You don't need "more traffic" to your website...
By @JadeMasri from Unsplash
Some marketing experts are always trying to get you loads of “traffic”.
By their language you can sense their values. Perhaps without consciously recognizing it, they are seeing people as a means to an end — their own wealth and fame.
Let's be careful not to absorb their self-absorbed values.
Let's stop thinking in terms of "traffic" and focus on serving the right "people". The language we use will determine how we relate to our audience.
What an authentic business needs:
To connect genuinely with the relative few that our business can best serve, the people who would most resonate and be grateful for our offerings.
To have fulfilling relationships of reciprocity that allow everyone involved to thrive.
There’s a famous article by Kevin Kelly which says something similar, more eloquently, and with numbers: 1,000 True Fans. Here’s a quote from the article:
There’s a famous article by Kevin Kelly which says something similar, more eloquently, and with numbers: 1,000 True Fans. Here’s a quote from the article:
“It has never been easier to gather 1,000 true fans around a creator, and never easier to keep them near… Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum bestseller hits, blockbusters, and celebrity status, you can aim for direct connection with a thousand true fans.
On your way, no matter how many fans you actually succeed in gaining, you’ll be surrounded not by faddish infatuation, but by genuine and true appreciation. It’s a much saner destiny to hope for.
And you are much more likely to actually arrive there."
Basically, you don’t need 1 million website visitors, or 100,000 Facebook Fans.
Your business can’t even serve 10,000 people right now.
What you actually want are perhaps the right 100 people to know about your service, the ones who most need and want it, those you’d be most delighted to work with.
Practice speaking directly “to them” in your marketing, and they will find their way to you.
We can either:
1. Try to be popular, and learn persuasion and marketing skills that can feel inauthentic to us…
or
2. We can daily focus on our deepest values, aim to embody our highest selves, and care more for our true fans. Care more than other businesses are willing to care.
You may feel a constant pull between the two extremes.
I am here to encourage you toward being authentically your best self.
When you notice yourself slipping into trying to be popular, take a pause; take a breath. Then, return to your deeper truth, and re-focus on your true fans, who are waiting for you to share your authentic self with them.
It is also helpful for all of us when you call out the behaviors in your industry that is tempting you toward inauthenticity, and dragging down the values of your industry. You don't have to demonize specific individuals, but call out the anti-social behaviors, so that people can wake up.
Dive into your most useful passions, always getting more excellent at it.
Truly care for the relative few that your business can best serve: your true fans.
Do these things, and over time, your business will flourish. This “formula” is timeless, proven again and again.
Trust in the process. ❦
Your business can’t even serve 10,000 people right now.
What you actually want are perhaps the right 100 people to know about your service, the ones who most need and want it, those you’d be most delighted to work with.
Practice speaking directly “to them” in your marketing, and they will find their way to you.
We can either:
1. Try to be popular, and learn persuasion and marketing skills that can feel inauthentic to us…
or
2. We can daily focus on our deepest values, aim to embody our highest selves, and care more for our true fans. Care more than other businesses are willing to care.
You may feel a constant pull between the two extremes.
I am here to encourage you toward being authentically your best self.
When you notice yourself slipping into trying to be popular, take a pause; take a breath. Then, return to your deeper truth, and re-focus on your true fans, who are waiting for you to share your authentic self with them.
It is also helpful for all of us when you call out the behaviors in your industry that is tempting you toward inauthenticity, and dragging down the values of your industry. You don't have to demonize specific individuals, but call out the anti-social behaviors, so that people can wake up.
Dive into your most useful passions, always getting more excellent at it.
Truly care for the relative few that your business can best serve: your true fans.
Do these things, and over time, your business will flourish. This “formula” is timeless, proven again and again.
Trust in the process. ❦