Who Are You Writing For?
Welcome to my series about creating a content strategy. A strategy will ensure that all of your content is created with a purpose in mind.
Today’s blog is Step 2 of 6, to help you focus on a strategy and grow your business.
Step Two: Know Your Audience
Who is your target audience for your content?
One of the best ways to market your business is to create content that appeals to potential customers. A great way to create this quality content is by creating personas for your ideal customers.
It’s easier for you to create content that fits the wants and needs of your ideal customers. So you want to know the type of people they are, what their interests are and what problems they might be facing.
To find out this kind of data, you can use different strategies:
- Google Analytics
- Social media
- Forums
#1: Google Analytics offers you a wealth of data right from your website. Sign into your analytics account and click on “Audience”. There you will see many details like demographics, interests, geography, etc…
If you’re not familiar with Google Analytics, here is a free beginner course you can use to get started: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6
#2: Social media is a great way to discover where your audience lives. Once you’ve found the platform they use most (or it may be on several), join their groups and start perusing the comments to see what they’re pain points are.
Look for those questions that are most frequent. You can take it a step farther and go to the commenters profile. Are they discussing their problems there as well?
You can also use resources that Facebook offers, such as Understand Audiences, and Audience Insights.
#3: Forums are dedicated sites that allow discussions on a particular subject. Or possibly many topics such as Quora or Reddit.
If you want to find a forum in your niche, simply Google “(your niche) + forum”. If you don’t find anything, go to Quora. They have every type of question you can think of, haha.
On Quora, type in your niche and see what comes up. You’ll find both blog articles and questions asked. And as you did on social media, look for the pain points your ideal customer has.
This is also a great way to determine what type of content would answer those questions that aren’t answered. If you find a gap like that in your niche, your content would most likely rank high.
Take Action
After you've gathered this information, sit down and imagine a specific person.
- How old are they?
- What’s their gender?
- Where do they live?
- What’s their income level?
- What are their interests?
- What’s their pain points? You should
Those are just some of the details you may want to consider. When you have your ideal customer in mind, you can create content that appeals to them and addresses their specific problems.
There you go, I hope this helps!
If you missed Step 1, check it out here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/suzieq/blog/creating-a-content-strategy
Watch for Step 3, coming soon!!
Suzanne
Recent Comments
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Some sage advice here, Suzanne! I am actually writing for potentiall authors and my potential readers since the bulk of my efforts go into my book promotion website promoting the books that I write and also certain platfroms where potential authors might gain some traction!
I hope you are having a wonderful day today!
Jeff
A fantastically informative post series so far Suzanne, and I don't expect part three to be any different!!
These are some very helpful hints and tips here, and a great reminder that we should be writing content for our audiences, not ourselves or a piece of software!
Enjoy the rest of your week my friend!
Haha, it’s so easy to write for ourselves, right. But we may not be our ideal avatar. That’s why we need to research.
Cheers
It is indeed my friend.. but who really wants to read about what we are interested in??
Research is essential to find out what the masses want to know...
Cheers 🥂 to you too my friend and have a fabulous start to the weekend!! :-)
Hi Suzanne….
Excellent series with great tips and good approach/ strategy. This will help many who are just writing articles without a brand, theme or audience in mind.
I found this helpful, and I’m sure others will as well.
-Mike
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These are helpful tips for discovering the target audience and where they dangle.
Thanks!! This is info we need to drive targeted traffic to our content. Hope it helps!