Build an audience

All companies have customers. Lucky companies have fans. But the most

fortunate companies have audiences. An audience can be your secret weapon.

A lot of businesses still spend big bucks to reach people. Every time they want

to say something, they dip into their budgets, pull out a huge wad of cash, and

place some ads. But this approach is both expensive and unreliable. As they say,

you waste half of your ad budget--you just don't know which half.

Today's smartest companies know better. Instead of going out to reach people,

you want people to come to you. An audience returns often--on its own--to see

what you have to say. This is the most receptive group of customers and

potential customers you'll ever have.

Over the past ten years, we've built an audience of more than a hundred

thousand daily readers for our Signal vs. Noise blog. Every day they come back

to see what we have to say. We may talk about design or business or software or

psychology or usability or our industry at large. Whatever it is, these people are

interested enough to come back to hear more. And if they like what we have to

say, they'll probably also like what we have to sell.

How much would it cost us to reach those hundred thousand people every day

the old-fashioned way? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? And how would we

have done it? Running ads? Buying radio spots? Sending direct mail?

When you build an audience, you don't have to buy people's attention--they

give it to you. This is a huge advantage.

So build an audience. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos--whatever. Share

information that's valuable and you'll slowly but surely build a loyal audience.

Then when you need to get the word out, the right people will already be

listening