The fastest way to get seen online when you have no audience is to borrow someone else’s. Find a person who already has the readers, listeners, or followers you want, make them a fair offer, and ask if they’ll share your work with their people.
It sounds a bit cheeky. It works anyway.
Why does building an audience from scratch take so long?
Most people starting out online do the same thing. They post on social media, wait for followers to arrive, post again, and repeat. It is slow because every new piece of content competes with everything else on the platform, and the algorithm tends to favour accounts that already have reach.
You are essentially trying to fill a bucket one drop at a time. There is nothing wrong with that approach, but it is not the only one. There is a faster path that most people skip because it feels a little forward: go directly to someone who already has the audience you want and make them an offer worth considering.
Who already has the audience I want?
More people than you might think. Have a look around your niche and you will find:
- Email newsletter owners who write to a list of subscribers every week
- Facebook group admins with engaged members asking questions daily
- Podcasters who need fresh guests and new angles for episodes
- Bloggers who publish regularly and sometimes accept guest articles
- People running bundles or giveaways who need contributors with something useful to offer
Any one of these people has spent months or years building trust with an audience that overlaps with yours. A single mention from them can do more for your visibility than weeks of solo posting.
What do I actually offer them?
This is where most outreach goes wrong. People send vague messages about “collaborating” or “partnering” and leave the other person to figure out what that means. A busy group admin or newsletter owner will not do that work for you. They will just move on.
A good offer is specific and gives them a clear reason to say yes. Some things that tend to work:
- A commission. If you have a product or service, offer them a percentage of any sales that come through their audience. This costs you nothing up front and only pays out when it works.
- A swap. You promote them to your list or group, they promote you to theirs. Works best when both audiences are a similar size, but not always a dealbreaker.
- A free copy or free access for their people. If you have a guide, a course, or a resource, offer it to their audience at no cost. The audience gets something valuable, and the person sharing it looks good for providing it.
- A guest article or episode. You write the content or show up for the interview, they get something useful to share with their audience without having to create it themselves.
The key is to spell it out. What exactly will you give? What exactly are you asking for in return? If someone has to reply just to find out what you mean, you have probably already lost them.
What if they say no?
Most will. That is the honest truth about this kind of outreach. Some people will not reply at all. Others will read your message and decide it is not right for them at that moment. A few will say no politely and wish you well.
None of that is a reason to stop. The maths here are straightforward. If you contact ten people and one says yes, you have access to an audience you did not have before. One yes from the right person can deliver more results than months of consistent solo posting. The rejections are just the cost of getting to that yes.
It also gets easier with practice. The first message you write will feel awkward. By the fifth, you will have a better sense of what to say and how to say it. By the tenth, you will have a template that works.
How do I find the right people to contact?
Start with the spaces you already spend time in. If you read a newsletter that covers your topic, the person writing it already has readers who are interested in what you do. If you are a member of a Facebook group where your ideal audience hangs out, the admin is worth approaching. If you listen to a podcast on your subject, the host is looking for guests who can offer something useful to their listeners.
You are not looking for the biggest names. You are looking for people whose audience genuinely overlaps with yours. A newsletter with two thousand engaged subscribers in the right niche is worth more to you than a mention from a general-interest account with fifty thousand followers who have no particular interest in your topic.
Search the topic on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Look for active Facebook groups and check who is running them. Search for newsletters in your area using tools like Substack’s discovery page or just Google your topic plus “newsletter”. Make a short list of names, find their contact details, and start there.
Try this today
Find three people who already have the audience you want. They could be a newsletter writer, a group admin, a podcaster, or a blogger. Write each one a short, specific message. Say exactly what you will give and exactly what you are asking for in return. Not “let’s collaborate” but “I’d like to write a guest post for your readers on X topic, and in exchange I’ll promote your newsletter to my list.” Send all three today, not next week.
Most will not reply. Send them anyway.
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