Just as you wouldn’t set off on a long journey without knowing your final destination, you can only truly attract an audience with your business blog if you have a clear idea of who it is you want to appeal to.
Here are 3 ways to prepare and craft your blog so that it helps to attract your target audience.
1. Identify your audience
The audience for your business blog may be the same audience that you target with your current business, but if you’re branching out or starting a completely new venture, you may need to (re)define your audience.
Here are some questions to start with:
>> Who is your audience?
>> Where are they?
>> What are their attributes?
>> What are their behaviours?
To help you find the answers to these questions you could look at:
Your audience’s demography – for example: age, gender, race, income
Your audience’s location – for example: international, regional, urban, suburban, rural
The psychography of your audience – for example: attitudes, values, desires, goals, lifestyle
Your audience’s behaviours – for example: buying patterns, brand loyalty, online and offline buying habits
You may not know the answers to all of these questions, but you can make a start by deciding on those aspects of your audience that you want to target – and use that focus to help you shape and create your blog content.
2. Serve your audience
Serving in this context means providing something that will help your audience.
In other words, serve your audience by solving a problem they have.
Everyone has a problem and there’s at least one solution to each and every one of those problems!
The question is, how do you find out what those problems are?
If you already have a customer base, you can find out what your customers’ pain points are by asking them. You’ll be surprised how much they’ll be prepared to share when asked.
But what if you don’t have a customer base to ask?
The next best thing you can do is to try to put yourself in the shoes of your audience by thinking about their problems in terms of their ‘needs’.
What do people need and why?
Draw up a list of those needs, based on your niche or specialist area.
Write the needs as if you were the person with those needs.
Use these as examples of customer needs
- I need a cheap local plumber who doesn’t charge a call-out fee
- I need to find nut-free restaurants in town A or town B
- I need to find out about succulents
You can give the need some context by including information about the person each need might relate to:
- As someone with limited cash, I need a cheap local plumber who doesn’t charge a call-out fee
- As a nut allergy sufferer, I need to find nut-free restaurants in town A or town B
- As someone who knows nothing about plants, I need to find out about succulents
You can go a step further by adding even more information about each person, to consider special circumstances, or urgency to give the need you’ve identified some extra context:
- As a person with limited cash, I need a cheap local plumber who doesn’t charge a call-out fee, so that I can get a leak fixed
- As a person with a nut allergy, I need to find nut-free restaurants in town A or town B, so that I can eat out while travelling
- As someone who knows nothing about plants, I need to find out about succulents, so that I can look after the succulents someone has given me
Use these as the starting point for your problem-solving content.
Remember that the problem you’re solving may not always be
directly linked to what you’re selling, but it may be a logical part of the audience journey or a useful add-on to that journey.
Identify a problem and solve it!
For example, you may be offering advisory services, but the problem might be ‘how to choose an adviser’.
You could solve that problem by discussing:
- what to look out for when choosing an adviser
- experience
- client testimonials
- qualifications
- the ‘right fit’
If you design or sell clothing, could the problem be how to find the right outfit for a special or niche event or finding clothing that fits a particular body type?
There are many other ways to find out the pain points your audience is facing, such as news sites, blogs or podcasts in your industry, following industry trends, and, of course, YouTube, Facebook to name a few.
3. Share educational content to engage your audience
Educational content is a popular way to share what you know with a wider audience and it is one of the best ways to attract the attention of an audience.
Think in terms of useful material that will show how to do something.
It may include clear step-by-step information, or it could be a useful hack you can share, or how you achieved a particular outcome.
You could use a mini case study format and structure your content under these headings: background, problem, solution, results and conclusion.
Once you’ve finished writing the case study, replace those headings with something that’s more engaging or relevant to your niche.
The ‘how-to’ style of content is one of the most popular types of content online.
It is a form of educational content that resonates well with audiences because it clearly states upfront what’s being offered.
Your ‘how-to’ content can be presented using different formats. It can be step-by-step information with bullet points, numbered lists, infographics, audio or video.
Your choice of format for your ‘how-to’ content will depend on the type of content you’re discussing, the context and the needs of your audience.
Make sure your educational content delivers on its promises. It must teach the audience something, show them how to do something or show them how to do something better or faster.
>>> Want to discover how to attract an audience with your own business blog? Let’s talk.
