Introduction
Content marketing is one of the best ways to engage with your customers and get them to take action. But how do you know if your content is resonating with them?
Fortunately, the answer is simple: by understanding who they are. You need to understand what your reader wants, where they’re getting their information from, and what excites them about what you have to offer. Once you know these things (and more), it’s easy to create content that speaks directly to them—and gets a better response because of it.
The first step to creating a successful content strategy is to consider your target audience.
The first step to creating a successful content strategy is to consider your target audience. Know who you’re writing for and understand what they want to read. This can be done by defining personas, which are avatars of the people in your audience based on research and data collection efforts. Personas help shape the types of content that will resonate with them, making it easier for writers and editors to produce engaging content that resonates with readers.
Before you start crafting content, think about who will be reading it.
Before you start crafting content, think about who will be reading it. Know your audience. Know what they want to learn. Know what they need from you.
How?
- Ask them! You can do this by sending out a survey or conducting interviews with your target market.
- Look at the statistics around your industry, or related fields such as similar businesses and competitors (this one is great for finding out what topics people are talking about – if you see something interesting trending on social media, it may be worth addressing).
- Observe how people interact with other brands in the space (e.g., look at their social posts), then apply those lessons learned directly to yours; that way everyone wins because they’ll feel connected but also like there’s something new happening every time they check back into Facebook/Twitter etc.)
Once you know who your readers are, consider their wants.
Once you know who your readers are, consider their wants.
- What do they want to read about?
- Are there topics that your target audience loves? What are their interests? Is there a current event or topic that will spark their interest as well as yours? Asking questions like these will help you find out what kind of content would be most appealing to your readers. Remember that the more specific you can get, the better results you’ll see in terms of engagement and traffic!
Create your own persona – a fictional character that represents a typical customer.
The best way to create a persona is by using real data. For example, you can take an inventory of your site’s existing customers and see what they have in common. If you don’t have any existing customers, you should do some research on the people who might buy from your website. This can be done by analyzing their characteristics (age, gender, occupation), interests (likes and dislikes), behaviors (how often they search for information or make purchases), or needs/wants (what motivates them).
Once you have the data about your audience members, it’s time to create their profiles or personas based on that information. You don’t need to know everything about each person—just enough so that when writing content for them or designing a product for them, it feels authentic and relatable instead of generic or impersonal.
Your persona should cover things like education level, skill level, favorite social network, and so on.
Your persona should cover things like education level, skill level, favorite social network, and so on. This will help you to better understand the needs of your potential customers.
A common mistake that marketers make is to create personas based on their own opinion. If you think people in this industry are likely to have a technical background due to their job role, then write that into your persona.
While it’s good practice for marketers to use data as much as possible when making decisions about marketing strategy (and most other areas of business), it’s also important not to be too rigid or rule-based when making assumptions about what people want or need from a product or service. You could find out through research that users don’t care about anything except getting their job done efficiently—or they might not even know what they want at all! As long as there’s some basis in reality and real data behind your assumptions, though, creating fictional characters can still help guide decision-making processes while allowing flexibility to adapt over time based on new findings and experiences gained from trying out new tactics.
Every part of your marketing should be tailored to appeal to your personas.
Every part of your marketing should be tailored to appeal to your personas. This can be as simple as making sure that all the products you put out there are relevant to their interests, or it can be as complex as creating an entirely new product line based on what they want. It’s up to you how much effort you want to put into creating an ideal user experience for each persona.
However, no matter how great your content is, if it doesn’t resonate with who you’re trying to reach then it won’t have much effect on sales. That’s why when crafting marketing campaigns and determining which platforms will work best for them, knowing who your target audience is essential—and using that information in every aspect of the campaign (from design through messaging) is critical.
If you know who you’re talking to, you can craft content that speaks directly to them.
As we’ve discussed, knowing who you’re talking to is the first step in creating a successful strategy. It’s important to create a persona for your audience—a fictional character that represents a typical customer. Personas should cover things like education level, skill level, favorite social network and more.
If you’re new to personas or need some help getting started with creating one for yourself or your brand, this guide will walk through the process step-by-step: [How To Create A Persona](https://www.jeffbullas.com/2016/06/10/how-to-create-your-customer-persona/)
Conclusion
The next time you’re faced with a content marketing challenge, ask yourself this question: “what would my persona do in this situation?” Then do it.
