Teach to Reach: Sure-shot Way to Create & Reach Your Audience

Aug 17, 2010 · 465 Words

What is the best way to build an audience / a following and what is the best way to keep them, grow them and turn them into customers? Teaching! Teach them why, how, what & who. Teach them what you know & believe. When I say teaching, I don't mean a classroom situation where teaching tells you 'the truth' and expects you to believe it and questioning it is annoying & stupid. Teaching means sharing, telling stories, inspiring (not motivating) them to do something remarkable - inspiring them to be best. This all is about building trust & relationship, once that is in place your audience will be your customers too. Use blog, twitter, newsletter for this purpose - teach, share and add value to their lives. There is no better way of marketing. It's viral, it's loved and people pay attention, they advocate for you.

"...teaching is a mutual experience."

[Off-topic: Btw, did you join the Secret Notes newsletter?]

Some brands & people who teach to reach:

37 Signals

If you are a designer, you know how awesome their blog - Signal vs Noise is. They share their day-to-day learning and why behind their decisions. Will I ever doubt their product? No!

Blogussion

Alex, 17 years old owner, writes 5 posts every week teaching something new about blogging every day. His newsletter teaches you all his learning about blogging. The trust he built-in blogging and thesis theme community led to a successful launch of his thesis skin.

Pearsonified & DIY Themes

I never thought I will use Thesis theme framework for WordPress. It never made any sense to me. But just reading a few articles on Chris Pearson's blog had so much impact on me that I ended up using thesis on all my WordPress sites.

Seth Godin

He churns out blog posts, books, free ebooks, videos, interviews and endless stuff - teaching us all he knows and believes. And you know how strong his following is, his books sell like hot cakes.

DIY Teaching

Get a blog if you don't already have one. Write posts, at least once a week, teaching them what you learned. If you didn't learn anything - make it up, crack jokes. Make it human.
Get a twitter account if you don't already have one. Follow your industry leaders and start tweeting what you learned, articles you loved, and some random updates.
Don't miss any opportunity to teach & learn - teaching is a mutual experience. If there are no opportunities create them! Do webinars, podcasts, travel!

Whom are you teaching today? You can start with me.

Photo by Gavin Tapp

You are reading a post that I wrote a long time back—at least 14 years ago. Take it with a bag of salt.