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252: How to Build a Thriving Online Community with Guest Paul Gowder · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I am your host and I am joined today with Paul Gowder.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He is the owner and founder of PowWows, one of the largest and most engaged online communities in the world, while still working full time.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Now he's going to share some of his knowledge with us so that he can help you scale a business that supports your lifestyle.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Whether your dream is to book that Disney cruise, travel to Tahiti on a Tuesday I want to go to Tahiti on a Tuesday or have an extra middle of the daytime with your family, creating an intentional business makes your desired lifestyle possible.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So, all right, let's talk about this community that you have.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: First, let's define what is community to you.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So for me, community is a group of people who feel connected in some way, who have some kind of shared beliefs, shared interests and they feel some type of connections.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And for me it's really important that I define community as anybody who touches our content and feels connected to it, wherever they are.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Community is not a Facebook group.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: It could be, but it's not a Facebook group.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: It could be anywhere Email, live video, all of those I interact with them like they are part of my community, because they are I really like.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Community is not a facebook group.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It's people engaging and that you're meeting where they're at and engaging with right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about, let's talk about how you build an online community first right, and then we'll go into some more questions about how people grow their followings and then interactions.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I also love that you mentioned email, because I am a huge fan of email.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, you can have followers in a community that just reads your email newsletter.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: It's amazing right and for me, I feel like the heart of our community.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Let me back up.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So Piloscom has a.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: We are a big community.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: We have a million followers on Facebook.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: We have almost 100,000 on YouTube.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I have several Facebook groups that are over a hundred thousand.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: We have a good size following.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: But for me, I feel like the heart of our community is the email list.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: That is where I'm able to actually talk with people, interact, ask questions, get replies.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I love getting up on the in the morning and seeing replies and being able to respond to people and welcome them to the community and have those conversations.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So I love email for that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: But as far as building a community, again it's finding out what your audience wants.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: What is it that drives them?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: What kind of questions are they looking for?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: What kind of content can you build that is going to make them feel connected, answer their questions and serve them in some way?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I think that's the first thing is you have to bring that value, whether it's.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: You know, there are tons of Facebook communities or not just groups but pages that are able to build big followings just by posting photos and asking questions and those kinds of things.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: You know it doesn't have to be these long-winded blog articles.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: It's just find out what resonates with your group, your community, and start serving them in that way and you'll see your community build.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I really like I know I've talked with people that have a different target within the marketing industry, like I do, and they work with other people and they're like, yeah, they only like short emails.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Like, well, the ones that I get the most engagement on are longer.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: They tell stories, they ask for engagement, but that's not who their people are and that's okay.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you know we're targeting the wrong groups or doing things the wrong way.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It's just that our people that are attracted to us and what we have to share are different and I think, again, meeting them where they're at is huge.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So okay, so you're building an online community.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: You're serving them content, whatever that content happens to be, in a way that they want.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have been trying to do that and they get stuck.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I see I'm in a lot of Facebook groups, but I see people complaining about their Facebook group not growing.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I made a strategic decision to get rid of my Facebook group about a year after it started, just because that's just not where I wanted to spend my time and that's not where my people were.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: They were on LinkedIn.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So I decided it just wasn't worth my time investment.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: What have you found that people need to do if they're stuck and it's not growing.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's a great step is realize where your audience is.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: We did the same thing recently.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: We've tried a couple of times, but for us Twitter just doesn't work, or X.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: That's not where our people are.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So I just cut it off and it counts still out there, but we're just not going to post any more content there.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's just not where they are.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: And we've played around with other networks, played around with LinkedIn.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: That's not where our audience is.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: We are primarily on Facebook and Facebook groups is where our audience is.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think that's really important is, you know, don't try to be everywhere.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Certainly, you can post to these other places and we get engagement on Instagram and TikTok and things like that, but that it's not the.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: That's not where our community is.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: That's not where we're getting conversations and more than just a like or a heart or something like that.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: So, find out where they are and then again we go back.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I go back to you got to serve them right.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And what does serving mean?
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: It means, like being present, being active in those groups, when you don't have to be the one posting every new thread, but you need to be in there replying and engaging, answering questions.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: You need to show up and be present At some point.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe you can step away from that.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Like, our Facebook groups now are so active that for me I just get out of the way most of the time, right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I cause more problems than if I try to get in there and just let them go for the most part Right, and so you know it's.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It's go in there and be present and be part of that community.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And when you're starting off, you know, maybe opening a Facebook group when you are starting to try to build your community, that maybe that's not the right approach.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to go into an empty Facebook group and just feel like there's only three people in there having a conversation.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So maybe that's something you do later.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: But find out where your audience is and then serve them.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Thank, so let's talk a little bit more about email.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And I think you know again what you're talking about about people going into a Facebook group with only three people and now everybody started somewhere.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: You have this humongous community, but it didn't happen overnight.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: But people have a different level of expectation, I think, with groups that they want to interact with, and I love how yours is taken on a life of its own and sort of for I mean, manages itself and I'm using air quotes because it doesn't really, but we'll pretend.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So I guess my question is is for those that are concerned about having a Facebook group with three people or a LinkedIn group with, you know, five people or something along those lines.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: That isn't going to get a lot of interaction.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: They probably don't want to start a um, a group on one of like circleio or any of these other channels, because you, those people, have to want to go there, right, and if they're not going there on a regular basis, adding that into your process is really hard.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But the one thing and I think it's something like 98% of people check email at least once a day, which is crazy, right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So email, I think, makes sense.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: How do you propose people get started with creating a community around email?
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: And I've started helping a lot more people build their email list, especially so many people have been hit by the Google updates and the helpful content update and all these other things.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I was just talking with somebody today.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I saw their post in Facebook group.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: They went from 90,000 visitors a month to 600 and just devastating, Right.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And so that's what I'm trying to tell people is like, let's figure out what we can do in email.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So my starting point when I'm working with clients is let's not worry about what we're going to send every week, let's forget about the broadcast messages.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Let's go back to I just said it already several times how can we serve them.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So if we are a recipe site, let's look at what are your best recipes, what are your best recipe categories?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Do you have like a holiday recipe category where you've got 10 or 15 or 100 recipes in there?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Then maybe we could develop an email sequence, a series of emails, that takes people through your take on holiday recipes and let's figure out how to get people subscribed to that and because then we're engaging people with what they want where they want it and you can then start building community around that.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And you know, same thing if you're a travel blogger?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Do you have a?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Do you write a whole bunch of stuff about Disney World, right?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Could we build an email sequence around your Disney World content and take people through a journey and deliver them a series of emails?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: That, to me, is the easiest place to start because, again, with broadcast messages, so many times you know what are you going to say every week and how are you going to.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: You don't know, especially when you start out, you don't know who your audience is a lot of times.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So let's niche it down.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Let's talk just to the Disney World people, figure out how we message them.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Let's build that out and then we can worry about the rest of the stuff later.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: First off, niching is stupid.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: You're talking to one person, yes, and so if you are a travel blogger and you just focus on Disney for that email sequence, it makes sense, right?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: People that are interested in planning a trip to Disney are going to focus on your Disney content, right?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And the same thing for recipes, you know.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I mean there's the gluten-free, there's the keto diets, there's the paleo, there's the like, all of these different types of eating that people do.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Is there something?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Air fryers, instant pots, I mean I can go on because you can tell I do actually search recipes on a regular basis, so I can.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I can tell you, I think there's one that's actually this is not dietfoodcom.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I can tell you, I think there's one that's actually this is not diet foodcom.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I've gotten really good recipes off of that and it is not diet food.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: But again, you know you're niching down into a very specific group, right, and talking just to them.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I really like that because, again, you don't have to think about that content.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You think about how you want to work them through, all of that, get them visiting your site, get them engaging with you.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Then what?
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: What's after?
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: The sequences?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So then you can start working on, you know, building out your, your broadcast messages You're, but I'm, I still think, building sequences.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, for every content category you have on your website, I think you should have a sequence or series about it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I think you need to have a welcome sequence.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: You need to have some other things that you so if there's certain events in your calendar that you have, maybe you build some sequences and automation around that, I double down on that.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Build as many of those as you can.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And then, because then on your content pages, so if you built your Disney World series, right, then we can put an opt-in on your Disney World pages and we're not just putting a box there that says subscribe to my newsletter.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Right, but if you say, hey, subscribe to my free email series, that gets you planning your next Disney World trip and gives you my best content, my tips and tricks.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So I was like, oh okay, that's interesting, let me do that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: On powwowscom, my best sequence is one that's called what to expect at your first powwow.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: And so on pages where I think people that are kind of outside the culture and looking to learn more about it, I put opt ins.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: It says are you curious?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: You want you to that first powwow so you know what to expect, you know what to bring, know what to do, know what to not do, and you'll help that anxiety and get you into your first powwow.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: That one it works great for me.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So you know, double down on sequences, keep building those.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: You know what their journey is going to be, and I think that the journey is really important.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I went to a conference way earlier this year, like March so, and and I sat through the marketing track and it was for credit unions specifically, and I'm cause one of my clients is a credit union.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm sitting through this presentation and I was just just amazed, um, with the fact that three quarters of the room had never looked at their client, their customer's journey, their members journey through the credit union, whether it was, you know, going into a branch or you know if they were doing online banking, whatever that happened to be, they didn't actually look at their journey and find the roadblocks.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: They kept saying, oh, we're all about the people, but then they had automated messages and an AI generated chat bot on their website and things like that that were not quite meshing with what they were doing, and so I think that that's really important Again is to think about that journey.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Going back to Disney, you know, again, someone's going to be first off deciding if they can afford it, right, deciding what time of year to go.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So there's going to you think about that journey.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It's going to be very different than, you know, someone who's just looking for recipes around the holidays to save time or to get ready for parties or potlucks or whatever else.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Right and um, mapping it to them is really important.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I hear a lot with people and emails is oh well, I don't want to send spam, people are busy.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want to send any more emails.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Nobody's reading them.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: What?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: do you say to that?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: So I say you can send as many emails as you can.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Send value, send value.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So if you're sending out an email once a week and it has valuable content and you're seeing people engage with it, then maybe you could send two.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: If you start sending three or four a week and the open rates start going down, you're not getting as many replies maybe.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Then you aren't adding value.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: But as long as you have something that is valuable to your readers, you can add more emails.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: There are weeks where I send seven to ten a week.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I mean it just if we have that much going on that I'm going to send that much content.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a value proposition.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: First, you know and sure, if there's always going to be some people on your list, or if there's always going to be some people on your list and with some of the changes they just did with Gmail and Yahoo, where they now you can subscribe right in in the subject and click a button, you're going to have people unsubscribing and that's OK, that's fine.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: They're not the people who wanted your content, let them go.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: But yeah, if you can, if you can send to a week and they are both valuable, good information then send two a week.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: But again, I would go build the sequences first.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And I have another example of a good sequence and people on my list don't know that they're in a sequence for this one.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: They think it's just a broadcast message that I'm sending out every week and I call that my throwback Thursday.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: So every Thursday they get an email that says hey, you know we have a lot of articles on Powell's dot com.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: We've been writing for 10 years plus.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You might not have seen this one.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I think you're going to like this article because of this, this and this.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Here it is, and that's the only call to action is click on this article and they think it's a series or they think it's a broadcast, but it's just a seat.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Every January we rewrite the sequence to be the 52 most popular topics from the last year.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: That's an easy one.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: If you're a podcaster and you have a back catalog of content, maybe that could be your Monday email.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: People would think it's a broadcast, but you could schedule those ahead of time and then take people through your whole podcast journey, especially if you're you know, if you're an evergreen type podcaster if you're doing news or something that doesn't really work.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: They do have to be like broadcast every week, but if you're producing evergreen content like interviews and things like that, no-transcript.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Again, it's got to be valuable to your audience.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: That's key, right.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: It's all about value.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: One of the other things that I hear regularly is well, but that's what I do for my clients and things like that.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I've never had an issue giving things away for free when it comes to downloads or advice or checklists or how to, or doing a free YouTube video.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Usually, when I give stuff away for free, it actually entices people to want to work with me more.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: What have you found?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So yeah, interesting.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: So my thought there went to powwowscom not necessarily my coaching stuff, but I've kind of flipped it on its head and did the reverse of that.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: So my what to expect at your first powwow I took all of that content from that email series, put it into a PDF, offered it to all the people on the sequence as a paid download.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: It's all the content they've already gotten.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: And I say that you know, hey, I took all this content that we just went through and I put it into a downloadable PDF.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Here it is and people are buying it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: So, yes, they want the content for free, but also sometimes for convenience and just to keep it and have it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: They'll pay for it too.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that was kind of my first thought when you said that.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I like that a lot because, again, you know you're they're paying for convenience.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they got all the content.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, they can go back and visit it anytime they want, but they wanted it printed out so they could review it at their leisure and things like that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of value there.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: People will pay, um, and they understand the value that's there because you sent them all the content Right, so very cool.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So, um, so if somebody's thinking about starting an online community, what's the first thing that you think that they should do?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Identify who, who your audience is and what drives them.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: What are their questions, what motivates them, what gets them excited?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: What is it that's going to to make them move?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: You know, if you are like a coach, what?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: What's that thing that's going to help them go to the next level and how can you answer those questions?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You got to know who they are and a lot of times, you know you know if you're a blogger out there I know these are the people I'm working with right now that you know bloggers and people who are writing a lot and they don't necessarily know how to engage in email or in community.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Go back into your inbox and look at the replies and the messages people have sent you over the last year or so.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Look at the questions that you're getting.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: There's where your value is.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Find out, you know if people are asking you about a particular type of recipe or a technique that you're talking about.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: That's where you can start developing.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, well, maybe, if you're a recipe blogger, maybe my niche is gluten-free recipes or vegetarian.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: That's where I'm getting the most engagement and emails.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: There's where you need to start focusing.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: What are they concerned about?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: What's keeping them up at night?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: What questions?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: are they Just simple questions that they're asking, and that's all you have to do Now.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I find the best way to get information about your audience is to talk to people in your audience, even if you don't have clients yet or anything like that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Talk to someone you want to work with right, ask them questions, find out what's going on, what are the burning questions that they have, and then if you can start answering those questions which you can because you're an expert in your space like that adds so much value and creates such an amazing connection.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I took an online course this has probably been about six years ago and one of the exercises they had had us do to identify who your audience is and and this can be uncomfortable and you might not want to do it, but it is so valuable and it was find three people that are on your email list and call them.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Get on a phone call and ask them questions.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: The information you'll get for something like that is unreal.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, try it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Find somebody who is on your list.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: You see that they're an active.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: You know they open all your emails.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Find somebody who is on your list.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: You see that they're an active.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: You know they open all your emails.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: They read, maybe they reply to you and get on the phone with them, spend 10 minutes with them and ask them.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: You know why.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Why are you engaging with my content?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: What is it that brings you to our site?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: What is it that brings you back?
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you are correct.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to do that.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to do that, it to do that it's hard.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Suck it up and deal, like that's what I gotta say.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Just suck it up and deal, because the gold mine that that conversation results in is just insane and people doubt it and they want to skip that part, and that's part that's such a a structural piece of your business and you cannot start to skip that part.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for all of this information.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I have loved our conversation so far.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: This show is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So the question that I ask all of my guests is what has been your biggest marketing lesson learned along?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: the way, as we were talking, the thing that was popping into my mind is some of the things that has changed for us, and I guess that's the I don't know if it's the biggest one, but it's the one that's sticking with me right now and we're talking about knowing who your audience is and maybe it shifts over time.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of where I was going is thinking about Powell'scom in our journey.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Kind of where I was going is thinking about powwowscom in our journey.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: When I first opened the site in 1996, our audience was mostly people that were powwow dancers, powwow singers, people that went to powwows every weekend.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: As the site started to grow, we started getting more people that maybe liked going to powwows but weren't necessarily participants.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Then we started growing a little bit bigger people who were kind of outside the culture, who wanted to know more about it.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Now we're a global audience.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: So you know, that's one of the things that we've had to, that I've had to learn and figure out is like, as you grow, you have to keep re-identifying who your audience is and then change how you're talking to them.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And then change how you're talking to them, right, If I was still back in the you know, 90s and 2000s, where all of our content was focused on powwow participants, most of our readers would not be here and not engage in our content.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I had to switch and kind of focus on, you know, all these other people out there and serve them too.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So that's the lesson I guess that I would talk about or recommend to people is know who your people are, but continue to engage with them, because that group of people may change over time.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Everything goes back to your goals and your target audience.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: In my world, it doesn't matter what tactic you're doing.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how you're serving it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: You start with your goals, figure out who your people are, and then that's going to help you reach them where they're at, and sometimes it changes.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much again for such a great conversation.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: If you want to connect with Paul, we'll have links in the show notes, as usual, or in the video description or down below.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So be sure to scroll down and learn more and connect with him um his online community, powwowscom, if that's something that interests you, and then we'll have a link to his um courses and coaching opportunities.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So again, thank you all so much for tuning into another episode of imperfect marketing.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Have a great rest of your day.