In this episode, I share with you eight proven, no-cost strategies to grow your audience - without spending money on ads. I believe that with consistency and creativity, you don’t need a big budget to build reach. I walk you through actionable tactics: from podcast guesting and public speaking, to creative lead magnets and AI-optimized content. If you’re looking for ways to grow your following organically, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways

1. Organic growth - without ads - is about long-term consistency, not quick wins. The strategies I share (guesting, speaking, collaborations, lead magnets, AI-optimized content) don’t deliver instant overnight growth — but they build sustainable exposure, trust, and engagement over time. Because they leverage existing audiences and evergreen content, they can continue attracting new people long after the work is done. 2. Collaboration beats isolation: tapping into other people’s platforms can grow your reach faster. By guesting on podcasts, speaking at events, joining bundles or summits, or collaborating with communities and peers, you get access to listeners/followers who already trust the host or community — which means you don’t have to start building your audience from zero. It’s a faster, more efficient way to grow an engaged audience than relying solely on your own channels. 3. Lead magnets and interactive content (quizzes, DMs, AI-optimized offers) turn passive interest into real connection - which builds deeper relationships and higher conversion potential. Instead of hoping people stumble on you, these tools invite people to take action — subscribe, engage, respond. That deepens their commitment and gives you a direct path to nurture them, rather than passively waiting.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, Subscribe to my Youtube, teresaheathwareing.com/quiz, http://teresaheathwareing.com/scoreapp

Transcript

Growing an audience is one of the most important things that you can do for your online business. And if like me, you're a little bit sick of social media and feel like you are posting into a void every single day, then you are going to want to stick around for this episode. As I explained to you the eight proven ways to grow your audience without paying any money on ads. If we've not met, my name is Theresa Heath Waring and I help course creators, membership owners, and coaches grow their audience, launch their offers, and scale their online businesses. And in today's episode of the podcast, I am going to be helping you grow your audience. Now I'm gonna take a minute just to explain why we need an audience, although I don't think I need to because it's something I talk about all the time with an online business. We need people to know that we exist. If we don't, if people don't know we exist, then they find it very difficult to buy from us. And growing an audience, no matter how much [00:01:00] time and effort you put into it, is never, ever, ever going to be a waste. And if I'm honest, sometimes it can feel like a really thankless task and sometimes it can feel very slow going. But the truth in the matter of growing an audience. Isn't about those massive, massive wins of bringing in a thousand people on your list within 10 days. It's about constantly taking action and doing activities that are going to help you build your audience over time. So whether it's by five or six or 10 every couple of days, that's one of the most powerful things you can do in terms of growing your audience organically and growing a really warm audience. And I have eight strategies that you can use today without spending a penny on ads, which is going to help you grow your audience. Strategy one, and still, one of my absolute favorites is podcast guesting. Personally, I find this super, super easy. I just turn up on a podcast. People ask me questions. I love doing it. It's [00:02:00] really fun and it can help build your audience. There's a couple of points I wanna make on this one. I have found it increasingly harder to get onto people's podcasts, and therefore we are having to do. Extra in terms of standing out, making sure that they know we're good quality and encouraging them to pick us. So this isn't as easy as you literally filling in 20 applications and getting on 20 podcasts. That's not going to happen. It is a numbers game though. So in my business, every Thursday for two hours, I do outreach and. Sometimes I feel like, do I still have to do this? The truth is, yes I do. If I want to consistently be seen on other people's podcasts, then I need to spend that time and put that effort in to do the outreach. A couple of other things to note is I don't actually care the size of the podcast. I just am more than happy to get on and have a conversation. Like I said, from a output point of view, it's really low level output for me. [00:03:00] I don't really have to prep anything. I don't have to do anything major I have to set up anyway. So for me, it normally is just a case of spending an hour with someone having really good fun chatting with them about the business, but the effort comes in reaching out. It does take work and you are gonna have to put some time into it. And it can feel like a slow burn because often if I apply for a podcast, they might not be recording for a few months, and then when I do record, it might not come out for a few months. It's one of those things that over time you are going to be doing it more. You're going to be seen more, and because of that, other people are going to start to ask you more. Lots of these things are kind of self-fulfilling. You do it, you get seen doing it. People ask you to do it more. So number one is podcast guesting. I still highly recommend you reaching out to other people's podcasts who have your audience and offering to be a guest. Oh, and of course, what I should say is you need to offer a lead magnet. So whatever you're talking about on the podcast, make sure that you have a good lead magnet if they allow it for you to offer at the end of the [00:04:00] interview so that people can get on your email list. Number two. Speaking. Now, I know this isn't for everybody, and some of you are going to be watching this thinking or listening to this and thinking, no way, Theresa speaking is not for me. However, if it is, if you want to be a thought leader, if you want to be seen as a personal brand, then speaking is one of the most powerful things that you can do because people are on stages. Are seen as thought leaders. They are seen as the experts. They are seen at the top of their industry. Even if you think it scares you a little, it still scares me. After all these years of doing it. I would highly recommend that you look at speaking a bit like with the podcast, they are a trusted audience. The people who go to the event or the people who listen to the podcast, trust. The person who's putting it on or trust the person whose podcast it is, because otherwise they wouldn't be there. So by sheer fact that you are being put in front of that audience, that you are being allowed on that stage to speak to them already builds up a huge amount of trust. The fact that you [00:05:00] are the expert on the stage builds up a massive amount of trust and exactly the same as the podcast, we want a lead magnet. Again, what I tend to do is. Every speaking gig I do, I will have some kind of opt-in within that presentation, whether it's the presentation itself, whether it's a workbook, whether it's something additional on top of it, I always make sure there is some kind of lead magnet, which I use as a QR code on my slides to encourage people to come and join my email list. Number three, quizzes now. As humans, we are so curious about ourselves and we'd like to find out about ourselves, which is why quizzes are one of the most effective lead magnets that you can use. I work with SCORE app and I have a quiz in SCORE app. So if you were to head to Theresa Heath wearing.com/quiz, or if you are watching this on YouTube, if you click the QR code, then that will take you there. You can go through my quiz and see what it's like, but the reason that quizzes are so good. [00:06:00] And I highly recommend score wrap is because we are fascinated by ourselves. And if you can help not only someone find out something about themselves, which then means that they can take a step forward or they can progress towards the goal that they're trying to get. But also we find out more about our customer. Now, when I'm talking about lead magnets, what I will often suggest is you ask for the least information possible. So name and email. That's it. So we are not collecting data about the people we are putting on our email list. And a quiz is a very natural, very effective way in which to get people A on our list, but B, to find out more about them, if you go to Theresa Heath wearing.com/score app. You can get 50% off your first month. Number four bundles. If you've not come across bundles, then let me explain what they are. A bundle is normally where one business owner say, let's say I decide I'm going to do a bundle, and I go out to [00:07:00] other business owners who have a similar niche to me who do similar things or complimenting things, but have the same audience, and I ask them to. Basically volunteer to give me something that you would normally pay for. So a low cost offer. It could be something that's up for like $19, 19 pounds, and you gather lots of business owners to do this. And then what happens is you give that bundle away. You either give it away completely for free, or you charge it for a very low cost amount, which means the person who is opting in to either buy it or get it for free is getting a ton of value. For either free or hardly any cost. But the beauty of the bundle is everyone that's contributing to the bundle then promotes the bundle. So effectively you've got all these business owners promoting the fact that you are, they're taking part in a bundle. I have taken part in other people's, I've never done my own, but I'm promoting the fact [00:08:00] of, look, I'm taking part in this bundle. You can get all this stuff for really good cost. The other beauty about this, now, there's so much, and I could probably do an entire episode just on bundles. But, well, I know I could do an entire episode just on bundles, but the, one of the key things, and one of the things that's really cool about this is each person who is contributing to. If the person buying the bundle, if the customer decides they want that particular course. So let's say they're looking at the bundle that I'm in and someone sees what I'm offering and goes, yes, I want that, they have to actually opt in to my list in order to get it. So there would be an opt-in that is on my page or on my site where they get the bun, my part of the bundle. So they only opt in to the various different business owners that they want. So it can be a really effective way of. A getting out in front of a massive audience that you couldn't have access to. The reason you have access to it is because everybody's sharing it and everyone's doing that, kind of [00:09:00] putting it out to their list on their socials and all of that sort of good stuff. But also they're only opting into you when they definitely want the thing that you are offering. So bundles can be a really effective way to get in front of other people's audiences and to get in front of much bigger audiences and get people on your list. Number five, hosting or taking part in a summit. Summits are kind of similar to bundles. They're definitely similar in the fact of how you reach the audience. The difference here is a summit is normally an online event, so this could either be prerecorded sessions or it could be live in 2024. I did my own summit and. I might be doing one again in 2026 where basically my summit was a two day live summit with tracks. So basically it was a bit like an online conference. It was quite a lot of work. However, what I was able to do is bring together a load of experts in my field and ask them very nicely if they would help me promote it. Now some summits [00:10:00] insist that you promote it. And depending on who's running the summit, the quality of the summit and the size of their audience, I will happily promote the summit. I decided to take a different route, which I might do again, different for 2026, where I said, I want to make this summit so good that you are going to want to shout it from the rooftops that you are going to want to share it with your audience. 'cause you are gonna be so proud that you're part of it. And luckily that did happen. But what I was able to do is tap into all of these other audiences by creating this online event. Now, like I said, I made that summit a big deal because I did it live. I did tracks. It was full on. You don't have to do that. You could do a summit that is prerecorded sessions that are released over a certain length of time. But the key here, very similar with the bundle, is that you get business owners who are servicing your audience or a complimentary business to you, so still have your audience and they help promote the summit alongside you and therefore you get. [00:11:00] Put in front of different audiences. Now, the beauty of your hosting the summit is that you get all those people on your list. If you are guesting on someone's summit, then you have to rely on the fact of offering a lead magnet and hoping that they liked your session and they opt in. Number six is community collaborations. What do I mean by community collaborations? Well, it's very similar to being in front of other people's audiences, but it's probably done on a. Depending on the size of someone's audience or someone's community, it could be done on a much smaller level. And as I've already said, I personally am not bothered by the size of someone's audience. Now, if I'm going to speak on a stage and there are hundreds and hundreds of people there, amazing. If I'm speaking on an online event and there's thousands, amazing. But that doesn't mean they're the only ones I'm going to do. And as a side note. Just because someone's audience is massive doesn't mean it's the most engaged. One of the fascinating things about running my own summit was I was able [00:12:00] to see the clicks that people got because we had affiliate links. I was really blown away by some of the much smaller audiences that got way more, more opting in. Because that audience was strong, because that was a really good community because that community loved their person that they followed so much that they trusted and the trust was high. So don't always get swayed by the big audiences in the big communities. And also if you are watching or listening to this and you want me to come and speak in your community, or you want me to come on your podcast and you are thinking. It's not big enough. Please come and ask me if I am free and have the time. I would love to. Okay. Let's talk a bit more about the community collaboration. This is where we are looking at people's groups and communities. So let's say someone has a membership of people who have online businesses who. I might go and offer, or they might ask me to go and do a session in that group. Now, it might be a fairly small group. It might be a fairly intensive session, so [00:13:00] I might do a workshop style session for an hour, or I might do a q and a, or I might do a tour. Probably is a bit more labor intensive than if you were just doing a podcast interview. That trust is so much higher, and normally the people coming on your list are so much warmer straight away, which is why I want you to consider this. Even if someone only has a small group, even if you only have a small group, invite people in. I highly recommend that you do this because this honestly can be a really effective way to grow your audience. Number seven, DM based lead magnets. What do I mean by DM based lead magnets? I am talking about on social media, comment, the word, whatever the word is. Using something like ManyChat can be a really, really effective way to grow your audience. Social media has certainly got harder. The many years that I've been in business. It doesn't mean that it's all lost. And one of the really effective ways that you can maximize your social media is [00:14:00] using something like ManyChat and having them mention a keyword or comment a keyword, and then you use the ManyChat automation to basically DM them and say, did you want such and such? Great. Here's the link type thing. It can really shorten that effort window for them. 'cause imagine if someone sees a post, I'm putting a post up. Imagine if you have a post on social media that talks about a lead magnet that you have, and then you say to them, either go to the link in my bio. Or head to, and you give them a URL, that's quite labor intensive for them. They're having to come out the post, go to your link, go click on the link, find it, go to the page. Whereas with the dm, ManyChat. Automation, it's so much quicker. You are taking the any effort out for them. It is very easy for them to engage. The other beauty about using something like ManyChat and doing this process is the way social media works. And I'm [00:15:00] not gonna spend very long on this 'cause I'm probably not, the experts talk about this anymore, but the way it works is on engagement. So the more engagement you get on a post, the more likely it is that it's going to show it to more people. So by getting people to comment a word, brilliant, more engagement, more people see it. So think of a really good lead magnet that your audience want and use something like ManyChat to help promote that. And number eight, AI optimized lead magnets. Okay, what do I mean by that? Well, as we know, the world is changing and we are no longer necessarily going to Google to search for things. Also, with the rise of AI browsers, this is getting even stronger. AI are finding the answers for us, so we need to make sure that we are creating lead magnets. Are very AI friendly, so you need to think about the questions that people are putting into AI about...