BRAND TO FAN SHOW

Celebrate Your Ladies, It's Women's History Month!

Creating Intimacy with Words: How to Connect with Your Audience on a Personal Level

Welcome to the "Brand to fANN" Show!

This week I renamed the show in honor of the incomparable Ann Handley of MarketingProfs. Trust me, this episode is worth relinquishing the naming rights to.

The opportunity to ask "fAnn" questions about creating a personal connection with your audience couldn't have come at a better time for me. With a handful of podcast episodes recorded and released, I'm starting to see growth in my own subscribers and listeners. My conversation with Ann reminded me of the importance of creating content for a singular person (YOU!) no matter how many downloads and page views are tallied.

We discussed the ever-evolving landscape of marketing (AI! Channels! Metrics!) and how to effectively connect with your audience on a personal level.

LISTEN + WATCH ANN ON BRANDTOFAN.SHOW

“

I would rather one person be super passionate about what i'm doing than have 500 people who aren't saving my Newsletter, who aren't writing back, who aren't giving me their super secret email address -- who don't have a relationship with me."

ANN HANDLEY

Here's a sneak peek at what you can expect to learn in this episode:

The impact of generative A.I. on writing and how to approach using AI tools to serve your audience best
Using subtitles as a marketing medium to enhance audience engagement, (Netflix gets major props for this!)
How to create intimacy with your audience through words. Ann shares her experience of writing her newsletter, Total Ann-archy with a single person in mind while growing to over 50,000 subscribers.
The importance of uncovering your brand voice and giving yourself grace on letting your voice grow and evolve.
Tips for amplifying the relationship with your audience by getting personal with your community, even by naming them (a la Lady Gaga and her "Little Monsters")
The non-conventional metrics Ann uses to measure the impact of her audience relationships
The TL;DL (too long, didn't listen) recap at the end of the show that made Ann say, "WOW" 😊

What to Call Y'all?

Ann's point about naming your community or audience has stuck with me. I dole out nicknames all of the time, probably because I have never had one that stuck. Lauren isn't exactly an easy name to shorten or make fun of (until my children's 3-year old BFF called me "Laurney" for a year, which I loved).

We're a small and mighty bunch today growing every week. It feels right to collectively name us, although I'll admit that my personal nickname for y'all is "the Fanzies," which probably isn't (or shouldn't) be the name of all time.

I asked GPT-4 to give suggestions to start with since I'm not great at this admittedly (see above). The two I liked enough to share with you as a starting point are "FanMakers" and "BrandChamps". Neither are instant winners, but it gives us something to noodle on. If you have an idea, drop me a note and we'll brainstorm!

WHAT ARE YOU A FAN OF, ANN??

"I'm a fan of this little nugget right next to me, who is my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. His name is Auggie and he's 2 years old. I'm a massive fan of his.

"I love almost any kind of writing. People will ask me often, “what's your favorite book?” My favorite book is the one I'm reading right now, because if I don't like it, then I just abandon it.

"I love being outdoors. I have a rule where I'm outdoors for 1 hour every day, no matter the weather, no matter what's going on. It's my 1 hour of just rebalancing and connecting to myself because we live in such an online world."