How to find your target audience and create content for them

The way we market any product has been drastically changed in the last decade.From traditional marketing ideas, we have switched to the new age of social media marketing strategies.

In today’s world, content is considered as the most important factor behind any marketing campaign. If your content has been curated in the right way, then you won’t face any problem to target your audience.

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Nevertheless, it is important to identify your target audience first and then create the kind of content that would be retained by them in the long haul. After all, you can’t simply create your content without knowing who your audience is.

In this post, I will teach you some foolproof ways to identify your audience and create winning content for them. Let’s get it started with!

Why should you define your target audience?

It’s true that engaging content tends to attract more leads, but it can’t guarantee to connect the right audience to your brand.

Therefore, the first step of any digital marketing strategy involves the identification of brand’s target audience.

Here are some reasons behind defining your target audience.

1. It ensures that you create the right kind of content.

2. After getting to know the needs of your real-time users, you would be able to come up with more helpful and informative content for them.

3. It boosts the conversion rate of your content and helps in lead generation.

4. Results in the better distribution of your content

5. Increases its overall reach and engagement in the end

I have provided a stepwise solution to identify your audience and create winning content for them

Step 1: Start by understanding your target market

Needless to say, in order to identify your target audience, you should know what your target market is. In order to do this, ask yourself questions like these:

1. Who would be benefited by my product?

2. The product appeals the most to demographics related to one’s gender, age, and other parameters.

3. Does the product have a particular niche?

4. What is the unique selling point of my product?

5. How much competition my product would face in the market?

6. Who are my major competitors?

If you are able to answer these questions, then you can build an evident brand image in the market. Here are some quick suggestions to get you started with.

A. Key demographics

Age, gender, employment, lifestyle, consumer choices, location, languages, etc. are some prominent parameters that will help you understand your target market in a better way. You might not be able to exactly identify the target group but can easily filter the group that might not respond well to your content.

For instance, let’s consider the example of Parent’s Magazine. As the name suggests, the brand generates content while keeping in mind the needs of all the parents out there (expecting, new, and experienced).

B. Who are your existing customers?

If your brand is already running and have a loyal customer base, then you can start by targeting them on social media. Simply come up with the kind of content that would relate to them and keep experimenting in between.

C. Who are your key competitors?

When it comes to digital marketing, the whole world can be your audience. If you want, you can have a global presence by competing with some of the major players in the industry. Though, you should not get overwhelmed. Firstly, identify a handful of brands that would make your direct competitor. Afterward, you can study their content and learn more about their target audience. You can also use Twitter tracking tools to spy on your competitors as well.

D. What separates you from your competitor?

This is the most evident part of studying your target market. You should focus on the key points that separate you from your competitors. Think from the perspective of your customers. Why should they go with your brand instead of your competitors? After identifying these USPs, focus on them to tap your market.

Step 2: Filter your target market to create a definition of your target audience

After getting to know more about your target market, you can easily filter it to identify your audience. In order to do this, you need to create a definition of the target audience. Ideally, it will consist of 3 major parameters:

1.Your brand (including its key products/services and USP)

2. Your audience (major demographics)

3. The reason to reach out to your audience (your mission)

Therefore, the motive of your brand is to provide the kind of content to your audience that can help them (while creating brand awareness) to fulfill your mission.

Step 3: How to identify your target audience

Keep the definition of your target audience handy as it will help you take these crucial steps. In order to identify the target pool of your audience, you might have to do an extensive research. I would recommend following these 7 effective ways to make the process easier for you.

#1. Conduct dedicated surveys

From Google Forms to eSurv, there are tons of freely available tools that you can use to create surveys. If you already have a dedicated base of customers, then you can ask them to participate in your survey. If not, then you can reach out to your target market and obtain in-depth information related to them. Though, you should keep the following suggestions in mind:

1. Your survey should be on-point and precise else your customers might just leave it in between.

2. Instead of being vague, try to be as specific as possible.

3. Try to provide a range of diverse questions instead of sticking with a single domain.

4. Prefer an MCQ survey instead of a subjective one.

5. Every question should serve a purpose and help you answer a specific question.

6. The language should be simple and easy to understand.

7. Try to temp your customers by organizing a giveaway. You can always give a discount to existing customers to participate in a survey.

#2. Take the assistance of google analytics

Google Analytics is a freely available solution by Google that can be used to identify your target audience and analyze them on the basis of different parameters. The Audience and Acquisition page of the Analytics can help you gain an abundant amount of information. Use Google Analytics to evaluate your audience and get to know their preferences to filter your end users.

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#3. TRACK HASHTAG CAMPAIGN

When it comes to social media, you should always know what your competitors are doing on a real-time basis. To do this, simply take the assistance of a hashtag tracking tool like Socialert. It will let you spy on your competitors and know how they are communicating with their audience.

Additionally, you can track keywords and tweetchat topics as well. If you have certain keywords that are related to your brand, then you should surely perform social listening. Certain hashtags can also help you identify new audience (competitors and business associates). For instance, if your brand is related to travel, then you can follow hashtags like #traveltips, #traveltrends, #tuesdaytravel, etc.

#4. FACEBOOK PAGE INSIGHTS

If you already have an active Facebook page, then you can simply take its assistance to know more about your target audience. Go to the Facebook page Insights and visit the “People” section. From here, you can get to know about your fans and people who have seen or engaged with your content.

The information would be divided into categories like location, gender, language, and more. This will help you analyze the inclination of your audience. For instance, if your brand has the target market of parents, but the ratio of your audience is more inclined towards women, then you should try to create more content that would cater to moms.

Since Facebook allows you to check pages you own If you wish to analyze any competitor Facebook page in detail. SociAlert have launched Facebook page analytics tool as well.

#5. MAKE THE MOST OF TWITTER ANALYTICS

Just like Facebook, Twitter also has a dedicated section for Analytics. Simply log-in to your Twitter account and go to the Analytics page (analytics.twitter.com). From here, you can know about the performance of your content and how your audience is reacting to it. Though, the Audience section of Twitter Analytics is something that can help you analyze your followers in a comprehensive manner.

The demographic section will let you know their distribution with respect to age, gender, location, language, income, etc. You can also know their consumer choices, the kind of devices they use, the type of brands they like, and more. Additionally, you can know their interests, the kind of TV shows they follow, their political inclination, besides other details. This will further help you create the kind of content that your audience would love.

#6. MONITOR THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR CONTENT

Needless to say, you won’t be able to draft winning content without analyzing the performance of your existing content. Almost all the social media platforms have an analytics page that provides extensive insights related to the reach, engagement, etc. regarding your content.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and all the other popular platforms have a native tool to help you study the performance of your content. If you are active on Twitter, then you can simply go to Twitter Analytics and learn more about your best (and worst) performing content. This will also help you study the behavior of your audience in a better way.

Besides the native interface of these platforms, there are lots of third-party social media analytics tools that you can also try to meet your requirements.

#7. ANALYZE THE FOLLOWERS OF YOUR COMPETITORS

If you think that your competitors have successfully identified their target audience, then you should analyze their followers. You can either manually do this or take the assistance of a twitter follower tracker tool like SociAlert. Simply provide the Twitter handle of the account you wish to analyze and gain in-depth information about their followers.

STEP 4: SELECTING THE PERFECT TOPICS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

By now, you would be able to pick your target audience and know more about their interests. After getting to know more about their preferences, you should think of coming up with engaging topics for them.

Make sure that your content should be informative. If you will simply talk about your brand and announce it as “the best”, then it won’t be able to have a long-term impact. Therefore, you should develop the kind of content that your audience would find informative and love to share with their circle as well.

For instance, you can view this simple DIY posted by Nifty. It was retweeted by hundreds of users as they found it informative and wanted to share it with their followers.

I follow the same drill while selecting topics for my target audience. As you know, Socialert is a hashtag tracking tool that is mostly used by social media marketers. Therefore, I try to create the kind of content that would benefit digital marketers. If possible, I try to include some vital details regarding Socialert that can help them meet their requirements.

While generating content for Socialert, I think from the perspective of my audience. My priority is to solve a problem that my readers are (or might be) facing. While doing so, I gather information from my readers, influencers, and subject matter experts. If you are also able to provide valuable content to your audience, then it will help in their retention as well. In the end, the average page visit duration would also increase.

There are tons of third-party content discovery tools that you can also try to identify the kind of topics that your audience would like. Buzzsumo, Reddit, Post Planner, Epic Beat, StartAFire, etc. are some widely popular tools that can help you in content discovery.

STEP 5: HOW TO CREATE ENGAGING CONTENT

Most importantly, come up with the kind of content that no one can overlook. Here are some suggestions that you should consider while working on content development:

1. Start by something your audience agree with. It will help you to win trust of people reading your content

2. Clearly specify what problem you are going to solve.

3. While drafting your content, try to be more personal. Think from the perspective of your readers. They should be able to relate to your content without any additional efforts.

4. You should include infographics, use-cases, and real-life examples as well. This will make your content trustworthy.

5. You can also include quotes and known examples by experts as well. There is no harm in redirecting your audience where they can find more information about something you have mentioned in your post.

6. Be diverse. Don’t write about the same topics in different ways. While some of your content can be informative, some could be related to solving common problems of your audience.

7. Come up with engaging Call to Actions and lead your audience to a marketing funnel.

8. Ask your readers for their feedback and always work on it.

9. Try to make the headlines of your post more catchy and appealing. Sometimes, an interesting headline is all you need to catch your audience’s attention.

10. Always check your content twice before posting to avoid any grammatical or typing errors.

11. If you are including a snippet of someone else’s content, always mention the source.

12. Encourage internal linking as it will boost the SEO of your website as well.

13. Don’t write wordy content. Be precise.

14. Don’t mislead your audience. Your content should do justice to the headline and the overall theme of the article.

15. Take the assistance of visual aids.

16. Also, focus on the meta-content of your post.

17. Include widgets to help your audience share the content on their favorite social media platforms with a single click.

18. Start content distribution with a plan. Make a calendar and come up with the best time to post your content.

In today’s world, the term “content is the king” has been derived for a reason. If you have identified your target audience and are able to deliver winning content, then nothing can stop you from gaining profitable results. It might take a while, but you will certainly get there.

Go on and be a pro at content marketing by following these foolproof steps. I’m sure you would be benefited by these solutions in the long haul.

If you have any suggestion or query regarding the subject, feel free to drop it in the comments below.

P.S. This article has been originally published on SociAlert Blog here