06 Jun Know your audience

The A-Z of content marketing: A is for audience.

Content marketing isn’t about you, it’s about your audience. Let’s take a look at how you can define and truly know your audience in order to write content that is useful and serves the needs of the reader.

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A is for audience

So you’ve sat down to write a blog post for your company (or you’ve engaged a lovely writer like myself to do it for you). Who are you writing for? If you say your boss, then you are WRONG. In any piece of writing, you are always, always, always writing for the reader.

This is especially true for content marketing. It’s not about what you want to sell. It’s about providing useful information that will help your reader with their buying decisions. Or if they aren’t at the point of buying, just with information that is helpful and insightful, or even just entertaining.

How do you know who your audience is?

One way that you can keep the audience clearly in mind is by creating a comprehensive profile. Some marketers call this a buyer persona. Think about as many details as possible that help you to form a clear picture in your mind. How old is your reader? Are they male or female? What type of organisation do they work for? What are the problems or pain points they are experiencing? Where are they located?

For example, say that I were writing content for a vet surgery on the Northern Beaches. Let’s think about how to profile their audience. One buyer persona could be:

• Woman, age 30 to 50
• Has 2 children
• Family pets are well-loved
• Life is busy, so they want tips on how to care for pets without it being overly time-consuming

So with this buyer persona in mind, what are some topics that we could write about for this audience:

• Tips on how to involve children in pet care
• Age appropriate pet care activities for children
• Advice on organising care for your pet while on holidays
• How to safely introduce a new family pet
• Guidelines for safe play between children and animals
• Hygiene tips to avoid cross-contamination between children and animals
• Best off-leash dog parks

It’s also important to note that most businesses will have multiple audiences. Therefore an effective content marketing strategy will consider the needs of the various audiences. A single piece of content may serve multiple audiences, but be clear on who your primary audience is for that piece of content and write singularly with them in mind.

Keep it clear

It’s important to note that most businesses will have multiple audiences. Therefore an effective content marketing strategy will consider the needs of the various audiences. A single piece of content may serve multiple audiences, but be clear on who your primary audience is for that piece of content and write singularly with them in mind.

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Over to you

How do you keep audience front and centre when writing? Let me know what works for you.