Creating communications that engage, excite or compel your audience to take action isn’t about luck – it requires research, refinement and review. You need to understand who you’re talking to, speak to what they care about, and have them listen and respond favourably to what you’re saying.
We explore the top three reasons why you need to define and know your audience for content marketing success.
1) You’ll better understand who you’re talking to
Ask any marketer and they’ll tell you that understanding their audience is key to their success. Yes, they know the basic details of their age, location and gender. But they also understand what motivates them, their pain points and their challenges. How? They put in the hard yards in to both know and define who their audience is.
You can form a pretty clear snapshot of your audience from some easily accessible statistics. Think about your social media analytics, eDM opens and regular visits to your website. From these numbers, you can start to see patterns of behaviour, preferences and trends of content that performs well. But if you really want to understand who your audience is, you may need to define them at a deeper level.
According to Gather Content, brands who understand their audience are more likely to reach their intended audience, create more meaningful content and be able to speak in an authentic voice. Reaching this deeper level of audience understanding can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Start with the most important thing you want to learn about your audience. Do you want to know when your audience is most primed to press ‘Add to cart’? Try diving deeper into Google Analytics to see what content is leading your audience to buy. If you want more qualitative data, try sending out a survey. Simply asking your audience for answers will go a long way to improving your long-term content marketing strategy.
Once you know who your audience is, you can start to create content that truly speaks to their wants and needs.
2) You’ll create content that speaks to them
Knowing your audience is important. Now you can start to create content that appeals to their interests, especially in connection with your brand.
According to Jayson DeMers, the founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, you need to start your content creation by thinking about what topics people are interested in. This audience-centric attitude applies to all forms of content creation, whether you’re writing with a keyword strategy in mind or choosing a topic for a long-form article.
Reportedly, over 91 per cent of B2B marketers use content marketing to promote brand awareness. With so much content competing for eyeballs and attention, you want what you produce to stand out to your audience. Producing quality content that not only speaks to but empathises with your audience can help create and sustain a genuine engagement with your brand. As Ryan Kettler of BootSuite explains, great content marketing isn’t just about getting clicks. The best content marketers look for ways to create content that incites a response from your audience. Creating this type of content marketing strategy doesn’t come easily to everyone. That’s why it’s important to first do your research and engage content experts to help you achieve your content marketing goals.
3) Your content will be more likely to convert
If you know your audience and are speaking to what they need, you’re well on your way to creating meaningful content that converts. Whether your version of a conversion is a click through to a shopping cart or a sign up to a newsletter, the goal is still the same: to draw more loyal customers to meaningfully interact with your brand.
Making genuine, ongoing connections with your audience won’t happen overnight. However, they’re vital to the future of your brand, especially if you want to continue growing your audience and their loyalty.
Laying a solid foundation for your brand communications can be costly and time-consuming, especially if you don’t know where to start. Luckily, we know how to speak effectively to your audience, without breaking the bank. Get in touch with Shuttle Rocket today – we’re the small business experts who can help you get back to doing what you do best.