We’re often told that no individual is alike. However, that doesn’t mean that an individual’s behaviors aren’t similar to another’s. In fact, our society tends to label groups and put them in boxes based on their conventional behaviors. While this isn’t so great for individuals within our society, it can be incredibly helpful for marketers. Understanding conventional behaviors allows us to understand and target our audiences.
Conventional behaviors, as you may already know, are those that are considered typical and ordinary and that fall in line with generally accepted standards of taste. This may seem a little limiting, but in the marketing industry, understanding similar, conventional individuals can open up an abundance of possibilities.
Whether you’re involved with content writing, SEO, pay-per-click ad copy or social media, a conventional audience can provide a basis for how you develop your content. Knowing your audience allows you to create your content based on their ideas, interests and opinions.
Think about it: Have you ever written a great blog post, but for some odd reason, it received little to no traction or engagement? If you have, you’re not the only one. That minimal engagement may have something to do with how well your audience connected with it. Considering the few shares or comments, they probably didn’t connect with it.
Understanding and targeting your audience isn’t always simple. In fact, it’s incredibly complex and requires just as much research and time as writing the content. But in my experience, it’s absolutely worth it. Here’s my advice on how to understand and target your audience.
Research Your Audience
Researching your audience is one of the best ways to understand them. While that may seem overwhelming, here are some tips that can help.
• Use social media. People are constantly sharing details about their personal lives on social media platforms. Use this to your advantage. By viewing some of your consumers’ pages, you can identify their interests and opinions. You also can analyze what they like on your pages (i.e., which posts they’ve shared most or which videos they’ve liked the most). Once you have this information, you can use it to help you find the direction you should take for your next piece of content.
• Analyze your competitors. Your competitors can actually provide some aid in targeting your audience. Study the companies and their followers and clientele, and you’ll see what they’re most interested in. Seeing what they enjoy from your competitors can provide insight into how you can direct your content toward that specific audience.
• Conduct surveys. Surveys may take more time, but they can help you gather information directly from your audience. Ask questions such as: What do you like about our content? What do you dislike? What do you wish we’d share more of?
• Identify keywords that are popular with your audience. With tools such as Google Trends, you can get insights on what keywords people in your audience are searching for based on their location. Simply type in a keyword to see data such as interest over time, interest by subregion and related topics and queries. Demographics.io is another helpful tool that shows you the demographics associated with keywords.
Create Content For Your Audience
Once you’ve researched your audience and begun to understand them, you can effectively target them with your content. Use what you’ve learned about them and their interests to start your next marketing piece, and direct it toward them with keywords, photos and ideas that grab their attention.
When you continue to create content that your audience will enjoy, you’re more likely to have loyal viewers. Loyal viewers can turn into loyal customers, and we all know how beneficial that is for marketing.
