Forget chasing followers! This episode dives into the secret sauce of building genuine connections with your audience. Learn how to share your values, hobbies, and shared experiences on your content to cultivate loyal fans who become paying customers! Stay tuned!
Forget chasing followers! This episode dives into the secret sauce of building genuine connections with your audience. Learn how to share your values, hobbies, and shared experiences on your content to cultivate loyal fans who become paying customers! Stay tuned!
Welcome back to the Business Launch Podcast. I'm your host, camille Leanne Jimenez and Familia. If you are not leveraging content connection points to actually move the needle in your content marketing and move people from just being followers into being buyers, you're going to love this episode because I'm going to show you how do you actually build deep connections with your audience. How do you get them to feel like everything that you create is specifically for them? How do you get them excited and motivated to like, read your emails and watch your videos and click on your social media posts? These are such important factors that we all need to master as marketers, and today's lesson is actually coming directly at you from the Marketing Success Path 2.0 that we have inside of the Business Lounge membership.
Speaker 1:
So this is one of the foundational videos that we take everyone through, especially when you are in the growth stage. You're going to want to tune in because it's going to be really good. I'm going to show you three very unique ways in which you can build connection points intentionally, deliberately and purposefully, as you create and craft content that connects with your audience and leads them to become customers. Okay, we're just not going to do it. We're not going to create content that does not lead to more customers, because then what's the point? So excited to dive in, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Business Lounge Podcast, where each week, we unpack the hottest online marketing and business strategies so you can grow your business, increase your bottom line and make a bigger impact. And now here's your host, kimberly Ann Jimenez.
Speaker 1:
So let's talk about creating content, connection points, building the relationship with your audience. One of the ways that I love illustrating this point is by telling you a little story about the time I totally failed at my content marketing strategy. It was not fun. Let me tell you it was not fun. Here's what happened. I was working really hard to grow my agency and once upon a time you know little Kim had a social media marketing agency. We had a ton of clients, things were rocking and rolling, but I was trying to put my content out there as much as I could, and so I use YouTube and a blog and I was being pretty consistent. I was able to grow my email list to about seven to 8,000 people and naturally, people started asking hey, do you have a course, do you have a program, something that we can actually learn more of? You know from you of this whole content marketing thing.
Speaker 1:
I didn't at the time, and so it was something that was sitting in the back of my head for a long time and I didn't pursue it initially because I felt like you know, I didn't know what I was talking about. Lots of imposter syndrome. I was like who am I to teach a course, you know all that head junk that often keeps us stuck for a ridiculous amount of time. That is usually unnecessary. Long story short, I have an incredible husband who was constantly, at every step, supporting and encouraging and just I call it relentless encouragement, because that's exactly what Chris has done my entire career. And so at that point, he kept telling me listen, babe, like you were good enough, you're smart enough, you can teach this stuff. People are asking for it. So I decided to take the plunge and create the course, but I didn't have a lot of time, so I decided to actually go ahead and fire a bunch of my clients Terrible idea, by the way, but I did fire a bunch of my clients. Terrible idea, by the way, but I did fire a bunch of my clients. So I had enough time and I spent four months putting together this huge program called Zilch to Social. Now, some of you guys remember that program and you found me through it. But, my goodness, did I not put my sweat and tears into that program?
Speaker 1:
Launch day came, I decided to put together a free training and I was going to pitch the program at the end, and so 400 people showed up live. It was such a cool success. I was teaching, things were diving, people were having aha moments. I even asked Chris to help me host it because I was so nervous to do it myself, and then I pitched my little heart out to only get three sales. I can't tell you how heartbreaking that moment was. I did the ugly cry and wanted to just pout and lock myself in the closet and hide for at least two more months. I didn't, of course. Unfortunately, one of the three people asked for a refund, and that was just making matters worse.
Speaker 1:
But I learned a lot in that season, and I had to get some coaching and some help from some people that had been where I was, had broken through that massive obstacle and could teach me how to actually grow a profitable business and launch. You know the course Little did. I know that I would have picked myself up again, worked my buns off and, a few months later, launched this very program, the Business Lounge. This time, though, we had 80 people join us for the first round, and six months after that, we hit our first six figures. About 12 months after that, we hit our first half a million, and then, about a year and a half after that, we hit our first million dollar year, so I had no idea that actually getting back up trying again, figuring out what I needed to figure out would make such a massive difference, and that's why I'm such a proponent.
Speaker 1:
Guys, if you fail, if things are not working, if you have tried things in the past, if you have been in a place of discouragement, if you have put something out in the world that people asked you for and then no one bought, do not be discouraged. In fact, a lot of times we learn more from our failures than we do our successes. That was the case for me, and you never know when you can actually be at that place of breakthrough where, if you just try one more thing, tweak something in your strategy, change your messaging, show up consistently, talk to people in a different way, how that can absolutely explode your business. We have seen that time and time again in the business lounge and in our own businesses. I can tell you so many other similar stories that I probably will in the podcast at some point about how we had the exact same thing happen in the moving company, and so we learned this really important thing, and that is relationships, relationships, relationships.
Speaker 1:
People like to do business with people that they like, know and trust, and those are three critical points that you need to learn how to infuse into your content marketing if you're going to actually be able to sell to the people that you are attracting. This is the one thing that most people miss out on, and I have seen influencers and massive, like super celebrity entrepreneurs have this problem all the time, where they build large audiences but they have no connection with those audiences, and so we're living in a time right now where brands have picked up on this and they're no longer interested in working with any creator, any business, any influencer that does not have a relationship with their audience, and so we're seeing the shifts right now where a ton of the brand deals the millions and millions of dollars that brands would be willing to pay out to celebrity influencers, they're now being redirected to micro influencers and nano influencers, people who have smaller audiences but have a tight knit connection with their community, and so I really want to encourage you to start creating these connection points in your content that will lead to community, that will lead to relationship, to community, that will lead to relationship. And so, now that I have set the stage for you and talked about the importance of creating relationship and connection. Let's talk about how to actually do that, and so there's three main ways in which you can pepper in some opportunities to create connection points. The first one is learning how to talk about your values.
Speaker 1:
People tend to connect with three individual aspects of our personalities or our businesses. One is values, number two is shared experiences and number three are personal interests. Now, you don't have to have all three, but ideally you would, and this is why it's so important that if you are running a brand where you don't have, you know, that personal touch, that human touch, where you are the face of the company, you need to really figure out how you're going to build content connection points, and you can do that by talking about your values. What do you stand for? What is it that you actually care about?
Speaker 1:
For us, a huge connection point is our faith, and so we openly talk about our faith. We're not necessarily, like in your face, preachy about it, but people know, right, they just know we have. We share Bible verses. We will talk about, like, how God is blessing us in the business. We will share our testimony. We will share, like, our failures and how God was there in those moments, um, we will have Christian music playing at the beginning of our live events and so little things like that. People resonate because we share our values. So maybe for you it could be that you really care about a specific cause or you really care about a specific um. You know community and so talking about that is really helpful. It creates again that content connection point where someone resonates with what you're sharing. Now you're more than just another business, another company. Now there is that personal connection with what you are actually sharing.
Speaker 1:
Now, the second example of doing this is through shared experiences, and Chris always loves to talk about a really cool um experience in the moving company. That taught him about um personal and shared experiences, and this is something he learned from his dad, who was a salesperson. So we were at a conference for like a national student housing conference event, and so a bunch of the student housing manufacturers who were creating and developing all of these furniture pieces that we wanted to install and wanted to get hired to install were there, and so Chris could not talk to this one and he can talk to everybody, but he could not get this one furniture manufacturer to actually talk to him and it was the head of the company and he kept approaching him and just kind of kept getting shut down, kept getting shut down, and so at the end of the conference he decided to go back one more time and he tells this story better than me. So he decided to go one more time and he just started talking to the guy about something that he thought he might actually enjoy. And so he started asking him like what were his pastimes. And he started telling him oh, you know, I love skiing and here's a picture of my family. We want a ski trip, you know, however, long ago, and we had so much fun, and so Chris loves skiing as a kid, and so that was a cool shared experience for them. And he started talking to him about skiing and they just they just hit it off and you know, they had that moment of connection and they just kept talking about, you know, slopes and all the different I don't know what they're called. I haven't gone skiing. You know it's a diamond this and diamond that. And at the end Chris didn't mention anything about, you know, talking to him later or getting hired by his company. He just let it go and let him know hey, like it was awesome talking to you and as he was leaving he was like, hey, I'd like to talk to you about what we could do together, and he gave him a call later that day and we closed our first deal. So it's so powerful to have these content connection moments with your audience, and especially when you can't talk to them one-on-one.
Speaker 1:
So what are some shared experiences that you know other people might find helpful? Maybe you are a stay-at-home mom and you have the occasional you know temper tantrum to deal with as you're on a zoom call, talking about what you go through as a mom or talking about you know how much you enjoy motherhood, how much you enjoy being a working mom or a stay-at-home mom. Those are shared experiences that your audience might also have. You could also have the shared experience of just enjoying a particular activity. You know, maybe you just really enjoy yoga, or you like reading the Bible, or you love volunteering. Having some shared experiences, things that allow you to connect with people, is so important. I cannot tell you how many times people have wrote in and said I bought from you not just because I love what you do, but because you're a believer, or I bought from you not just because of you know all the helpful information that you share, but because you understand what it is to speak a second language in a different country. So those shared experiences bring us together and help us feel seen, related not related, but able to relate and also understood.
Speaker 1:
The last one is a shared interest, and sometimes the shared experience and the shared interest is similar. Right, we talked about snow skiing, and so maybe that's an interest or a hobby of yours and that's a really cool connection point, but it doesn't have to be so. Keep that in mind, don't get in your head about it, and maybe you have some cool interests that that you can also share. For example, I love tea. Everyone on our podcast knows that I love tea because I talk about tea. I usually have a nice steamy, hot cup of tea when it's not the summer and it's 110 degrees in Texas, but I'll have a cup of tea and I will talk about what I'm drinking that day, and I can't tell you how many people send me tea. This like gourmet box of tea arrived last Christmas from one of our clients and it was the most gorgeous gift ever. It was beautiful, but it's a known thing, right? So maybe you love coffee, or you love fashion, or you love um crafting, or you really enjoy um let's see playing tennis or basketball.
Speaker 1:
I know for a fact that a lot of people have connection points with Chris because he talks about the fact that he likes wrestling, something that he doesn't always tell everyone, but he has a lot of connection points from people who feel the same way, and so you do not have to make this a centerpiece of your content, but you can have some opportunities where you talk about it. So maybe, like you share the score of your favorite team on Instagram stories, or you talk about the fact that you are having like me, you know your favorite beverage as you're about to jump that you are having like me, you know your favorite beverage as you're about to jump on a zoom call, or as you're about to talk to a client, maybe you talk about your love of books and how much you love reading and you share some recommendations of books that people can also read. How are you connecting with people right now? Is there something that you're sharing beyond your theme or main topic that allows them to see you as a real person and helps them connect with you? So your homework for this step is to list at least three connection points that you can be sharing in your content. They do not need to be in each category. They could all be in the shared experience bucket, they could all be in the interest bucket or they can all be in the values bucket. But really decide what are your three things that you're going to be peppering into your content when you have the opportunity to build that personality and that relationship into what you do.
Speaker 1:
I hope that you enjoyed it. I hope that you feel more confident, more excited. Leave me questions in the comments below or, if you're listening to the podcast, text us. Did you know we have fan mail now? It's so awesome. You literally just on your favorite podcast player, look for that little highlight link at the beginning of the episode description that says text me a question and you can text us a question. We featured here on the next episode. I hope that you enjoyed it. I love you, un beso. I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.
