Future Proof Your Company Growth With The Audience You Own

A few years ago, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the largest traditional publishers in the country. Since the plight of the industry has been well documented, I won’t go into too much detail on that. What was fascinating to me was their obsession with Facebook likes as one of the KPIs to constantly monitor. These publishers were shaking in their boots when they talked about the hold Google and Facebook had on their industry and, yet, they were fixated on those very same platforms.

Of course, right around this time Facebook started making it more difficult for companies to reach out to their audiences organically and Google was in the process of rolling out their Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. Both initiatives made it even more difficult for publishers to “own” their audiences on those platforms.

Companies like Google and Facebook are amazing organizations but they are ultimately responsible for maximizing shareholder value. When boiled down, their business model is to charge you for access to their user base. Even if you’re not in publishing, the key lesson still stands — you need to build your own audience. How in the world do you do that, you may ask?!

The last time email was sexy was when Netscape and Hotmail were cutting-edge. However, unlike social media, email remains one of the most reliable ways to talk to your prospects without paying for the privilege.

Here are two more real-life examples from my own experience:

So how do you build your own email audience without doing something silly, like buying a third party list? Here are a few options to grow your email list organically by providing value to your website visitors in exchange for their contact information:

These are just a few of the options to grow the audience that you own. While Google and other ESPs do have some ability to restrict access to your mailing list, email has withstood the rise and fall of many alternative platforms. Even in the age of social media and sharing economy, when it comes to ecommerce, ownership is still the way to go.

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