Feed your crocodiles: Give your audience what they crave

Your voracious audience

Hobbyists and collectors are voracious. They’re obsessive, demanding, and want to be the first to know. Same thing with home owners working on a home improvement or landscaping project. They gather ideas and make their plans, and until that project is finished, they’re obsessed.

You know this, because if you create, you also indulge. I’ve yet to meet someone who does creative work without being part of the niche audience.

If you’re a musician, you have your own extensive music collection. Same goes for comic book artists. Crafters and quilters don’t collect things made by others, so much as you do fabric, supplies, patterns, how-to guides and tools. But usually that stuff takes up an entire room, if not more. Designers have to keep up with trends, so you’re always looking.

The aspirational mindset

This ravenous mindset extends to ideas, knowledge, and discussions, and that’s what you can provide that will pull in a bunch of like-minded people. Topics aren’t strictly limited to your niche, as long as you’re smart about it.

Because the services and products you provide are aspirational in nature, there’s a lot more to talk about that will help you resonate with your audience. Your clients want to feel good about their surroundings and their hobbies, so any topic that builds a connection is fair game as long as you are aware of boundaries and connect the dots so they know why it’s relevant.

Give them what you know they crave

Coming up with ideas for regular content is the scariest part of the process for many people. So once you realize that there’s a core group of people who are fascinated by what you do and are always looking for more, a whole range of possibilities opens up, and producing content on a regular basis doesn’t seem so daunting.

Whether they’re project-obsessed homeowners, intense fans, or hobbyists who want to learn from someone who’s good at a craft, that core audience has an insatiable hunger for content related to your niche. Your content doesn’t have to appeal to everyone. It just has to resonate with the people who are your best audience.

From engagement to sales

Over time, as long as you combine content with good copywriting and a path to the next step, there’s an excellent chance that this engaged audience will turn into devoted customers. Compare that with random traffic that stumbles across your site, blog, or store.

Creatives who feed the crocs have found the secret to customers who return, again and again. Feed their ravenous hunger, and they’ll come back for more because they’re never satisfied. Starve them, and they’ll move on to get what they need somewhere else.