Transcripts
1. Introduction: One of my favorite quotes is the only thing
that is stopping you is you going through this class will unlock a lot of confidence. You will be able to
really relate to your audience and be confident that what you're saying online, through your
marketing and through your messaging is really
connecting to your audience. I'm Isis Briana. I'm a content creator, an author, a creative
marketing consultant. I help entrepreneurs really
understand who they are, unleash their creativity, and create a one
of a kind brand. This class is going to help you understand how you
want to show up online. I'll hope you get clear
on your target audience and you'll understand who
your ideal client is. We'll also do some
exercises to help you understand your brand messages,
position and promise. And you'll be able to choose your channels and
show up confidently. This class is for the person who doesn't really understand
what makes them unique. They know that they want to
connect with their audience. They know that they want to be different and they're
not really sure how. Once you get clarity, you will see your business
skyrocket in many ways. Not just with community but also with social media
growth, with sales. Thank you for joining my class today and if you're
ready to understand who your audience is and master your message,
let's get started.
2. Understand Your Audience : Welcome to class again. I am Isis Briana and I'm so excited to teach this
class to you today because target audience and understanding your audience
is very, very important. When I first started
my business, I was a little bit lost. I didn't understand
what I was saying, I didn't understand
who I was talking to, and I really didn't
know how to sell. Over time, I was able to understand that
intimacy and community, and relationships were the heart of every single business. Once I understood
that I was able to connect to my
audience in a new way, it made it easier
for me to sell, to understand what to
write in my own book. It made it easier to go
on stages and speak and come up with
different topics and create offers and
products and services. So my hope today is
that you're able to not only understand
who your audience is, but you're also able to
understand how to relate with them and how to create products and services
with them in mind. Any audience that you have
in the digital world, whether that be one person
or 1 million people, you can still connect with them. With this class, going
through this class will unlock a lot of confidence. You will be able to
really relate to your audience and be confident that what you're saying online, through your
marketing and through your messaging is really
connecting to your audience. To understand your audience, you have to understand
target audience, your target segments,
and your ideal client. Those are three
different things, but I don't want you
to overthink it. Your target audience is your overall group of people
that you're talking to. They are your main client. Within your target audience, you have target segments. Those segments are smaller
groups of your audience who are connected by
similar characteristics, interest or different traits. And then within your
target segments, you now have your ideal client. Your ideal client is
like your best friend. It's the person that
you can connect with the most and that
you can really serve. Let's take one of my
clients for example. Wosaw Bride is a
wellness brand that creates wellness planning
journals for brides to be. Now they have different segments within that target audience. One of their segments
is DIY brides, or Do it Yourself brides, the ones who want to plan their entire wedding themselves. Another one of their segments
is money conscious brides. They're the budgeting brides who want to save money
on their wedding. Within their target segment, they have their ideal client. Their ideal client is
a bright to be who values peace and wants to have a stress free planning process. When Wu saw Bride first hired
me to consult for them, they didn't know how to
connect with their audience. They didn't know who they were speaking to and they
didn't know what to say. They knew that they wanted
to work with brides to be, but they didn't
understand there were different audiences within
that target audiences that they could
really connect with. And because of that, they
were a little slow on sales. After working with me and really getting to understand
who their audience was, they were able to have $50,000 in revenue within seven months. And they also grew
on social media by 6,000 followers during
that same time period. And you may be in the same boat, you may have a
general understanding of who your target audience is. But now's your chance
to get clear on who your target segments are and
who your ideal client is. Once you get clear on
your target audience, your target segments
and your ideal client, you'll be able to connect with your audience in a new way. And that'll lead to so many
different opportunities. If you haven't already, I invite you to download
the workbook, print it off, and take notes. If you're like me and love
jotting down ideas and notes. And we'll walk through
this together. Join me in the next lesson. And we're going to
start working to get clear on your
target audience, your target segments,
and your ideal client.
3. Build Your Promise: In this lesson, we're
going to work through your brands messaging
position and promise. Once you have these
three things, you'll be able to have
a clear brand strategy. And that's important because
your customers, clients, and consumers really need
a clear brand strategy to have trust in you and
trust leads to sales. Your brand message is an overall story that
your business tells. It's important to note
that your message is typically felt and not said. Your brand's position is the
thing that makes you unique. Your clients and your customers can usually identify it and they use it to decide whether they're going to work with your
business or another business. Your brand's promise is a commitment that you're
making to your audience, to your clients, or
to your customers. It's the thing that everyone
can count on you to deliver. No matter where you are
in your business or how many people you
have in your audience. Your audience is going to buy from you once they
feel connected with you. Before we go into building out your brand's messaging positioning
statement and promise, I want you to get
clear on what's important to you and what
you want to be known for. So think about those things and then we're going
to get right into it. Let's walk through
a few questions you should be
asking yourself and answering to get clear on your brands message,
positioning and promise. The first one is, what do
you want to be known for? What is that one thing that you want people to
be saying about you? The next question is, what is the unique value or benefit
that my business can bring? What's something that makes me different than my competitors? The next question
is, what core values and beliefs does my
business represent? For example, one of my
core values is community. Community is very
important to me because I remember how it felt to start my business
and feel lonely, like I didn't have support. And now I make sure
that I embed that in my business so that people don't have to feel the same way. The next question is, what
emotions or feelings do I want my clients or customers
to associate with my brand? For me, I love for my
clients to feel free, feel loved, and feel welcome to be themselves
and authentic. The next question is, how does my brand align with
my audience wishes? For example, my audience wishes to build a
one of a kind brand. So I create unique content that inspires and empowers
them to do the same. Having clarity on
your brand's message, position and promise
makes it easy for you to articulate what you do and why people
should work with you. It also helps when you're
trying to create content for social media or any
other channels online. I now want you to
take some time to reflect on these
questions and use these questions to build on your brand's message,
positioning and promise. I want to share two
examples with you. I'll share my personal
brand example and one of a fictional
video editor. So my brand's message
is that I help entrepreneurs fall back in love with their life
and their business. My positioning is that I am a Harvard certified anti hostal culture
creative consultant that helps purpose
driven entrepreneurs build a one of a kind brand. My brand's promise is to
help you build a one of a kind brand that
allows you to show up authentically and
skyrocket your business. Now let's have another example. And if you're a video editor or you work in video editing, this may be very
helpful for you. If you're a video editor, your brand message
could be that you transform visions
into masterpieces. Your position could
be that you are a skilled video editor that has a sharp eye for detail and you're very keen
on storytelling. And your promise could
be that you deliver exceptional video
editing that turns your client's visions into
cinematic masterpieces. Now let's build
your brand message, position, statement,
and promise. Starting with your message, I want you to think
about what is the main thing you
want to be known for. What is it that you want
people to be saying about you when you're building out
your positioning statement? I want you to consider what you want people to refer you for. What are your main skills? What are the things that you are absolutely exceptional at? And when you're building
out your brand's promise, I want you to consider
something that you can actually deliver here. You don't want to over promise, You don't want to tell
people that you're going to help them
make $1 million or you don't want to tell
people that you're going to make them the next president
of the United States. I want you to be realistic and think about something
that you can promise to deliver every
single time as you're writing out your brand's
message, position, and promise. I want you to ask
those around you what they think about your
brand and your business. Typically your clients,
your customers, or even your friends or
family can give you an idea of what they refer you for
or what you're known for. You can even ask
on social media or via e mail what people
chose to work with you for. How they decided to make
their buying decision, or what they love most
about your brand. Don't overthink this process. Don't overthink
showing up online and really doing inner work
to understand who you are, what you enjoy, and what
authentic means to you. Meet me in the next lesson
where you'll learn how to use your brand's message
position and promise to connect with your
audience across different channels
and platforms.
4. Choose Your Channels: It's easy to get
overwhelmed when thinking about all the channels you
can promote your business on. But by the end of this lesson, you'll choose two platforms
where you'll feel really good to create and share your long form and
short form content. Luckily, being online
and digital marketing includes a bunch of different
platforms and channels. So it's not just social media. You can have your own
private community that you host via substack or e mail. It can be a text
message community. Before choosing your channels, you really want to understand
your target audience. Specifically their preferences and their online behaviors. There's a few ways that
you can figure out what your target audience wants and
what they're doing online. One of my favorite ways
is social listening, and this is really easy to do. You're basically
paying attention to what people are
saying online, especially about your
brand or similar brands. You can do this by seeing
what people are saying in the comment sections of your company or another
company's social media channels. Another way to understand your target audience is to watch your competitors
presence online. Pay attention to the ads they're running or the content
that they're creating. You also want to pay attention
to how their audience is perceiving the products or the services that they're
putting out in the market. I'd also suggest to
pay attention to the pain points that your
competitors decide to target. Another way to get to
know your target audience is to conduct audience surveys. You may have done this a
little bit when you were getting clear on your
message and position. And promise you can use different platforms like
Google Forms type form or Survey Monkey to ask
open ended questions to your audience and really understand their wants,
needs and desires. In essence, you're
doing research to figure out what
conversations are being had on what channels and what channels you should use to connect with
your audience. Before choosing what
channels you want to be on, you want to make
sure that channel is suitable and sustainable. You can decide if
you're compatible with the channel based on your
goals and its features. For example, Clubhouse is a social media channel
that is audio based. But it's not suitable for creators like
photographers who also need to showcase their work and connect with their
audience through visuals. I like to conceptualize channels
into three main buckets. Visual audio and written. As you're doing your
research, I challenge you to use the workbook
to visit each of these channels and choose what's best for your
company based on what type of content
you're creating and what channels your audience
are most present on. And to save time and not have to look at every channel
in the world, I want you to think
about what type of content your business
should be creating. For example, if you're a writer, you'll probably lean more towards the written
category of channels. You may want to pay attention
to platforms like Twitter. If you're a photographer, you want to lean towards
the visual channels. So maybe you're looking into
Pinterest or Instagram. And if you're a poet, you
may want to consider leaning into both visual and
audio platforms. So maybe you want to have a
podcast and be on Youtube. Again, I don't want you to
overthink this process. Think about two channels
that you can choose to put your long form and
short form content on. For example, if you're
a videographer, you're going to naturally
lean into visual platforms. But then I want you to think
about where you can put your long form and your
short form content. You may want to use Youtube for your long form content if you're creating videos that are
maybe 5 minutes or more, And you may want to
use Instagram for your short form content
so that you can share short snippets that are
90 seconds or less. If you're wondering
how many channels and platforms you should
use to create content, I always say that the
sky is the limit, but I want you to consider this. How many channels can
you actually sustain? You want to make
sure that you have at least one main channel where you can connect
with your audience. And it also suggest
having a platform pair where you can easily take content and put it
on another channel. For example, you can
take your Instagram Ls and use them as Tiktok videos. After that, you can be on as
many channels as you want, but you want to make
sure that you're able to sustain it and create
content consistently. But for now, let's reel it in. I want you to choose two
channels where you can put your long form and
short form content. And from there, in
our next lesson, we're going to talk
about how to apply your message across your
channels that you chose.
5. Apply Messaging Across Channels: Now let's dive into applying your message across the
channels that you chose. When you align your
brand's message with the unique characteristics
of each platform, you're able to
increase engagement and create a unique
branded experience. When you're creating content for various platforms and channels, you want to make sure that your brand personality
shines through. Here's where you want to
master your brand voice. I have a and list for my brand voice and I
suggest you do the same. For example, one of my
goals with my brand voice is to consistently
empower my audience. On my do list, I have to
always focus on solutions, but I don't want to give unrealistic expectations
and promises. Another example on my list
is to be action focused. But on my don't list, I want to make sure
that I'm not ignoring my audience's challenges and problems that they're currently
facing in their lives. When you're creating
your own brand voice, do and don't list. You want to focus on how you
want your audience to feel. How do you want them
to feel when they engage with your brand or when they buy a product or a
service, for example. If you want your audience
to feel confident, then I want you to list examples of what will make your audience, consumers or clients
feel confident. Maybe you're using motivational
words in your captions, in your E mails, or in your ads. I want you to create your
own do and don't list. And now that we know what stays the same across each channel, I now want to go into what
changes on each channel. Your brand, voice, and your do and don't list
is going to stay consistent across all
platforms and all channels. It's the one thing that's
going to guide how you connect with your audience and how do you speak to them. You've now mastered
your messaging, created a consistent
brand voice, and chosen your channels. But each channel has its
own set of best practices. So how do we adapt
your brand message to fit different platforms? Well, let's use our
imaginary videographer, Fran, as an example. Again, remember our videographer
Fran's brand message is to transform visions
into masterpieces. So on visual platforms
like Youtube or Instagram, that videographer may show how they can transform
a vision into a creative masterpiece by highlighting their
client work examples. Or client case studies on
written platforms like e mail marketing platforms
or substack for example. That same videographer may give their potential
clients a look into their brain by creating
an article that shares how they come up with
their own creative ideas. And on audio channels like
clubhouse or podcast, that same videographer may host educational conversations
that empowers their audience to creatively think and turn their own
visions into reality. And the next lesson we're
going to get clear on your content pillars and how to implement this in
your own business.
6. Design a Content Creation System: Now that you know what channels you will be creating content on, let's create a
content system that simplifies your content
creation process. The first step in creating your content creation process is identifying your
content pillars. Content pillars are
your overarching theme or topics that guide your
online conversations. Content pillars can
also be described as the main theme that your
audience knows you for. They help you stay consistent
and make sure that your brand message aligns
with your audience's needs. My personal content pillars and the topics that guide my
brand are productivity, creativity, and
marketing strategy. If you don't know what your
own content pillars are, I want you to do a little
bit of self reflection. What are your values? What
do you want to be known for? And what message do you
want your brand to tell? You can also conduct
customer surveys through platforms like survey, monkey or type form. You want to ask your audience leading questions to
figure out what they feel is valuable about your brand or why they
decide to work with you. These can help you identify your content pillars and make content creation a lot easier. If you're just starting
with content pillars or you don't have an audience that
you feel like you can survey. I want you to do some
self reflection. What are the things that
really set you on fire? What topics do you
want to talk about? What do you want
to be known for? These can be the basis of your
content pillars until you start having an audience that
you can survey and talk to. I always suggest that you have three to five content pillars. Having less than
three content pillars limits the variety of
content that you can create. But having more than
five can create a scattered brand message
and confuse your audience. And then they won't know
what you stand for. When choosing your
content pillars, I don't want you
to limit yourself. Create a long list of
everything that comes to mind and then choose three
that you can start with. Step two of creating your
content creation system is turning those content pillars
into actual content ideas. I always like to tell my clients that questions can
become content. So when you don't know what type of content you should create, you can always answer the questions that
your audience has. The problem is your audience doesn't always know what
questions they should ask. And this is where your
content pillars come in handy to come up
with content ideas, I suggest that you visit
your content pillars at least every two
to three months, so that you refresh your brain and understand what your
content pillars are. Then you want to
create key topics under each content pillar. For example, one of my content pillars is
marketing strategy. Some key topics that I
can talk about under marketing strategy include
data and analytics, target audience, and
brand messaging. Once you have your keypoints, then you can think
of questions that your audience may be asking. My audience may ask, how can I connect my own target audience? From there? That gives
me the content idea. To create a case study
where I highlight a brand that built a strong community
with their target audience. Repeat this process
as many times as you need to create as many
content ideas as you need. Once you have a bunch
of content ideas, we can then create
your content calendar. A content calendar is
a schedule that helps you plan and organize
your content ideas. And they're not just for
social media managers. Content calendars are
great for any person, whether they're busy or
procrastinator, or goal oriented. Whoever wants to have a streamlined content
creation process needs a content calendar. To create your content calendar, you should first decide how often you want to
publish content. I don't believe that
there's a set number of days that you
should post each week. But I do believe that you
should be consistent, even if you're not
constantly creating. The key here is to make
sure that you're visible. You want to be top of mind
when your audience is choosing who and where they want to
buy from in your workbook. I want you to reflect on
what's sustainable for you. I don't want you to commit to posting seven or
ten times a week. If that's something
that you can't realistically commit to choose a cadence that feels right for you and something that
you can do consistently. Speaking of staying consistent, I love to batch create content. Batch creating is
when you create multiple pieces of content at one time and it helps you stay consistent with
your content schedule. I don't believe that
you should batch create all of the
content that you need. I suggest that you create 50% of the content
that you plan to post. For example, if you're going
to post 30 times a month, then I suggest you
create 15 pieces of content during your
batch creation process. This allows you to keep
up with trends and not get overwhelmed by all the
content you have to create. When I batch create content, I like to create content
that is evergreen. Evergreen simply means that it's something that's timeless. It's not attached to a trend. And I can use this content over and over again
if I need to. The reason I like to do
this is because as you're maneuvering through channels and social media and platforms, different trends will pop up. There are trending sounds, trending ideas, different
things that you can do. And you don't want to be too attached to your
content calendar, where if you do need to act
on a trend for your business, that it throws off
your content calendar. It's really helpful for me to focus on only creating 50% of my content so that I still have the flexibility to
show up online, be creative, and let the fun
part of social media happen. You've now identified
your content pillars and you came up
with content ideas. You have a content calendar and your batch creating content. And that's great, but
how do we sustain this? I suggest that you create your own content
creation workflow and it depends on what's best
for you and your schedule. Usually, I'll batch
create my content the first week of each month. On Mondays, that's when
I'm generating my ideas. I'm revisiting my content
pillars and I'm thinking about all the content I
can create on Tuesdays. I'm outlining those ideas. I'm deciding if I
want them to be carousel, post on Instagram, or if I want them to be e mail marketing newsletters,
the choice is yours. On Wednesday to Friday, I'm actually creating
that content. One thing that I love
to do is to create content based on the platforms
that I'm going to be on. For example, Wednesday, I may create content
for Instagram. On Thursday I may create content
for my email newsletter. And on Friday I may create
content for Tiktok. And then on Saturday,
I'm editing and scheduling all the content
that I created for the week, and I'm good for
the entire month. Now it's your turn.
Here's your homework. I want you to go into
your workbook and create your own content
creation workflow. You can create a workflow
that's similar to mine, or you can create something
that's best for you. Again, keep your schedule
in mind and create something that you can actually sustain and be consistent with. You'll also see
my favorite tools and resources in your workbook. I want you to use those to create content
easily and simply. You can create a content system
that looks best for you. I like to create my content the first week of each month because I like new
beginnings each month. I also have the flexibility
to create for an entire week, but your schedule
could be different. You may choose to batch create one weekend out of the month or use each of your weekends. You may also choose to
batch create content throughout the entire month
and use an hour every night, Monday through Friday to create content. The
choice is yours. Again, I want you to create something that feels good to you and that works
with your schedule no matter what you decide. I want you to have
a system in place. When you have a
system, it makes it easy to stay consistent and you don't have to worry
about interruptions between when you
publish content. If you're publishing content
one day and then you take a huge gap and you don't post
content again for a month. It's hard for your
audience to trust you. Follow along with you and
want to buy from you. So create a system that
makes sense for you, but something that's consistent
that your audience can also fall in love with and
engage with on the daily. There are tons of content
creation tools and resources that you can
use in your workbook. I shared some of my
favorites like Canva, which makes it easy to create
social media templates. I want you to go through
that list and then share in the discussion forum what your favorite tools and
resources were. Also, if you love any tools or resources that you don't
see on my favorite list, I want you to share them in
the discussion board because it'll help everyone who's
also taking this class.
7. Final Thoughts : Congratulations, you have
finished this class, but now it's time for you to implement everything
that you've learned about building
your brand message and creating a content strategy. I want you to set a firm date on when you're going to launch
your first piece of content. And I also want to see it. So take a screenshot of the
first piece of content you published after
taking this class and upload it to the
project gallery. And if you're really brave, I want you to tag me on
social media in that post. You can tag me at I, S, I, S, B, R, E, A, N, N, A or
at Isis, Brigada. After mastering
your messaging and creating a customized
system for yourself, you'll now be able to remove the pressures and the
stress from social media. You now can show
up authentically in a way that feels
good for you. There's nothing else holding
you back but yourself. Now, I want you to
challenge yourself. Continue to show up and
believe that you can do it. I want to see the amazing
content you create and I want to see how you show up authentically for yourself. I know it can be a bummer or
feel frustrating when you're creating content and maybe you're not getting
likes or comments. But I want to tell you what
I tell all of my clients. Create for yourself. First, creating content
that feels good to you and things that you want
to share with the world. It makes it a lot easier to maneuver all the ups and
downs of social media. Eventually, you'll
start attracting the audience that
feels good for you, the audience that feels like a family and feels
like a community. And if you love this class
or found it helpful, then I invite you to join my
other class on skill share. And that class,
we'll talk all about lead magnets and landing pages so that you can make more sales. Thank you so much for
joining my class. I'll see you later and I can't wait to see all of the
content you create.
Isis Breanna, Marketing Consultant, Author
