Serve content your audience will love.
How to better understand your ideal audience and connect with their deeper challenges and desires to create stronger content.
You need content to deliver to your health and wellness audience. But maybe you’re wondering: Where do I begin? What do I write about? What kinds of products and services should I be offering?
One of the first steps to take as you begin developing your content strategy, new services or products, presentations or social media posts is to clearly define your target audience—and not just in broad terms.
It’s about asking the right questions and not making assumptions.
When you dig in and do the research, you can discover interesting information that will help you:
A.) Craft tighter content that resonates.
B.) Develop services/products that get snapped up.
C.) Serve your audience in an empathetic, meaningful way.
You’re serving what? Allow me to give you an example of what I suspect was a service fail due to a lack of audience awareness—or maybe it was a lack of interest in the audience?
I was at a popular theme park with my family for their holiday in the park festivities a few years ago. When we went looking for food, we opted for pizza — a family favorite.
Problem was, you couldn’t get a run-of-the-mill, family-friendly pizza like, you know, cheese or pepperoni. They were all out.
The only other kind of pizza they were slinging was topped with Brussel’s sprouts, turkey and cranberries.
On their own, I like these ingredients, and I’m not averse to trying different variations on pizza, but this concoction—or experiment?— just didn’t work. It didn’t even look appealing. My husband, an adventurous eater, was the only one willing to give this pie a try. (He gave it zero stars.)
The experience made me wonder: Did the park even consider its audience with this idea? Or was it just trying to slough off leftovers on its hungry guests?
Who thought this item would be a hit at a family theme park where much of the target audience is likely pounding their tiny fists on the table for Kids Cuisine, mac and cheese and T-Rex-shaped chicken nuggets? Why were they trying so hard when most folks would have been perfectly content with plain ‘ol cheese pizza?
Let’s make your content yummy.
I want your audience to not only salivate over what you have to offer but also eat it up and tell all of their friends about how delicious it was.
But first, we have to do the research and that means asking the right questions.
Create your customer avatar.
Consider giving your ideal client a name so that you always keep this individual top of mind when you’re developing content, services and products.
This could be a fictional avatar/persona or a real client who you consider ideal and the type of person you’d like to attract more of to your business.
Dial into the demographics.
Ask yourself: Who is my ideal client… Age/gender/education/profession/income….are they a Brussel’s sprouts or a funnel cake kind of person?
And what if you attract more than one type of client?
That’s fine. We’re thinking in terms of the ideal client you would like to have. This could be a composite character based on several of your favorite clients.
Keep in mind that identifying an initial demographic doesn’t mean you won’t attract people outside of your target audience. For example, if you’re a therapist who works primarily with women in their 50s who are going through divorce, you might also attract a few male clients who are also going through a big life transition.
You may also discover that you need to segment your audience. Maybe you own a pet store that not only targets pet owners with pocket pets (gerbils, guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, reptiles) but also veterinarians who specialize in exotic pets.
In this case, you’ll be talking to these two audiences differently and creating different content marketing campaigns around them. Create an avatar for each audience.
Other questions to consider…
What does my ideal client care about? Find out more about their personality.
What do they like to read/watch/listen to? (podcasts/books/TV shows, etc.)
Who are the influencers they follow?
How do they like to spend their free time?
What’s important to them in their life? What are their values?
What are their obstacles? Learn about their frustrations, challenges or desires.
What are the problems they’re struggling with that you help address?
How do they describe their problems/desires? (Pay attention to the words they’re using.)
How are they currently attempting to do to resolve those problems?
What would it mean to them if they had a solution to their particular problem or desire? In what ways would it make a difference in their life?
Dive below the surface with this handy reference tool.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a tool I’ve been playing with for the past few weeks for developing characters for a book I’m writing. I realized that this chart can also be a useful content marketing tool when working to understand the needs of our target audiences.
People usually have two sets of needs, an external desire/need and an internal desire/need.
The external needs are often obvious. I need warmth. I need food. I want to feel safe emotionally, intellectually and physically in my home and at work.
Let’s say you’re a physical therapist, rolfer, acupuncturist, massage therapist or exercise therapist.
You likely see people who are in physical pain. The pain is their motivation to seek out your services. They want pain relief. That’s an external need.
But their internal need or motivation is what keeps them sticking to the program.
Consider the love and belonging category in Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Pain can also be a deeply isolating experience. It means we can’t participate in the activities we used to enjoy with our friends and family. Those goals could be as simple as tossing the football with their kids, participating in a gardening club, or joining their friends for a long-distance hike.
By understanding their internal need, you’re able to communicate with understanding and empathy. Plus you can create a program or service that addresses their physical and emotional pain.
Next week, I’ll share a few ideas about how to gather this information so that you can start creating stronger content that addresses these needs.