Finding Your Buying Audience
For many speakers, the biggest marketing cost isn't a demo video or website. It's the number of speeches they give away, in the hopes that the "exposure" will lead to more clients or engagements. In front of a "buying" audience, exposure can make your business. The problem: such audiences are becoming harder to find.
Who are they?
There's a lot of confusion about "buying" audiences for two reasons: one, there are many kinds of "buying" audiences. A buying audience for an author who wants to sell a $20 book will be very different than an audience for a speaker who wants more $5,000 speaking engagements. It all depends on why you are speaking and what you want to generate.
Secondly, the market doesn't make the above distinction for speakers. Many buyers assume that their audience is the greatest and therefore, speakers should speak for free. Because so many speakers are willing to speak for free, buyers start to believe that their audience is a buying one. So, they tell speakers "Oh, we don't need to pay for speakers -- everyone speaks for exposure."
Bottom line: it's your job to determine which audience deserves your free speech. The marketplace won't do it for you.
Hard to find
Finding the buying audience used to be easy. For corporate product sales and training, any audience with managers would work. That's no longer true. Why? Training budgets have centralized, taking buying power away from many managers. Same situation with products -- managers can buy one copy for their library but not for every person in the department.The same is true for the personal growth and development market. For these speakers, the sales and the entrepreneurial audiences were great. This market has been saturated, and sales are dropping.Result: you can't depend on audience makeup any more.
Key factor
So, how can you identify your buying audiences? Here's a rule of thumb: the higher the price point of what you are selling, the more sophisticated and subjective the audience is.Remember, you're not the first speaker that has tried to sell the audience after the speech -- the higher the price tag, the more advanced material and higher performance values the audience has been exposed to by previous speakers.And their decision to buy is based on their comparison between you and other speakers they have seen. In short, the bar is raised in proportion to the price point. That's why in the eyes of the marketplace, any audience is a buying audience -- it all depends on the price.Therefore, your success rests in going beyond the expectations of the audiences that are able to buy your books, products or services.Bottom line: not all audiences are created equal. Adjust accordingly.
What Buying Audiences Want
You've been invited to speak to your high level buying audience. Now the real work begins.
Three things are crucial to position your work to this discriminating group.
Credibility
What buying audiences want to know is what is your track record -- what did you do? And more importantly, what happened as a result of your efforts? Did you win any awards, or break any records?
We're not talking about scientific research here. You need to be accurate but don't split hairs. And don't think that just because it was a long time ago that you can't mention it. Results are results. Be specific about it.
Best place to put this information is in your bio and introduction. Also weave your experience as stories and examples.
Creating Cachet
Buying audiences consider themselves a cut above, so their speakers must be too. How do you prove that? By naming names, the bigger the better.
Have you worked with cool high-profile clients? Did someone else honor you in some way? Did national mainstream media feature your work? Or better yet, describe your work in a unique way? Drop a few of those names in your bio and introduction.
Being specific is important here too. Why do you think that Second City Comedy troupe opened up a speakers bureau for the corporate market? Or get big bucks to teach executives improv skills? Because their albums are instantly recognizable. It creates a certain cachet about their work.
Return on Investment
This one is the most important: Return on Investment (ROI).
There are two major reasons why ROI is your friend. First, measuring your results positions you away from being a "sage on a stage". You create the persona that your work is more than just speaking, critical for selling ancillary services to the audience.
Secondly, you've just created a peer-to-peer relationship with this audience. They get results and you have just shown that you do too. You're on the same page. This mutual respect can be leveraged big time.
Buying audiences measure ROI in two ways. For experts, creating customized solutions is key. For humorists and other performers, benchmarking the meeting is the goal.
Make sure you get clear about the objectives and get agreement from your clients about how ROI will be measured. You want to create a track record here and bragging rights to boot.
I just met with a training manager who said that she never pays speakers, but if I spoke for free she would refer me to folks within the company who do. Should I do it?
Selecting speakers is such a subjective decision, it's great to have a champion in your corner. The key question here is: Will she really help to get you in?Negotiating this kind of arrangement takes some finesse and diplomacy. If you usually don't do that kind of speaking, tell her that, and also express openness to doing something different. Ask what kind of support you can expect -- focus on the role she will play, rather than the process. Writing a letter after the speech is one thing -- making sure the right people show up to this free speech is another.
A lot of folks bluster about their contacts and clout, so don't buy into everything you hear. No one can guarantee they can get you selected. Buy they can promise to go above and beyond to champion your cause.
|
