The Better Blog

Media Shower writer Julie Beyer is a food and holistic nutrition writer who owns a sugar-free raw chocolate business that has been featured at TED Global’s 30th Anniversary conference. She runs the food blog Love of Food.

Knowing Your Audience is Key

One of the most important parts of marketing is to know your target audience. Yet, this critical step is often overlooked.

As content writing is a form of marketing, you should have a clear understanding of who the target customer is and as much detail about them as possible before you type your first word.

Why?

There are many people in the world… who are you writing for?

Simply put, knowing who your audience is means your writing is more likely to generate sales. And, as a writer, it will be easier and faster for you to create content.

Relevance, Resonance, and Relationships

Knowing your audience helps you to create content that is relevant and that resonates with your reader. The more the reader can identify, relate and feel understood from your article, the more likely they will like and trust the company. And from trust, relationships are built.

Today, people are much more likely to buy from a company they trust and have a relationship with.

How to Get to Know your Target Audience

It’s time to do some research.

Before you are able to tailor your writing to your target audience, you need to find out as much information about them as possible. This is where the adage “less is more” isn’t true.

You can never have too much information about the audience you are writing for.

Everything from how much money they make and how they spend it, to where they live, to what other products they buy, to what they most value, to their biggest pain points are just a few of the valuable pieces of information that can help you to write great content for marketing.

Once you have a general idea of who your audience is, consider researching relevant blogs and social media accounts. For example, if you are writing an article related to parenting, check out a few mom blogs and their social media accounts.

You can also look at how other products that your audience likely buys, speaks to your shared target customers for ideas and insight.

See if you can find out who your audience’s key influencers are. The website hashtagify.me allows you to search any hashtag for free and will tell you all sorts of information about the keyword you are searching for, including who the top influencers are for that hashtag. So if you are writing about finance, try researching #finance on this website and you’ll be able to see who the top influencers are.

How to Tailor your Writing to your Target Audience

Once you have a few resources to draw upon for information, it’s easy to ask the right questions that will help you to create top quality content that sells for any audience.

What are their top of mind problems? Try to position your article and call to action to answer your target audience’s most pressing concerns.

What kind of words, tone, and expressions does your audience typically use? Incorporate as much as possible the language of your target customer into your copy so that what you write resonates with your reader.

Did you find out who some of their key influencers are? Why not make a reference or quote them to prove a point or offer inspiration.

Stop questioning and start doing!

Once you start getting more information about who you are writing for, you’re more than likely to come up with new creative ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

If you are interested in learning more about content marketing, you can learn more through our Content Marketing Academy.