How To Assemble: Mobilizing Your Audience
Bravo!
You have an audience. Donors. Voters. Fans. Ticket buyers. Followers.
Your audience may be large or small, an email list or a social following. Or you may have a sophisticated CRM that tracks and reports your audience’s behaviors and beliefs, habits and hangups.
You are to be commended either way …
BUT there’s a big difference between having an audience — even knowing your audience — and moving an audience. That is, moving a distracted, disinterested, dizzied, and disorganized assembly of people to do the one thing you need most.
What is that one thing for you?
Buy a ticket to your show or film?
Donate to your cause?
Download your resource or purchase your book?
Show up for your store opening?
Pre-save your new song?
I’m taken aback all the time when I hear makers and marketers say to me, “Yes, I have a plan, but I don’t know what I want my target audience to do or how to get them to do it.”
To be fair, they actually do know. They just haven’t engineered their campaign plan to do it; they are too busy focused on budgets and daily analytics and, Lord forgive them, creating awareness.
Reality check: Unless you're just flexing for clout, you need your audience to take a specific, measurable, timely action. Not just any action. The action that moves the needle.
And not just some of your audience. You need as many as possible, acting together, at the same time.
Remember, candidates only win if supporters vote en masse during a fixed window. Authors and musicians only hit charts if enough people download or buy during the same timeframe. Streaming shows only succeed if a critical mass of viewers watch early, not weeks later.
This is the difference between marketing… and marketing with mobilization.
You don’t need an “audience.” You need participants. You need motivated, focused, and determined people to act.
That may seem small, but trust me … adding mobilization strategies is a radically different approach to your marketing plan.
You likely know that most marketing is built for volume: reach, impressions, traffic.
But if I’m promoting a 500-cap concert, what’s my goal?
Not 5,000 fans.
Not 500,000 views.
Just 500 ticket-buyers.
That’s it. That’s success. The win.
And I’m not targeting people who aren’t fans or don’t know the artist. That’s a different campaign. I’m focused on converting 500 known fans into 500 ticket-holders.
How?
By identifying, intensifying, compressing, and eventizing. Then using that momentum to attract more fans for future shows.
When you compress attention into a narrow window, you create heat. Urgency. Social proof.
That’s what mobilization does.
I covered this in my last How To Assemble, but it’s worth repeating:
Every album drop, film premiere, Super Bowl ad, political rally, or Black Friday sale is built around the same idea: If something feels like an event, people show up, tune in, and talk about it.
Eventizing is about transforming your message and offering into a moment that feels urgent and unmissable. Quick recap on how to eventize:
Choose a single release moment, not a fuzzy window.
Brand it: give it a name, countdown, or reveal.
Add communal energy, such as livestreams, chats, watch parties, etc.
Align with cultural moments by drafting off what’s already happening.
Make the moment limited, shared, and measurable.
You can’t fake virality. But you can engineer momentum—and once it starts, it becomes a flywheel.
That mobilization flywheel strategy always includes:
Socializing the message
Eventizing the release
Mobilizing the action … and then the re-action
Most marketers stop at the goal line. “We sold out. On to the next!” But mobilization doesn’t end with action. It continues with re-action.
Invite your audience to do something again. To share it, celebrate it, promote it, amplify it.
That’s how momentum compounds.
It’s easy to forget that people don’t want your content. They want connection … to each other, to you, and to a shared purpose.
So give them one. Let them feel ownership in the outcome.
Here’s how you create that ownership:
Turn early fans into insiders or ambassadors.
Equip them by giving them shareable language, visuals, and stories.
Personalize the message. Speak to them, not to some ambiguous or vague demographic.
Show visible progress such as tickets sold, funds raised, goals met.
Celebrate micro-wins and publicly credit your audience.
Use DMs, texts, and email. Personal beats public every time.
Marketers need to be reminded daily that we don’t need everyone. We only need the right people, acting together.
No budget? Small audience? Unsure of how to start?
Well, start small. Go deep. Compress energy into a tight circle. Then let momentum radiate outward. Growing isn’t the first priority. Mobilizing is.
Remember to take a page from a political campaign. A cause or candidate doesn’t win because it has the most awareness. It wins because voters show up on a specific day to do the specific thing that matters most.
Same with your launch, your book, your show, your cause.
If they don’t act, nothing else matters.
So here’s your opportunity:
Don’t just launch. Eventize.
Don’t just attract. Mobilize.
Don’t just post. Connect.
Don’t just track. Understand.
Your message is only as powerful as the momentum behind it.
