Very often there are more people listening, reading, following, watching, and noticing you than you may realise. I have thousands of people on my mailing list and I do know (because my system tells me) how many people ‘open’ and also ‘click’ on my emails, but that doesn’t mean for everything I do I always know who saw it and what they were thinking.
When I post on Facebook I only know the ‘Likes’ not always the ‘lurkers’, I have no idea who is reading my book if they buy it at a bookshop or on Amazon, and perhaps some people forward my emails? There are videos of me online, podcast episodes I’ve featured in, interviews I’ve recorded with other people that I have no visibility on who has listened in. And I definitely don’t know when someone ‘mentions’ me to someone else in conversation (that would be a bit very ‘Enemy of the State’!). But I know ALL of this happens.
I asked a client just this week how they heard about me and it was a ‘2-minute conversation over a cup of tea’ when I was recommended by someone who I’ve not even worked with... so I can only conclude the recommender was an unknown to me book reader, or heard me somewhere or some such.
In Marketing terms, we call this ‘reach’–in the literal sense of how far does your message ‘reach’ people away from you. For all I know, every single copy of my book has been read by 2 people, or 10 people, or more (I hope so!). There may be a podcast somewhere I’m in that’s been listened to 1000s of times. I really don’t know. And that’s my point...
Too often we can worry about ‘what we see’ and not what we don’t see. I only occasionally get comments on my blogs (although feel free to change that average by commenting below!), but I know lots of people read them in my newsletter. All my 3334 (at last count) Facebook friends don’t all ‘Like’ my posts every time I share them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t seen them (frankly, who quite knows with the FB algorithm?!). And this is what I want you to understand. If you’re just measuring the immediate and direct responses to your messages and Marketing, you might think you’re not doing very well at all. BUT your reach is probably far greater than you realise.
Marketing is a merry-go-round and when people are interested in you and what you have to say, they will stay on the ride and just enjoy what you’re sharing. They may not respond for aaaaaggggggeeeessss, but doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention.
My tip is to occasionally ‘shake the tree’ a little and see who is listening–with an offer, something for free perhaps, actually asking for a response–something that will be a direct request for a reply and to put their hands up to being there, listening away. But if you are stressing out every single time you ‘do’ something that ‘no-one is there’, then you might be doing yourself a very big disservice and become more down heartened than you need to be.
So keep calm and carry on sharing your Thing... there are more people ‘out there’ than you might realise paying attention.
Want to talk more about this?
I hear you!
I’m here too ;-)
I love your blog posts and read them as soon as they drop into my Inbox ;-)