137: The #1 Thing You Can Do To Build Your Audience With Action Takers
In this episode, content strategist, Britney Gardner, shares valuable insights on how to create actionable, measurable content plans for business owners who are past the early stage and well into the entrepreneurial middle class phase. She emphasizes the importance of creating "action taker content" that encourages engagement and prompts the audience to take a specific action. Britney provides tips on building an audience of action takers by acknowledging their pain and providing concrete next steps. She also advises on tracking action-taking metrics to measure the success of content and offers a free gift for repurposing content. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone looking to engage their audience and drive real results.
Specifically, we discuss:
The difference between an action taker, lookie lou, and a friend
The missing piece in most people’s content plan that calls in action takers
The best ways to measure action-taker content
Summary:
In a recent episode of the Course Creator's MBA Podcast, content strategist Britney Gardner offered valuable insights into creating actionable, measurable content plans for business owners who are beyond the early stage and well into the entrepreneurial middle class phase. Drawing on her experience as a photographer turned content strategist, Britney emphasized the importance of creating "action taker content" that encourages engagement and prompts the audience to take a specific action, such as commenting or sharing.
The key to building an audience with action takers is to get them to think about and acknowledge the pain that they are in, but also telling them what their next step is. For example, if a nutritionist is giving a gluten-free recipe, they should also acknowledge the pain that the audience is experiencing and give them a concrete next step, such as removing certain items from their pantry.
Britney stressed that the missing piece in people's content plan that really pulls in or calls in or calls out to those action takers is thinking. Most times when people are putting valuable content out there, they're giving their audience a recipe or something valuable, but they're not giving them the reason why they need to take action.
To measure the success of action taker content, she recommends tracking action-taking metrics, such as clicks and shares, rather than vanity metrics like likes and comments, as they indicate a higher level of interest and engagement from the audience. She also advises giving content a second chance by tweaking the format or opening line before retiring it completely if it doesn't perform as well as expected.
For those looking to repurpose their content, Britney offers a free gift called the Show Up Playbook, which provides a guide for creating up to 31 different types of content from a single piece, tailored to different content creation preferences.
In conclusion, Britney's insights on creating actionable, measurable content plans provide valuable guidance for business owners who want to engage their audience and encourage concrete steps towards improving their business. By focusing on thinking and providing concrete next steps, as well as tracking action-taking metrics, businesses can create content that resonates with action takers and drives real results.
Mentioned In This Episode
Where you can find Britney: Website and Instagram
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Transcript:
[0:00:00] Destini Copp: You. And today my special guest is Britany Gardner. Britany is a content strategist and the host of the Know Like and Trust Show podcast and creator of the personality driven marketing method. And she helps establish multi-six figure business owners craft evergreen content. Hint that nurtures an always ready pipeline with measurable evergreen content plans. And Britany, I am super excited to chat with you today and we're going to be talking about the number one thing you can do to build your audience with action takers. And I think this is a great topic. It's something that we all are interested in, right? We want Action takers on our email list and on our social media following. So very excited to jump in to this topic with you today. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the good audience a little bit more about you and how you got started?
[0:01:09] Britney Gardner: Yeah, well, like many people out there that I've encountered at least, I have a kind of a meandering entrepreneurial path. I started as a photographer and while doing brand photography, I delivered a ton of really great quality photos to my clients, but they were like, cool, I look great, but what do I do with these? And I went back to my graphic design and branding roots and started saying, well, we could create a little mini content plan for you. And that was seven years ago or so. And from there I've kind of just really niche down further and further and further into actionable measurable content plans for business owners who are kind of beyond that early stage and well into the entrepreneurial middle class phase.
[0:01:59] Destini Copp: So I love that you started out as a brand photographer and people were just saying, I don't know what to do with these pictures. And then you kind of helped them figure out what they needed to do with them, like on social media or their websites or what exactly were you doing there?
[0:02:15] Britney Gardner: Yeah, at the time it was largely on Facebook and Instagram. That was what pretty much everyone in our world at least was doing for social media. These days, I'm more in the realm of long form content and then helping people distribute that into shorter form content on socials. But initially it was definitely just on social media. Like, I have all these photos, I know I need to show up more. Everyone talks about visibility, but what do I actually do?
[0:02:42] Destini Copp: I love it. So today we're going to be talking about the number one thing you can do to build your audience with action takers. And we definitely want action takers, but can you tell us what is the difference between an action taker and the rest of the audience building advice that is so prevalent out there?
[0:03:02] Britney Gardner: Yeah, I think any one of us can probably divide our audience into a few different categories in this one arena at least. And the main one is going to be that you're aiming for, of course, is the action takers, but then there's also going to be kind of the lucky lose. If you think about this when you're driving, these are the people who are kind of just kind of casually checking out what new shop opened up on main street as they drive by, right? And we want the people who are actually going to stop and park and go into that shop. So we have the lucky lose. We have the friend zone people and then the action takers. And I would guess for most of your listeners, you have a lot of people in that friend zone and that's kind of unfortunate, but it's also very normal that that happens. And it happens because you've been told all this time to provide value, put value in your content, help people out, and that is good. I'm not telling you to create content that is not valuable. That's not at all what I'm saying. But when we provide value without giving our audience a concrete way to choose a next step, we essentially train the not to take action. We train them just to when the come onto our account and they see the social posts that we have put up, they can get all the information that they need right there. But that puts the in kind of a crudy little spot, honestly, because they know they can get it anytime, and it doesn't give them any impetus to take action now and actually better their business with that thing that you are actually teaching. Because I'm assuming we have audience members of the same persuasion where we really do care about our clients getting results. So we need to just always kind of remember that when we provide value without an actual concrete thing that they can do next, we are training them not to do the thing that will help them.
[0:04:52] Destini Copp: And we certainly don't want to do that. And we don't want to have a bunch of people on our list or in our audience that are in that friend zone. Tell us a little bit more about those lucky lose. Are they not even in the friend zone or where do they fall in the spectrum?
[0:05:08] Britney Gardner: Yeah, so the lookyloo's are going to be the people who end up on one of your accounts somehow. Maybe it's a link from a friend, maybe someone shared a thing. Maybe it's like on Instagram, for example, like the search area. All of those things can lead people to your account. And if there's not something that hooks them in, they just kind of take a quick kind of pass through. Maybe they like two or three posts and the move on and completely forget about you. And those people have the potential to move into either the friend zone or into the action taker zone, but they need some encouragement.
[0:05:42] Destini Copp: Okay, got it. That makes complete sense. To me. So we definitely don't want to be training folks to not take action. So what would you say is the missing piece that is not in people's content plan that really kind of pulls in or calls in or calls out to those action takers? What are we missing there?
[0:06:05] Britney Gardner: Yeah, so I have a one word answer for you and then a longer one. So I'll start with the one word one. And that's thinking. Actually, it's thinking. So most times when people are putting valuable content out there, they're like, okay, my audience has this pain point. Let's use a nutritionist as an example here just so I can give some more kind of concrete information. The nutritionist is like, you are struggling with some digestive issues. Your doctor told you to go gluten free, and you're like, well, crud, what do I do now? So, hey, friend. Hey, audience member. Here is a really great gluten free recipe that you can try and you can incorporate into your life. And you as the audience member who's frankly, completely overwhelmed by this new information that you just received and also probably very annoyed. I mean, that's like a big life change, right? You see this recipe and you're like, oh, one more thing for me to do. Okay.
[0:07:04] Britney Gardner: And you just kind of keep scrolling on by. Maybe you bounce off that person's profile entirely. Maybe you do look at a few other posts, give them a second chance, but it's adding value, right? You're giving them a recipe that is valuable, but you're not giving them the reason why they need to take action. And that reason is, in this case, thinking about both the symptoms and the consequences of not taking action. So instead of just sharing a recipe, what I would recommend in this case is saying, hey, you're going gluten free for a reason. Maybe it's this or maybe it's this. If it's this first thing, which is you've got some intestinal inflammation or whatever, it's probably causing some not so fun symptoms in your life. Maybe you were late to drop your child off at school because you were in the bathroom a little longer than you intended to be. Maybe you went to a fun kind of friend gathering and realized there was nothing that you could eat there, and you immediately felt annoyed, maybe even a little bit shamed, that you had to be that person has to speak up and be like, I'm sorry, do you have anything else that's really hard for a lot of people? And these are things that we can absolutely conquer together. There's a few key things you want to change first, and this is the first thing. So that post, as opposed to just sharing a recipe, gives them some value. It's acknowledging the pain they're in. It's actually acknowledging it's not just really a big life change, but it's affecting your life in this, this or that way.
[0:08:36] Britney Gardner: And the you're saying there's a few things you're going to have to change. I know that's hard. Here is the first thing. So what we have now done for this audience member is caused them to think differently about the problem that they have. And since you have acknowledged the intricate personal pain that they're experiencing, not just the pain of the actual thing, removing gluten, but kind of some of the social symptoms that go along with it, you've already started building that no lichen trucks factor with them as that result. So they are more likely to say, all right, there's three steps she wants me to take. She's giving me the first one and they're far more likely to go and do that thing.
[0:09:17] Destini Copp: I love that. So you're really getting them to think about and acknowledge the pain that they are in, but also telling the what is their next step. So for that example that you gave us, what would you suggest, the expert? What would be the next step? Would it be to just try the recipe or is it something different? What would you recommend there?
[0:09:42] Britney Gardner: There's actually several different things you could do here and I'm going to acknowledge right here I am not a nutritionist, so if I say something wrong, please don't come with pitchforks. But the reason that particular example popped into my mind and we just had to take my five year old off dairy, gluten and eggs all at the same time. So for the record, I am in this pain. That's why I was able to give you some really good specific examples. But I would recommend off the top of my head, one of three is the first next step. One could be hey like and comment a pizza slice on this post and I'll send you a recipe that is easy for you to implement with the things you already have in your house. You don't have to go and buy anything special. So that would be one. If you want to go for a list building type action, if you want to go more for a trust building type action, I would say the first thing you're going to do is go into your pantry and you're going to remove this, this and this. That is all. That's all you have to do. It's a tiny little first step and then we can move on to the next thing. Another thing you could do if you wanted to not so much like list build but you still wanted to have some sort of way to communicate with the you could ask them to comment the hardest thing right now in their head that they have to worry about giving up. So again, some of these actions are really low lift, right? All they have to do is comment with the pizza slice.
[0:11:07] Britney Gardner: All they have to do is make a comment about the thing that's really kind of looming in their head and then once they've done that thing that's looming in their head. It's almost like a mini release all on its own. If the thing that they're really worried about is giving up pasta, for example, you can then go and reply and say, hey, I know it's not the same, but my favorite pasta substitute is this. And you can also get this at this main restaurant and this other place where it's really easy for you to now eat out as well. You've now gone and taken this huge step for them with them. So they are far more likely to take the second and third step with you since they've already seen you walk alongside them.
[0:11:48] Destini Copp: I love that. And those examples that you gave are very easy, very easy for people to take on your social media posts. I love that. And even one of them, you can still even build your email list at the same time. So it's definitely a win win there. I know that you are a fan of content measurement and we all need to be doing that right in our business. So how can we measure for this action taker content that you're walking us through here today?
[0:12:19] Britney Gardner: Yeah, so this is actually one of my favorite questions and the reason is because it's got two answers and there's easy ways to do it and then there's slightly more involved but easier ways to do it. So the easiest thing you can do is whatever social media platform you are talking about. And this will extend even into Pinterest, for example, which I don't consider a social media platform, I consider it a search platform, but it will extend even into that. And that is figuring out some way that you can automatically see which posts are getting those action taking metrics. And I'm going to do a little sidebar here if that's okay. Good action taking metrics are different than vanity metrics. So vanity metrics are going to be things, likes, comments, those kinds of things. They're really low lift on the audience members part and they will show you some interest in a post. But I have found with a lot of my clients, especially when they're talking about sensitive subjects, a couple of years ago was the first time I really, truly noticed this. I had a client who was serving wives with kind of long standing marriages, but maybe they were not thoroughly happy. They weren't considering divorce, but they weren't feeling the spark and they felt guilt and shame over it. Right. Those kinds of people are not going to go and like and comment on a whole bunch of posts about marital pain, you know what I mean? They don't want to be seen.
[0:13:44] Destini Copp: No way.
[0:13:45] Britney Gardner: Right, exactly.
[0:13:46] Destini Copp: Want other people seeing that.
[0:13:47] Britney Gardner: Yeah, they don't want to be seen as doing that because they're trying to keep up appearances and all that. So those kinds of metrics can show you some interest, but they are not the be all, end all. And that's why I like to talk about action taking metrics, which are clicks and shares. So when someone has gone through the effort of sharing a post with someone, usually they're sharing the post either to their own feed or they're sharing their post with a friend. So maybe that post didn't hit them because they're not the best client for you, but they think your friend needs to see this. That is really good intel. Same thing with clicks. And clicks are a little bit harder on Instagram, you have to kind of go in and look at how many profile clicks per post. That's one of the reasons why I recommend automating it. But every platform has a way for you to measure clicks on a post, and those clicks tell you whether people are interested in enough to take that action. So when we're talking about creating an action taking audience, it's probably not a surprise that I'm saying, let's look at the click or action taking metrics as a way to gauge that interest level.
[0:14:56] Destini Copp: I love that. That's some really good advice there, Britany. Before we wrap it up here today, do you have any last minute tips for the audience on engaging and building their audience with these action takers?
[0:15:11] Britney Gardner: Yeah. So alongside with the measurement, you're going to find sometimes that posts you were really excited about, content pieces that you were really excited about, don't look like they're performing well. And with everything I've already said here, you might think I'm going to be like, well, it was all a test, just move on. And I actually have different advice than that. My best piece of advice regarding that is, yes, we're measuring the content that we put out there because we want to make sure we're investing our time in things that actually do build our business. But sometimes it's not the post or the content that's the problem. It's just the hook or it's just the graphic that you have it associated with or the video, if you're doing video content. Right. So before you retire a message, if you will, a content piece, I always recommend, especially if you really believe in it and you really thought it was going to do well, I always recommend pairing it with either a new format or a new opening line or both before you retire that. And yes, takes a little bit of organization on your port to do that. And if you have a really good measurement system in your business, that makes all of this easier. But my goal as a content strategist is not to get people to create more content. My goal is to get you creating content that does the job for you and does some real work for your business. So I always like to give a message or a content piece a second chance, make sure that it really wasn't doing well before I say, okay, time to shift. Time to move in a different direction.
[0:16:42] Britney Gardner: Because if you've already created something, it's a lot easier to pair a new line with it or create a new graphic with it than it is to recreate the entire thing. And again, we want to live life. We want to enjoy our business, and most people aren't born marketers. So if you can make it a little bit easier on yourself along the way, I think that's important, and I.
[0:17:06] Destini Copp: Think that's some really good advice. And as you were going through and kind of talking about that, I was like, I really think I should go back to a lot of the content I've created in the past, if nothing else, just to kind of repurpose it, but look for it with those set of eyes on it. What can I do to make a tweak here or there and put it back out there?
[0:17:27] Britney Gardner: Yeah, two years ago, I was doing a big visibility push. I did something that I don't normally do. I posted every single day on my two favorite platforms and for seven days in a row, something I would not normally do. And one of those popped up in my Facebook memories last week. And I have it all saved. I have all that information saved. But because it didn't directly tie back to one of my podcast episodes or one of my offers, it was more of a general post. I had kind of forgotten about it. So when it popped up on my Facebook memory, I actually went back, grabbed the body of the content, like the paragraphs that were posted in the caption, and repaired it with some new graphics. I turned it more into, like, a video style clip rather than just an image with a caption. And I just posted it the other day, and it's done really well. So even the people who talk about this forget sometimes it's okay, but you probably have a pile of gold that you're sitting on.
[0:18:25] Destini Copp: I know that a lot of us do, right? Especially if we've been at this for a while. So I definitely need to check into that. So, Britany, can you tell the audience where they can find you? And I believe you have a free gift for them also.
[0:18:39] Britney Gardner: Yeah, absolutely. So they can find me in two places. My website is Britanygardener.com. Unfortunately spelled like Britney Spears. Thanks, mom and dad. So happy about that. But yeah, that's my website. And my favorite gift is called the show up playbook. It's pulled from my Show Up system, and basically it is a guide, a visual guide that shows you with one content piece, how you can redistribute it and reuse it in different ways into any number up to 31 different other kinds of content pieces. And it walks you through it whether you're a written first person, a video first person, or an audio first person.
[0:19:20] Destini Copp: We'll make sure that those links are in the show notes, and I definitely want to check that out. So 31 different ways to do from one piece of content, and you have it broken out based on people's preferences. Because I'm an audio person, that's really all I do. So I love that in how you've kind of laid that out. So I'm going to check that out myself there.
[0:19:42] Britney Gardner: Yeah.
[0:19:42] Destini Copp: Britany, thank you so much for joining me and sharing all of your goodness with the world and all the great tips that you gave us today.
[0:19:51] Britney Gardner: No, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it, and I'm so excited to hear what people do with their thinking content.