Renting or owning an audience – what’s the difference?
Every business needs an audience: without people knowing your product/service and brand exists, how will you generate inbound leads and ultimately, sales?
Many new businesses concentrate on growing their audience without concerning themselves with how they are cultivating it. Sure, they might consider whether it’s 100% organic (traffic driven by people interested in a brief snapshot and looking to read more) or paid-for (PPC or social media campaigns), but they rarely consider whether the audience they are trying to cultivate is rented or owned. One thing to avoid at all costs is buying fake followers. It might give you an enviably high vanity metric, but that's all it will do. Fake fans don't buy real products.
How to choose what's right for your business: renting vs. owning?
Renting
You’ve built your audience by driving traffic from Facebook competitions, twitter shares, Instagram and blogs. You might even have paid for ads on Facebook and other social platforms, and your following is growing: people are sharing your pages on social media and interacting with your posts.
This is a rented audience, one built upon someone else’s platform.
If you pay for an advert in a magazine, you are paying to rent that page. More than that, you are paying to rent their audience, and their time and attention.
It makes sense that if you pay to use someone else’s reputation and space that you’re renting from them – but what about free platforms? You can pay for Facebook ads, for example, but you can also use it to share your content organically, and cultivate your brand. Surely if you’re marketing yourself for free, that’s building your own audience?
Not quite.
Using any third party platform is still capitalising on their existing audience.
Facebook has built itself up as a reliable, relevant brand, which is why its users spend time within their walled garden. Twitter, LinkedIn and the other social networks are the same. Renting Facebook's audience is, therefore, riding on its popularity. Consequently, when algorithms reduce the chance, your fans will see your content, Facebook and other social networks force you to pay for exposure.
Advantages
Growing businesses can benefit from renting an audience. Exposure is typically the primary consideration: established platforms come with hundreds of millions of users, and if your products/services are exposed to more people, then a percentage of those are going to click to find out more. And out of all those curiosity clicks, it’s likely that a percentage are going to buy what you’re selling.
Renting an audience is a great way to get your name out there (even if it just begins to sound vaguely familiar). You get the attention of people who probably don’t know who you are, what you’re selling, or why they should buy it, and, if things all go well, you can start building a real customer base from people who like your products who buy again and recommend you to friends and family.
Moving on from renting to buying
An audience doesn’t necessarily equate to customers, and spamming every avenue is unlikely to make your brand respected or loved. You’ve enticed your audience into your midst by paying, advertising, and being outright determined: basically, you’ve pushed as hard as you could to get that audience, get that attention, and get that revenue. And it’s worked: you’ve got an audience, they’re buying, and your business model is working out as expected.
But how do you take it to that next level?
Remember, while you are renting you’re at the mercy of your landlord. Algorithms hide your content from the exact people you’re trying to reach, not to mention any other “behind-the-scenes” issues that you have no control over. After all, it’s not your pad: you’re just crashing there.
So, how do you take charge of an audience and own it rather than rent?
Owning
If renting is attracting an audience’s attention, owning is them, your fans and customers, giving it freely. Rather than a consumer being drawn in, they pursue a relationship with you because they feel it benefits them. Maybe they can’t wait to see your newest tv series release or feel like an l.a. superstar in your clothing; maybe they just love that attention to detail when you’re cleaning their car. Whatever it is, they feel satisfied – excited even – to pass over their money for that experience, rather than being cajoled.
You’re in charge of the customer-seller dynamic.
You are still growing your audience, but you’re not reeling in any old catch your net happens to pick up: you’re nurturing the individual, and seeing your audience as complex people with different needs and expectations.
How to make the switch
How can you bring your audience into ownership after you’ve enticed them by renting their attention?
Start by moving your audience onto your own turf. This can be as simple as reminding your audience to join up to a mailing list (or even offering some incentive, such as 10% discount on your next order if you sign up). Once they’re on a mailing list, they’re receiving your content directly rather than on another platform’s terms.
You may have more “followers” on your social media accounts than in your email database, but you’ll find that those who have chosen to sign up have more of a vested interested than simply following a page, and they are therefore more likely to be loyal fans and brand ambassadors.
Developing, not selling
Ads on social and print media come in many guises, but the audience recognises that they’re operating under one premise: to sell. Once they’re engaged on your terms rather than a third party’s, you can work on developing a relationship with them. You’re not just pushing a product until they cave under pressure and buy it: you’re recognising their needs and providing a service that meets them.
Establish yourself as a dependable brand. More than that, behind the screen you’re taking people’s concerns on board and creating an honest dialogue with your audience, who feel confident placing their trust in you.
Complementary rather than competing
Once you’ve started work on owning your audience, you shouldn’t immediately dismiss renting. The two go hand in hand: using one to link to the next.
Even multi billion-pound brands rent their audiences – tv adverts and magazine spreads – but they do it on a much more selective scale. Even though you’re enticing your audience to your mailing list, you can still encourage them to remain on your social media: as they like, comment, share and interact your content will be viewed by other people – and it will be considered more reliable if it’s been “endorsed” by friends.
Taking control
The crux of it is, is that you can rent your audience with intriguing copy promoted (if you’re lucky) by other sites, or you can take control by building a secure relationship directly with your audience, becoming a brand they trust rather than a product they might want to buy. We all start off renting, but our ownership propels us further to success.