Distribution starts by building an audience.

In my BATON framework Audience is the very first step after working out what your business actually does - Business, Audience, Tribe, Offer, Network. Without this the rest is moot.

Building an audience for a business is more than being good at dancing on Tiktok or being ridiculously good looking. If you are also these then more power to you.

But for the rest of us mortals (myself very much included!) we build an audience for our business using content marketing, specifically content that educates and informs.

This sort of content helps us:

• be liked

• be known

• be trusted

By talking about our particular area of expertise we build trust. And that trust can be converted into sales. This guy/gal knows what they are talking about - I would like to buy their stuff. It’s really that simple. Not easy, but simple.

Question and Answer

As a business owner the best way to build this trust is by educating people about your niche.

You immediately become the authority.

For example the other day I looked through the new EU Artificial Intelligence Act and shot a 3 minute video giving the highlights.

For any business owners using AI (especially in the EU) this video was valuable.

I had one WhatsApp message from a contact like this:

You need to be in a similar position of authority in your niche.

It doesn’t matter what the niche is. It doesn’t matter if it is B2C (business to consumer) or B2B (business to business).

What’s important is that you, personally, are known for your expertise.

The best way to build this authority is to answer the questions that your audience has.

I’m borrowing this concept from a book called They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. Well worth checking out. We’ll cover the basics this week though.

The general thrust is that you need to answer questions that your audience (and thus potential customers) have.

For example let’s say I run a company that helps men who are losing their hair.

Their questions will be things like:

• how does hair loss happens?

• how can hair loss be prevented?

• what does hair loss look like?

• how does hair loss occur?

• how does hair loss start?

These are questions that my customers are already asking.

As an expert in the field (who runs a business in the niche!) I step up and answer these questions.

In the next Part I’ll show you how to find what questions people are asking. In the Parts after than we’ll look at how to answer these questions using social media and for SEO Google results.

The basic idea though is that we are going to answer the pressing questions our customers have.

Customer questions > We answer > Customer trust > Purchases

Let’s get started today with a prompt that’ll get the creative juices flowing. In the next Part we’ll do this systematically to provide us with infinite list of questions to answer.

Act as a content strategist I am following the methods outlined by Marcus Sheridan in They Ask, You Answer. I want to integrate answering customer questions into my content marketing in order to build authority an trust with customers. My business is [business details] My customers are [customers] Their main problems are [customer problems] Provide me with a list of problem areas along their customer journey. Aim for 5 sequential problem areas. For each provide 10 questions that they would ask at each stage.

By plugging in:

My business is selling hair loss products My customers are men who are losing their har Their main problems are hair loss

I get the following output:

This is 1 of 5 stages that ChatGPT gives me. This prompt will generate a lot of content ideas.

Right now your only goal is to review the questions offered and ask if you are able to answer them.

If yes: this content marketing method will work perfectly for you.

If not then less so! And it also brings up the question of whether you are in the right niche or not. Your business niche should be something that you know like the back of your hand. So use this as a wake up call if these questions are too challenging for you!

In the next Part we’ll look at different methods of collecting up questions so that we have infinite content ideas.

Premium Prompt - Ask the Expert

I mentioned Marcus Sheridan’s excellent book They Ask, You Answer. It’s well worth the read. But I get it - you may not have time.

Here’s the skinny.

Use this prompt below your previous prompt output:

Apply Marcus Sheridan's framework to this business Specifically refer to my niche in your answer Outline and explain the framework as if I hadn't read the book before - give me a crash course.

This will go ahead and give you a crash course in the book’s content, tailored to your specific business, niche and customer.

Use this to get more background information as well as remind yourself why this method is powerful.

Pulling it together

Over the rest of this Playbook we’ll look at how to practically deploy this technique.

By the end of it you’ll have a system for building your audience, authority and trust simultaneously.

A reminder of what we’ll be covering :

• Part 1: Questionable Content

• Part 2: They ask, you answer

• Part 3: Time for answers!

• Part 4: RIP Yahoo Answers

• Part 5: Q&A ouroboros