7 steps that build a personal brand business

Welcome back to Copyblogger! I'm Stefanie, Copyblogger's Editor-in-Chief, and today I have highlights from Tim Stoddart's epic post on building a personal brand business. If you like the quick tips below, be sure to check out the full article! --------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Essential Steps That Build a Personal Brand Business ​ written by Tim Stoddart I’m going to walk you through a step-by-step process that will enable you to create a personal brand business. You’ll learn how to: - Find your perfect customer - Build valuable online assets that you own - Establish an audience of subscribers who eagerly wait for your next post - Create a media machine that runs itself - Develop online business ideas that monetize while you sleep Let’s get started. Step #1: Establish your perfect customer The biggest mistake most newcomers make is that they don’t get specific enough. Instead, ask yourself two questions: - What is the niche for my online business? - Who is my customer? The first step is to focus on exactly who it is you wish to serve with your content. You must reach the realization early on that you can not, and should not, want to appeal to everyone. You want your content marketing to appeal to a certain person, a person in which you can serve better than anyone else in the world. Step #2: Build a website Why start with a website? Isn’t it easier to create a Twitter account? Shouldn’t I create a Substack? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to create an account on Medium and save the time and money it takes to build my own website? The answer is yes. It would be easier to do that. But, that would be a terrible mistake. When you build a personal brand on Twitter or Facebook, or even on Substack, what you are doing is building your brand on a property that you do not own (commonly referred to as digital sharecropping). You must always own your media If you own the media, you own the audience. If you own the audience, you own the attention. If you own the attention, you make the money. When you publish content on your own website, the growth of the content will compound over time. Each time you publish something new, it’s a new opportunity to be found and a new idea that will get shared. Step #3: Write a weekly article (on your site) Your perfect customer should look to you as an expert in whatever particular niche you chose to pursue. When you write on a weekly basis, you’ll establish yourself as an authority and industry leader, which are essential when you want to build a personal brand. Over time, you will be able to leverage your “authority” and use it to sell products or services. The backbone of a lucrative personal brand business is the written word. Step #4: Create a newsletter Next, you want to start earning email subscribers and sending a weekly newsletter. When someone gives you their email address, they are giving you a direct line of communication to interact with them through email marketing. You will always own your email list. It’s yours. You can bring it with you everywhere you go. In addition, email is a personal relationship. When people give you access to their inbox, they are usually doing so because they want to hear from you. Step #5: Start a podcast and use Twitter to book amazing guests Why start a podcast? The answer is not what you think. If you want to start a podcast because you want to make money from it, or because you want to be famous like Joe Rogan, then you’re going to be very disappointed. Podcasts are very difficult to monetize effectively. Unless you have millions of downloads, chances are you will struggle to make any meaningful income directly from your podcast. A podcast is a relationship machine If you have a decent-sized audience, you can book interviews with people who would never “grab a cup of coffee” with you otherwise. My podcast has opened up new investment opportunities and help me find new business partners. Step #6: SEO your website If you optimize your website properly, you can open a firehose of free traffic to your website. Organic traffic is relevant because it has intent behind it. You’ll always know with certainty that the traffic Google is driving to your website is relevant because the only way someone would have gotten to your website in the first place is by searching for you. With SEO, you attract people who search for exactly what it is you’re trying to sell. Step #7: Monetize through products and/or services How is it that monetizing your personal brand business is the last step in the process? You will make significantly more money if you have an audience that is already interested in your work. All of my companies have monetized through the “audience first” model. Once you understand your audience, you’ll also know what kind of products and services your people are interested in. It is much easier to make actual sales when you know that the people who follow you are already interested in the product or service you provide. If you'd like to dig deeper into these steps, click on the full article below. Read on Copyblogger: [7 Essential Steps That Build a Personal Brand Business]()​ Talk with you again soon, ​ ​[Stefanie Flaxman](=)​ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, COPYBLOGGER MEDIA​ --------------------------------------------------------------- Share with friends, get discounts to The Copyblogger Academy Have friends who'd love our newsletter too? Give them your unique referral link (below) and get MASSIVE discounts to The Copyblogger Academy. 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