{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"What Works","title":"EP 211: Building An Audience With Tara McMullin","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1030,"description":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA year ago this week, I deleted about 12,000 people off my email list.\n\n\n\nThat meant that my audience shrank by about 80% with the push of a button.\n\n\n\nGDPR was going into effect and, while I wasn’t caught up in the mass hysteria happening in the digital marketing world around compliance, I did look at the regulations as an opportunity to take a new approach to building an audience for my brand.\n\n\n\nQuick aside—pro tip: never get caught up in any mass hysteria, especially when it’s about digital marketing.\n\n\n\nThe me of 2018 felt pretty calm and collected about the whole thing—but the me of 2016 or 2017 would have lost my marbles.\n\n\n\nThat email list—and the number attached to it—represented all of the work that I had put into writing, speaking, teaching, and positioning my business over nearly 10 years. But there was a problem…\n\n\n\nI had become more attached to the number than the people on that list.\n\n\n\nAnd that number was holding me back.\n\n\n\nI viewed every marketing, branding, sales, or product development decision through the lens of that number.\n\n\n\nI would experiment with messages, angles, and stories to see what would happen to that number—and all of the smaller numbers it would spit out, like click thru rate, open rate, or unsubscribes.\n\n\n\nIt wasn’t that I didn’t care about the people reading—I cared about them deeply. It’s just so easy to forget that numbers are people… and that sometimes the people I care about most just aren’t represented by the big number but by one that’s much smaller and harder to discern.\n\n\n\nWhen I made the decision to all but start over with my email list, it was a decision to do the work to find that number, rediscover the right people, and rebuild my audience from there.\n\n\n\nThis month, we’re tackling a topic that tends to be top of mind for most small business owners: building your audience.\n\n\n\nWhether your business is the kind that thrives with an audience of 10 or whether you’re aiming to reach millions, we’ll be exploring...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AmfGeDL96-fhMaeOcqmX7TK_eWrvTLco6OJj2QpZtZI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NGUx/OWY5ZDg1M2E5MmU3/ZjEwOWVmNDM3MWVh/ZjZlOS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}