Why a Small Following Beats a Large One
If you haven’t started selling digital products or you’re about to quit because you think you need a large amount of followers to actually sell them, then let me break down why that’s not true. I used to think the same thing. I thought I needed hundreds of thousands of followers to sell a digital product for a high price or even a low price. And the thing is, I did build those hundreds of thousands of followers and now a large amount of the people that follow me don’t even want to buy from me. So, I’m going to break down exactly why having a small following can be better than having a large following in 2026.
My Background
My name is Maddox. I’ve done over $200,000 selling digital products in the past 2 years alone. And I didn’t start there. I started with a lawnmowing business, pivoted to some other business models that were more online because I wanted to get into the online making money space. And then I finally landed on digital products because I’d already been posting and I was seeing people that were making hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I figured out that they were just selling courses online to people and that’s how they were making all of their money.
Followers Don’t Sell
But not too long ago, I realized that followers don’t sell. I know people with hundreds of thousands of followers that don’t make any money and barely sell anything. And I know people with a couple thousand followers that make 10 times the amount they make, and in some cases six figures a month. So let me be clear. Followers matter far less now. They used to, but not like before.
The Two Paths
Most people believe that you have to go build hundreds of thousands of followers, then finally pick a product that you’re going to sell, and then launch it and sell it, and then you can make six figures a year or more. That’s not the only way anymore. Yes, that works. You can do that. But in my experience the second path is way easier. You start with a digital product, then you launch content about that digital product, and you may only need a few thousand views a month to then sell to the right people, who could pay you $4,000, $5,000, or $6,000 just for your digital product.
The Math: Creator A vs. Creator B
Let’s break down the math so that you can understand this clearer. Content creator A has 300,000 followers and they’ve posted memes, relatable content, content about general stuff, and general advice. But they have 300,000 followers. Content creator B has only 3,000 followers, but they’ve created niche content that attracts the right kind of people, and the people that follow them are only following because they want to learn about their niche. So, their followers are already interested in the stuff that they’re going to sell.
If content creator A converts their audience at 0.5%, which is super generous, by the way, for someone with that many followers, it really should be about less than 0.1%. But if they convert that many, then they’re going to have 150 buyers. But if content creator B converts just 5%, which in my experience is kind of low for a content creator that creates only niche related content, then they’re going to have 150 buyers as well. And which one was easier to build?
Which One Was Easier to Build?
Well, it’s certainly not the person that spent years creating content over and over again every single day trying to attract a wide audience and trying to go viral to build 300,000 followers, when in reality, if you just post niche specific ICP content, building 3,000 followers is pretty easy. ICP stands for ideal client persona, which is the person that would buy from you in the ideal world. If you only post content for that person, the chance that they follow you after seeing your content is super high, because it’s exactly what they’re looking for. So content creator B almost certainly got to 3,000 followers way, way faster than content creator A got to 300,000.
Finding Your ICP
The real lever in creating this kind of content is your ICP, the ideal client persona. The way you find this is by looking at what you’re going to sell and asking yourself who is going to buy this. Is it someone that wants to learn about content, someone that wants to scale their digital product? Or is it someone that wants to play basketball? Someone that wants to go and lose weight in the gym. Who is the person that’s going to buy it? And what is their actual problem that you’re trying to solve?
Example: Losing Weight in the Gym
Let’s say, for example, someone has been in the gym for 3 months and they haven’t lost a single pound. If they watch your content on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube, and they see that you have lost a lot of weight, or you know exactly how to lose weight in the gym, and your content targets them by saying that if you’re struggling with losing weight, here’s exactly what I would do to lose 50 lbs in 5 months, that person is going to be attracted to your videos and could potentially buy your digital product, even at a high price. So ask yourself those kind of questions and figure out what your ICP is and get super specific with it.
Talk Exactly to Your ICP
If you do that, then you’ll know what kind of content to create and how to target your marketing so that you attract that kind of person. If someone’s watching your content and you’re talking exactly to them, exactly in detail with no missed points, everything is aligned to them, sure, you’ll get less followers, less views, but the person that you are talking to is going to relate to you so much and be like, “That’s exactly me,” that they’re very likely to buy from you. You’re way more likely to sell to someone who you understand than someone who you don’t understand at all and someone who you don’t even know you’re talking to.
Making Content Targeted to Your ICP
When you’re going to make content, you want to think about first who is my ICP. Then once you have that, you are going to make content targeted towards that ICP and you’re going to post it. It’s that simple. Everything you do with your personal brand should be targeted towards your ICP because if not, you’re just wasting your time. You tell a personal story, teach a lesson with that story that relates to your ICP. You are giving value. For your hook, for the value, target your ICP.
Example: Framing Your Hook
For example, if your video is about the best workouts you can do to lose 30 lbs in 3 months, this is how I would frame it. If you’ve been trying to lose weight and you’ve been going to the gym consistently, but you’re not seeing any results, then these three workouts will help you lose 30 lbs in only 3 months. That’s how your hook should be framed as it’s targeted to your ICP. So, every video, unless it’s a personal story or a general motivational video in your niche, should target your ICP in the hook and throughout the rest of the video, should relate to them and their problems.
Common Mistakes
Some mistakes that I commonly see throughout people I’ve worked with is they always try to make the broadest type of content because they have this ego of I want to get more views. I want to go viral. I want to be famous. Now, all of that can be good, but it’s not when you’re trying to sell a high ticket product. The reality is, if you just made the right kind of videos every single day for only 3 months, I’d expect you to close your first client, if not more. And that client could pay you somewhere between $3,000 and $10,000. So stop chasing virality. Stop chasing views. And if you want to build a personal brand that pays you, then make the right kind of content.
Metrics to Track
Some metrics you can track to see if your videos are reaching the right kind of audience is look at the saves. If you see that your video has 3,000 views and 100 saves, it’s a good sign your video is reaching the right kind of people, because few people are going to save it if they don’t find the video valuable and relatable to them.
Engagement and Comments
Look at the engagement as well. If it has a lot of likes, okay, your video might have reached the right audience. If it has comments, cool. What are they saying? If they’re saying, “Thanks. This was so valuable.” Then it probably reached the right audience. If people are commenting BS, like, “Keep trying to make content, bro.” It probably didn’t reach the right audience. Keep in mind that just because it has comments doesn’t mean it is a good video or that it targeted the right people. That’s not what that means. It means that it reached people. But look at the comments. Look if it reached the right kind of people. Just read the comments and you’ll kind of understand if it reached your target audience.
Roadmap for What You Need to Create
Here’s kind of a roadmap for what you need to create. Create problem-specific videos. Tell your story. Especially if you were in your ICP’s position. If you were fat and weighed 50 more pounds than you do right now 5 months ago and you lost all of that weight in those 5 months, then definitely tell your story if you’re selling in the fitness coaching niche. And if you’re not telling your story and not relating to your ideal viewer, then you could be losing out on a lot of money.
Tell Your Personal Story
Because when someone watches somebody and they realize that, okay, they were in my exact same position and now they’re going to teach me how to get out of it. They’re going to subconsciously trust you. They’re going to be like, “This guy was where I’m at and I could be where he’s at if I just pay him money to teach me.” It’s that simple. So tell your personal stories, relate to your viewer, and I think you’ll make a lot more money.
Motivational Videos
It’s okay to post motivational videos. You could post videos that may get millions of views, but you have to make sure that it’s not targeted towards the wrong kind of people. Obviously, you can’t make it super niche specific to your exact ideal client, but you can attract a broader audience of people that are still interested in the same thing by, for example, making a motivational video about getting up and going to the gym and putting in the work to lose the weight. If you do that, you’re going to attract a broader audience. Maybe someone is skinny and they want to gain muscle or maybe someone’s still fat and they want to lose weight.
But at the same time, you’re attracting people who are interested in the gym and you may get a million views. And from those million views, at least some of the people who watch that video are going to be your ideal client. Also, when you post a video and it gets a lot of views, Instagram or TikTok or whatever platform will often boost your next videos so that they get more views. And the people that watch that video are going to go to your profile and watch some of your other content. And boom, you just got more leads because you posted a more top of the funnel video still kind of related to your niche.
Selling to Viewers Who Know You
Once you have these type of people watching your videos, it’s so easy to sell them on whatever you’re selling because they already know what you do. They already know where you’ve been. They already know how you got to where they want to be. So, all they have to do logically is connect the dots that you teach it and you’re going to teach them for a price. And once they do that, you get on a call with them and sell them on your program.
Free Master Class
If you still don’t understand how to build your product and make it so that it targets the right kind of person and the different types of content systems and content funnels that you can use to get more leads in your inbox, then I created a free master class that’s over an hour long and it’ll teach you everything from step A to step Z of the whole entire realm of making content, starting your personal brand, and selling a high ticket digital product. So, if you’re a complete beginner or you’re advanced but you want to learn more, just check out that class and I think you’ll find it valuable and you’ll learn something.
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links or promote products and services I offer. If you purchase through a link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
