Do you know how to read the room? If knowing your audience comes easily to you, then this may be a skill you were born with. Reading a room in person may come more easily. You can tell if people are engaged, bored, happy, sad, or any range of emotions, and then you can adjust your talk accordingly. It’s a critical skill for success.
But what about when it comes to the digital world? Analytics and click-through rates are the only indicator of how you’re doing. You can’t read the room as easily when you can’t see or hear your audience.
So how do you know if what you’re saying is good?
Cluing into your audience
Well, we know that your information is good. You wouldn’t say it if you weren’t sure, right? And by this, I’m really referencing your content. You’re sharing information that is true, that’s meaningful, and that’s helpful.
But are you sharing the right stuff to the right people? It all comes down to knowing your audience. And, while in a digital world, you can’t see everyone’s faces to gauge their reactions, there are a few clues you can use to key into what they like.
After all, if you’re not writing what your audience needs to see, then no matter how good your content, it won’t matter, because you won’t reach them.
Who are they?
The first step to knowing your audience is defining who they are. This sounds obvious and counterintuitive, right? To know your audience, you should know your audience. But it’s TRUE.
Who is your audience? What do they like? What do they hate? What does their day look like?
Some people in marketing talk about writing up an avatar. This entails an entirely worthwhile exercise where you build a character that exemplifies your audience. You can give them a name, a family, etc. But it will help you imagine a very real person instead of an ambiguous audience.
Who are they not?
This is just as important. If, for example, you don’t work with men, you can easily make your tagline “Superhero at Your Service, Solving Women’s X Issues in a Single Bound.”
Or whatever. But defining who you don’t work with can help you meaningfully exclude them from your copy. While you wouldn’t say “I don’t work with men, ever!” you can instead tailor all of your messaging to women.
There’s a caveat here, and it’s that you need to get MUCH more specific than working along the gender lines.
What are their pain points?
This is important! If you know your audience’s pain points you can tailor your messaging to their needs. What is making them absolutely crazy? What problems do they want to solve?
From here, you can dig deep into how your services or products solve the pain points.
Writing to your audience
Now you know your audience, you know who they aren’t, and you know their pain points.
Ready to write?
HA! It’s a lot more complicated than that a lot of the time.
Your next steps will probably be to list each pain point and then detailing how your product or service speaks to them. Then you can make adjustments to each service as needed.
Now you have a list of topics you can speak to!
What’s more, this goes beyond your blog content. This should redound across all aspects of your messaging. From your website to your social media and beyond!
And if you’re not sure if your content speaks to your audience, then I have a FREE 10-Point Checklist. You can get it here!
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