Hi YATMers, I'm Kerry Harrison. I teach marketing teams how to use AI without damaging their brand, customer trust or wonderful human thinking. I'm also a yoga teacher and run women’s circles in the woods.
These can feel like two different worlds, but the more we use AI, the more we need to nurture our human skills. So, I spend most of my time trying to smash these worlds together.
It's fun and hard and brain-bending and messy. I love it.
Here's my recommendation for you. At the last Lunch Club in Bristol, the brilliant Bryony Thomas mentioned her book, "101 Ways Customers Are Like Cats". It's a book about marketing, but also about cats.
Right now it's on my desk and when I have a spare minute or two, I'll dip in. I'm on no.63 at the moment. The whole thing is so clever and fun. Love, love, love.
Let's make sure we connect today.
Here I am on LinkedIn
Where I work here
Building an audience today is not about reaching more people. It’s about being able to reach the right people again.
There is always temptation to create more.
We have everything we need in front of us to keep publishing and keep feeding the machine.
The lure is attention. You keep making and keep trying to stay visible so more people know who you are. It can feel like audience building, but a lot of the time it is just doing more.
If building an audience in 2026 has a job, it is not to make you popular. It is to help you build a connection with people who know what you are about, trust the shape of your work and choose to stay close to it over time.
It is not about being noticed once. It is about being reachable again and again.
Attention Rented, Permission Owned
Social platforms are built for motion. That is why we spend so much time there. There is always something new to react to, another post to check, another hit of reassurance when something performs. I feel that pull too.
Michelle Raymond shared this post on Sunday that highlights the shift in the LinkedIn algorithm.
It no longer works on the old assumption of, “I’m connected to you, so I’ll see you.” The feed now reads the post content and matches it to the ‘right person,’ whether they follow you or not.
Now AI has made content production cheaper, the volume of material competing for attention has exploded.
If your strategy is to win by posting more and chasing scale in the same lane as everybody else, then you are choosing a game where the rewards are brief and the rules can change at any time, by someone else.
That is why an addressable audience matters. It is the difference between hoping people see something and knowing you can tell them.
People Don’t Want Nomadic Experiences
People want continuity and a place to return to where they know what they are stepping into.
This is the part many audience-building conversations miss.
We become obsessed with reach, but reach only answers the question of who might see us. Return answers the more important question of who comes back.
If your business depends entirely on your ideas being rediscovered by strangers every day, then you are always starting over.
Reach is “Who might see this?” Return is “Who comes back?”
You do not need to be everywhere. You need to be somewhere people can find you again.
How This Shows Up In YATM (And Ideas For Your Side)
YATM has shown me that addressable beats big because the real value is not just in reaching people. This is the part of the work I care about most.
It is in creating repeatable moments where people begin to matter to each other.
1) When the audience becomes each other
We had PowerPoint Nites in YATM Club in February. It worked because the people taking part were already in a space where a level of trust and familiarity existed.
People felt safe enough to contribute, as this was their space. Your audience is an asset, to each other.
That is a completely different level of value. The audience is no longer simply receiving from a central point. They start to become part of the place itself.
2) When being in the space strengthens the bonds
The same thing happens with our Work Together close at Creator Day. This is when we come together, to create your own piece of work, but feel supported.
Working in a shared environment, where you have a group of people on your side, changes the quality of the experience. It strengthens the social fabric around the work.
That is what a returnable space does. It becomes meaningful because people feel different when they are in it.
I have seen this with people who first arrive quietly and gradually become a bigger part of the room. Stewart Perrett is a good example. Like many others, he started at the back of the room and has made his way to the front. In September, Stewart will host Lunch Club Poole. That is what happens when someone stays close to a space long enough for it to shape their confidence.
3) When you can deliver a message directly
The YATM WhatsApp groups are another example of this working in practice.
Once there is a direct channel, the relationship changes. Messages can go to people first, not through the filter of a platform deciding what matters today.
Of course people can opt out, and that is exactly the point. The relationship is permission-based. It is more honest. It is built on choice, not interruption.
What has happened in 2026 is regional WhatsApp Groups. What first looked like one audience ie. one to many communication, begins to behave more like a network of connected rooms.
That is when addressable becomes even stronger. It is not just centralised, but distributed.
Let’s Round Up
The future doesn’t belong to whoever publishes the most. It belongs to whoever creates the strongest path back.
The goal is to build something people choose again.
That is the game now, not borrowed attention, but earned return and deeper roots.
In the end, the future will not belong to those with the biggest crowd. It will belong to those who are chosen, trusted and reachable when it matters most.
Share this with someone else 💌
youarethemedia.co.uk/addressable-audience/
Time Wasting
Every McDonald's location and whether its ice cream machine is working.
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This Week Around The Web
GROWTH, CREATION & YOUR INDEPENDENCE
Is technology changing us for the better? - from Joe Pulizzi
👉 Are we shaping the tools…or are the tools slowly shaping us?
4 creators who grew by borrowing other people’s audiences - from Chenell Basilio
👉 Find someone who already has the audience you want.
THE COMMUNITY YOU CAN BUILD
A framework for AI and community strategy - from Bill Johnston
👉 Connecting community activity to measurable outcomes.
'Low-tech' community tools - from Community Inc.
👉 What WhatsApp can teach us about engagement
GROWING YOUR NEWSLETTER
Most welcome email sequences don't care about subscribers - from Josh Spector
👉 Give value and encourage people to reply to you
How newsletters beat social media for your brain - from The Bilig
👉 data comparing newsletters and social media for staying informed.
You make the place for people to feel part of...
You don’t need to a blank screen thinking “What should I post?” A better question might be:
What return does my work create for the people who spend time with it?
If someone leaves with greater clarity, a sense of possibility, or the feeling that they belong somewhere, their time felt well spent.
Over time, your work starts to play a different role in people’s lives.
People don’t return for answers anymore. They return to the places that make them feel less alone.
LIVE Session Today. Building Your Valued Audience In '26...
Today's newsletter theme is audience building. For a long time, it felt like the goal was reach. By this, I mean more followers and more people finding you and seeing your work.
The real advantage today is being able to reach the people who already know what you’re about and want to hear from you again.
Let me share with you today (Thursday) at 1pm (GMT) how I've built the YATM space, one person at a time, so you can put in place your side, add it to your day here. It's in YATM Club and I'll have the recording up at the end of the day.
If you're not in YATM Club yet, here is the page to read more and to join.
Come to Lunch Clubs in April...
The YATM learning year is September to April. We close the 25/26 season with our final shows in April and then we're all back after the summer break, that takes us all the way to Creator Day '27.
See you around the Lunch Club table next month...
Poole | Thursday 16th April and the theme is relationships, book here
London | Thursday 23th April and the theme is consistency, book here
Bristol | Thursday 30th April and the theme is turning points, book here
Here's the video that rounds up today. Enjoy the day...Mark
