And that’s how you can build customers with your content.

Here's How You Build a 6-Figure Business With the 3 Engine Framework

In today's world, it's not enough to simply know how to create a digital product.

You need to know the whole system to make your business flourish.

This is why you build a Full Stack Engine. Not only because you need a system that you can maximize, but also a system that allows you to walk away when you need.

Because while the money is great, freedom is better.

And true freedom arrives when you have all 3 business engines running on their own.