How to Attract an Audience While Turning a Profit in 2025

Consider ending up with a seven- or eight-figure business thanks to the audience-first approach, and you’ll understand why people are happy to invest a significant sum to get an audience.

You now know that an audience is the root of a successful personal enterprise. And attracting one is worth a substantial investment given the multiple forms of significant profit over time. 

More than just any ol’ email list, it’s an engaged group of people who look to you for guidance, recommendations, and services. These people know, like, and trust you, and that’s why they’re inclined to do business with you instead of a competitor. 

Which brings us to the question: How will you attract this audience? 

This is important because the answer is different than it’s been in the past, yet most people unquestioningly proceed with the old ways. 

The old-school assumption is that you start creating content. Maybe it’s a blog. Or perhaps it’s a new podcast or YouTube channel. Build that content, and people will come, right? 

Not necessarily. 

Yes, creating a bunch of content upfront can still work, but it will require a substantial amount of your time to get so-called “free” traffic that you hope becomes part of your email audience. 

And the truth is, a substantial part of what you’ll be spending time on is not content creation but rather getting your content discovered and distributed. 

The Typical Offer Ladder 

Back in 2006, when I started Copyblogger, I paid for my audience attraction with my time. At the time, blogging, SEO, and social media rewarded content creators handsomely.

What specifically did I do?

• I was writing two lengthy educational articles a week. 

• I was also creating other high-impact content that I hoped would be the catalyst for significant attention and traffic. 

• And finally, I was reaching out to and establishing relationships with complementary bloggers and influential users on early social media platforms like Digg. 

In other words, I hustled my butt off. Not that I’m complaining — I ended up with three 7-figure startups and then a consolidated 8-figure company. 

That, however, was still down the road in those early days. I first had to figure out what my initial product was and create it. And that happened a long 18 months after Copyblogger debuted. 

In the meantime, I brought in income with side projects and affiliate marketing. The affiliate offers brought in some decent revenue, but the idea validation I got from seeing what worked with my audience was much more valuable. 

What I was doing was investing in building an audience so I could discover what they wanted to buy. This was in contrast to my earlier businesses, where I started with something to sell that I knew people already wanted — namely, legal and real estate services. 

This “audience first” approach was revolutionary to people at the time. Instead of starting with a product and trying to find people to buy it, I started with the people, which made the odds of successful product development go way up with careful listening and observation. 

At the same time, I was following a typical “ascension” offer ladder that dated back to traditional direct-marketing practices. The idea was to make an initial low-cost offer to a well-targeted audience. In direct mail, this is traditionally done by “renting” a mailing list of people with the interests and characteristics you were looking for from a list broker. 

So, you rented your list and mailed them a letter, magalog, or other printed information, as well as an offer to purchase a $29 book. This would often result in a loss on the first sale, but now you had a group of proven buyers.

Due to the “recency” effect, someone who buys something from you is more likely to purchase something else, usually at a higher price. This is where the profit was made, with more to come as you upsold the most motivated people on increasingly more expensive offers. 

This has become the dominant way that “expertise” and “info marketing” businesses work online to this day. From consulting and coaching to courses and educational memberships, people pay to learn how to develop their own expertise from someone who has “been there, done that.” 

Online, though, buying email lists is a terrible idea. In the late 90s, the idea of “permission marketing” became known as the smart way to attract an audience and build an email list. 

And what was the most effective catalyst for someone to voluntarily join your mailing list? 

Content, of course. Here’s how a typical offer ladder might work: 

1. Lots of general free content for traffic

2. Free “lead magnet” content in exchange for email opt-in 

3. Inexpensive “tripwire” product 

4. Moderately-priced DIY course 

5. Expensive group coaching 

6. Really expensive (and exclusive) mastermind 

This is the model that many early bloggers and podcasters followed. And there was a time early on when you could create a great blog or podcast, gain traction, discover and offer your first product, and succeed wildly with absolutely no cash outlay. 

Now, if you already had a product or were simply creating your own version of something you knew a market wanted, you could skip the “general free content” phase. Many in the internet marketing world create a lead magnet, advertise on Google or Facebook for traffic, get buyers into an email sales funnel, and sell them the tripwire (where they lose money but gain a customer). 

And then up the ladder the customer went from there. 

Today, the once divergent worlds of “content creators” and “internet marketers” have merged into one. Organic social media traffic doesn’t work like it used to, SEO is ultra-competitive and losing ground to AI, and Google and Facebook ads are much more expensive and less effective. 

Nonetheless, many content entrepreneurs are willing to go out-of-pocket and into debt for tens of thousands of dollars to acquire customers via online advertising while building a broader audience. Consider ending up with a seven- or eight-figure business thanks to the audience-first approach, and you’ll understand why people are happy to invest a significant sum to get an audience. 

That’s because an audience becomes an asset to which you can make new offers repeatedly over time — it’s not a one-shot advertising campaign. It’s a worthy monetary investment based on future returns, but it’s not an investment everyone is willing (or able) to make, given the lag in getting your money back. 

Is there another way? 

There is, and it’s an approach that allows you to attract an audience while turning a profit instead of racking up a mountain of debt.