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I can’t say that I don’t have any secret sauces, but they all rely on a / only work if you have a strong foundation built on fundamentals that anyone willing to put time and work into can learn – at least to some degree. Gotta learn how to boil water and cook pasta properly before it makes sense to start experimenting with spices in your sauces – something I am, oddly enough, quite well versed in.
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Amusing, mildly relevant tangent… if I could share images, I’d share my spice shelf. I have an entire shelf in a cabinet entirely full, with spillover onto the one above, of my various spices and flavorings. That experimental mindset is very useful, and it saves money 🙂
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There are plenty of books out there on those fundamentals, as well as webinars, classes, freelancers you can hire, etc etc etc. You’ve just got to dive in, read, watch, listen, trial and error, adapt, rinse, repeat and never stop (it’s always slowly evolving), new tools are coming out, etc.
Some things hold true in every niche, like how every project is different, research and planning is key, developing a system you can make into a daily habit is very powerful, and having the right mindset is ‘make or break’ (a LOT of people don’t get past that last part… the others as well).
There are some differences in this niche, vs – for instance – local small businesses I usually work with. The overall ‘target audience’ pool is GIGANTIC, which has its pluses and minuses. The competition is pretty weak, but there is so damn much of it… there’s just SO MUCH NOISE.
One great thing is your primary targets are very easy to find. These are the ‘early adopter’ and ‘maven’ types, who seek out new things in their area of interest, and quite literally broadcast when they find new things they like.
Identifying and crafting a plan to go after those people is one of the biggest parts of planning… identifying who whose people are, where they are, how to find them, how to get in front of them, how to engage with them when you do, how to build both numbers and connection with them, how to funnel them toward (insert what = your ROI here), and how to convert them into whatever your version of ‘paying customers’ is (etc).
Using ‘reader magnets’ can be useful, yes. That’s near the end of the funnel, though (the very last part of the super vague steps I mentioned just above), and has it’s downsides, but both/and is almost always better than either/or, so if it’s working then keep doing it. Maybe A/B test different ideas to try and improve, but when/if you’re satisfied, then start learning about something else… and never stop.