Your Niche is not Your Audience

When we want to achieve more with less content we need to create content specifically for our audience.

That brings audience personas to the table.

For ages, I have not worried so much about segmenting my audience. For me, my audience was people interested in the content I created. But that is the wrong approach when you want to be efficient with your content creation.

Why?

You don't really care about an audience for your content.

You have something to offer or sell. The audience you are interested in is the audience that needs/wants your offer. You want to create content that attracts exactly this audience. Future customers.

See how this is different?

In the first scenario, where you just create content for whoever is interested in it, you create content and attract an audience for that content. Some of them may or may not be interested in your offer. That means you need to find a very large audience or create a lot of content to sell a lot of stuff.

In the second scenario, you create content that targets the audience that is interested in your offer. The better you choose the topic of your content for this audience, the more likely it is that many people from this audience are interested in your offer. As a result, you can sell a lot of stuff with a small audience and a couple of select pieces of content.

The more you know about the audience for your offers, the better you can target your marketing content at them.

So, how can you find out more about your target audience?

In the beginning, you start with market research and take a look at your competitors. But that is usually not enough for long.

You want to hear about people's pain points, their questions, and their struggles. Because that is the content you want to create. Content that provides answers for your audience.

I find social media best to find out what people are discussing. That means you have to find a way to become part of the discussion. Conversations are a gold mine not only for building connections but also for learning more about the pain points of your audience.

If you already have an audience (email, social media, or other audiences) you can also ask targeted questions. For instance, you can provide a simple survey. But that means you already know which questions to ask.

You can also ask your existing customers. These are often a good representative for the people you want to target. Talking to your customers will provide you with exactly the triggers that made them buy and that make them like your products (or not.)

But what if you found a keyword you may be able to rank for but it may not be the best keyword for your audience? Should you create content for it?

You can try to convert the traffic you may be able to get for this content. But from my experience, I would not bother if the topic is not close to your audience's interests and pain points. Because then the traffic becomes so hard to convert that a little traffic for a better topic will bring you better results.

I've had blog posts that brought in a ton of traffic but did not convert into subscribers or customers because the audience this content attracted was not the right audience for me and my offers.

If you want high-converting content, creating great content is not enough. You need to think about who your audience is and what they are interested in.

If your topics hit the pain points of your target audience you need a lot less content to see success.

But not all the people in your target audience are the same.

Audience personas help you to understand groups of people from your audience who share interests, questions, and struggles. Segmenting your audience with personas will help you find high-converting topics for each group of people.

Do you want to know more about audience personas, how to create them, and how they make your content creation more efficient?

You can read all about this in my new blog post: "How to use Audience Personas to Create Spectacular Content"

Do you have questions about audience personas or other questions about creating high-converting content? Hit reply and let me know!

Happy Weekend!

Susanna

| Susanna Gebauer by Friendly Fellows UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Im Kieferngrund 9, Berlin, Berlin 14163