Growing from other people’s audiences - Cat Griffin

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00:01
Hello and welcome. So hi there. My name is Cat Griffin and I'm the host of this event that you're attending so first of all, I want to just take a moment to say thank you for attending and I hope that you are enjoying this event. Just tell you a little bit briefly about myself. I do organise a lot of collaboration events like this summit that you're listening to right now. I organise bundles, I organise other summits and freebie exchanges and some of the fun collaborations that are in the works currently. So I do have quite a lot of experience as a host of organizing collaborations and also as a participant and have been a participant in dozens of bundles, summits and private podcasts, freebie exchanges, all kinds of different kind of collaborations. 

00:57 So that's where my background is that's why I'm qualified to talk to you today on growing from other people's audiences because that's literally what I'm doing right now as part of this event. And OK, as the host of this event, it is taking it to the next level. But all of the people who are speaking at the event today that you're listening to, they're getting themselves in front of you because unless you've come to this event from being in their audience, you've come to this event and you've discovered discovered them through someone else's audience. For example, if you were already in my audience and you're attending this event today, and then you will watch Vivian's presentation, you've got to know Vivian through being in my audience, through me sharing an event that she's part of and then discovering her through a bad event. 

01:55 So that's essentially what we're talking about when we're saying going to other people's audiences. It's ways that we can get ourselves in front of somebody else's audience so that new people can find us, discover us, learn about us. And if they feel called to do so, if they feel aligned with what we do, with what we share, and they can then become part of our audience. 

02:21 But first of all, I just want to talk like, what does growing mean? So the first thing we always think about when we talk about growing from other people's audiences is growing an email list. And honestly, that is a huge part of why you will take part in any kind of collaboration event, either A1 on one or a larger event. Almost always, your primary goal is to grow your email, list to have people sign up for a freebie that you shared, or just simply join your email list be an optive link. 

02:56 But taking part in a collaboration, It does give you other opportunities to grow too, beyond just having new people done your email list. It can help you build a community. It can help you add more followers to other platforms it doesn't just have to be email. So if you've got a YouTube channel, the collaboration can be directing people to follow you on YouTube for example, if you have a a podcast, it could be directing people to listen to your podcast. So the growth isn't necessarily just about adding people to your email list. It can be adding people to other parts of your online world too and giving them different options of where they can find out more and connect with you in different places. 

03:46 And another way that you can help you grow is it can help you build a network. And this network might come from people who are in the audience or who are attending or who are finding you through the collaboration. But also this network, this community can build can come from being part of the event of the contributor and the connection that you build with your host, with other contributors in the event. It can be a really organic, natural way of opening up conversations with other business owners, building things with other business owners and even making friends with other business owners. 

04:25 I always say this, it can be really, really lonely sometimes in an online business if you don't have in real life friends doing the same thing and collaborations, borrowing from other people's audiences can be a great way of actually building your own business community of like minded people. You understand what it's like they can be there to be your cheering squad, your support squad, they can be there just to be happy for you or a shoulder to cry on. 

04:59 So how can we grow from other people's audiences so we've got a few things here and we have one to one kind of collaborations. Now using one to one, it could be like 1 to a very small group of people. But often these forms will just be you and another person and you're doing an exchange of audiences. You're getting yourself in front of each of us audiences. 

05:24 So for example, if you are a guest on somebody's podcast, you are getting in front of their podcast audience. And usually if you're guesting on a podcast, you'll be given the opportunity to share a link where people can find out more about you. You might be able to mention the lead magnet in your interview you might be able to have the link to that lead magnet in your show notes. But if you're speaking on a podcast, you want to have a way that people can come and find you if they listen to that podcast. And almost always podcast hosts are very happy to facilitate that for you. 

06:02
And if they're not, it's maybe not a podcast that you want to be on anyway. 

06:09 We've also got freebie swaps so a freebie swap is a free gift and lead magnet that you have. And you basically you will share somebody else's freebie to your audience. In return, they will share your freebie to their audience. And does she both get to grow from each of us audiences by getting that freebie in front of that audience? 

06:37 And it can also be, it doesn't need to be like getting onto your email list in this kind of scenario it could also be a recommendation. So for example, if you are a web designer, then a lot of your clients might need copywriting help. So you might have somebody that you collaborate with that offers copywriting services and then they might have people come to them, you know, they're setting up their first website, they're looking for copy for the website and they can recommend you as a web designer. 

07:07 That's also another way, like a one to one form of getting in front of each other's audiences there and then joint ventures so this can be when you will collaborate and work on creating something together. It could be to promote just one of the persons and products it might be a joint venture where you are doing a webinar together, but that leads into just one of your paid purchases, but the other person will get a substantial Commission from this. 

07:39 Or it could be something where you've actually jointly created and you're jointly promoting together too and then we also have much larger collaborations involve large groups of people and for example, bundles. I organize a lot of bundles and if you're a participant in a bundle, you might be looking to add like 100 new people to your email list. I've been part of bundles where I've had a thousand new people join my email list. 

08:12 And so they can be a great way of getting growing from other people's audiences. There's all kinds of caveats that come into it, which unfortunately I don't have time to fully go into in this presentation. But yet bundles are a great way. And also summits like you're listening to right now. Now, all of these options, they all involve some kind of work from you. It's different degrees of work that's required and it also depends on, you know, what you've already created, what you already have, what you need to actually create for the event. 

08:50 But take podcasting, for example you need to actually show up, be available for the interview you need to get your things together to share with the host. You might need to do a preparation call in advance so you know you're on the same page. And if you're creating something for a bundle, it could be that you already have the product, but you might need to create a new page specifically for the event. And you might want to sort of tweak with things like your trip wires for the event. 

09:21 And you might need to sort of change the welcome sequence you have connected to that event for example, with a summit, then you need to have the presentation you need to prepare and other contributions for the summit if you're adding something to a swag bag, for example, if you're sharing the lead magnet alongside your presentation. So there is definitely work that's involved in all of these. But if you're strategic about how you participate in events, then the growth that can come from these events, if you compare to what you might be paying for leads, say for example, through Facebook ads, I find the define like look at the time contribution to what I put to participating in an event and then think about like, well, what would I pay myself hourly? And then compare that to what I would pay for a Facebook ad and how would that compare for me? So that's definitely one way that I like to look at things. 

10:24 And you can also, I feel like there's more, more control almost in being part of the collaboration because I know like the person whose audiences I'm going to get in front of. Whereas although you can do targeting and things with Facebook adverts, you don't really sort of know that audience facebook deciding the audience, it's not really within your control. And also this is a way that you can support other business owners too i'm sure you can support Facebook or Meta these days, but you know, they, they don't really need the support they, they get a lot of money in advertising already. And so taking part in collaboration with someone is a great way of supporting somebody else in business in my eyes, 

11:11 We are talking about collaboration over competition. So it is important that whenever you go into any kind of collaboration, obviously you're taking part because you want to grow yourself, but you need to go in it's, it's an equal exchange or a fair exchange. You, you know, you need to make sure that you're doing your share. Make sure if you're, for example, in a bundle that you're doing the agreed promotion for that bundle. If you're speaking on somebody's podcast and they may have rules about the promotion that's required, they may not, but it is, you know, it's nice if you know, if it's relevant, something that your audience are going to appreciate. 

11:51 It's nice if you can, you know, give them a little bit of a mention in one of your emails give that a share. And these are things that help you build connections that I talked about with other business owners. They help, you know, getting to those conversations, they help you. We really build your community online. You think so that you do want to consider if you're looking at growing from other people's audiences. 

12:22 So first of all, be very mindful of who you align yourself with in a one-on-one collaboration this is very easy to do because obviously there's just one person to consider. You can really take the time to sort of make sure you know them, that you're aligned in terms of things like your values, in terms of what you teach, that you're happy to be, you know, closely associated with that person because you are going to be emailing out to your audience, sharing something over theirs. 

12:53 It is a little bit harder if we're talking about something like a summit or a bundle. And you can obviously do all your due diligence and research on the host. You can ask who else is participating at the event. I will tell you as a host, though, that's quite a difficult question to answer generally because of the point when you're, you know, when you're taking applications or you're pitching people to be part of something, you generally don't know who else is part on the event. And it quite often gets to a bit of a catch 2022 situation of, well, I'd like to be part of it, but I'd like to know who else is speaking and then when everybody says that you're like, well, either all these people speaking or none of these people are speaking, I don't know. 

13:39 So if your host isn't able to give you an answer as to who else's party for paving in the event, that's not a red flag by any means they probably genuinely don't know at that stage, but what you can do is you can look at any previous events that they've organised, have a look at who participated in those events. Also have a look at how that event was run have a look at, you know, the pages that were shared in association with the event. Do you feel aligned with how that was run? 

14:13 One thing that you need to be thinking about as well is that we're looking about shared audiences and not shared offers. So what I mean by this is the example I gave earlier of if you're a web designer and you collaborate with a copywriter, then you assume that you both work for the same niche or, you know, you've got the same sort of general broad target audience. You are collaborating there because you're, you both have the same target audience, but you're not competing with each other. You are not also, if you're the web designer, you don't want to do a freebie swap with another web designer. 

14:53 If you both serve the, you know you both will want to serve the same audience because that's where you're collaborating. But if you're offering the same service, then that becomes problematic because you're not growing from their audience. You're also giving your audience to them for them to do the same thing that you do. So you need to be careful about who you collaborate with you want to have a strong core audience that is relevant for both of you. 

15:26 You know you want to have a strong crossover of target audience between the two of you, but your offers, your services, your products shouldn't be in competition with each other. This, again, is very easy if it's a one-on-one collaboration. It's much more difficult if it is a larger collaboration involving a group of people. In that instance, there probably will be at least one person that you're crossing over. But it's why I don't necessarily recommend being part of niche events. So for example, this summit that you're at right now and it's we've all got the same target audience that we're looking for we're all grading content for the same target audience, but we're all offering and talking about different things. 

16:16 Now, if this was an event that was just all about web designing and everyone at the event was a web designer, then there would be a lot of, you know, basically you're advertising other web designers to your audience by being part of that then, and it doesn't necessarily make sense. 

16:40 Ok and then we need to make sure if it's a fair exchange in the event. And this is something that you have to decide on a personal level for everything that you take part in. I mean, if you're doing a one-on-one exchange and say you've got an email list of twenty thousand any other person 's got an email list of two, hundred do you feel that's a fair exchange? It might be. It could be that that person with the email list of two hundred people has a really engaged wrong. You know, people love them, trust them, and all of those 200 people are exactly who you want to get in front of. 

17:20 So even though you don't have the same numbers, it could, you know, if you're still going to work out beneficial for you, you're still going to grow, you're still going to get in front of exactly who you want to get in front of, then that can still be, you know, considered a fair exchange. But you do want to make sure that you're asking questions about what reach some somebody has, what audience size they have, what kind of engagement they have. Make sure that you understand that you're putting all this work into an event. 

17:52 Is it going to, you know, is it fair? You know, are they going to also be able to give something back to you if you're doing all the work? But likewise, you need to make sure that you're being fair with anybody else that you're collaborating with too. And also, is it a good fit for you so we've touched on this. You know, we need to think about what the events for, who the target audience is for. Is it aligned with your goals and what you want to do? 

18:25 Why can't you get started? Well, one thing to do is reach out to people and ask. You can even reach out to people one-on-one and propose, you know, would you like to do a freebie swap with me? I hear you've got a podcast would you be interested in interviewing me for that podcast? So don't be scared of raising your hand and we're like, hey, I'd love to connect i'd love to do something with you. 

18:52 Honestly, the worst they can say is no. And more often than not, people are actually wanting people to reach out to them and be part of these events. There are Facebook groups, and if you get the free guide that's listed alongside this presentation, then there are Facebook groups where people regularly share opportunities, and I've listed some of those in there. And then I also organize several collaboration events i've got summits open currently i've got bundles open currently. 

19:25 You can, I've got a link alongside this presentation which will share with you what's currently open. You can also sign up as well so you don't even need to join my main emailing list you can join up a list where I literally just share upcoming events open for collaboration. So you can keep in the loop and grow through my collaboration event. All right, well, that is the end of my presentation. I hope that you are now feeling inspired to go and grow from somebody else's the hoodie and go and collaborate. 

20:00 I hope you enjoy the rest of the summit. We still have one more day left after today and I'm excited for it. All right, thank you goodbye.