Content Marketing
Define Your Ideal Audience
Your content marketing plan needs to define your ideal audience.
This lesson will define the steps that you can take to define this valuable audience.
Your content marketing plan and website copy will be much more effective when created with a well-defined ideal audience in mind.
First, define all of the markets that you want to connect with. Sometimes there may be only one target market but you may have multiple markets. Within each market define specific personas. This will help upi to understand the specific nature of the audience. Click here to view an example of a ideal audience persona.
It may also be important for you to think about the markets in terms of profit margins. Some markets will be more profitable than others. Some may be easier to work with. Some may purchase more and purchase more often. Define them and then rank them using a business building ranking criteria. There may be some market segments that you decide not to market to once you complete this step.
Define Your Market Segments and
Rank Them Using a
Business Building Ranking Criteria.
Also, there may be a few factors to consider when you rank your market segments. Do not limit yourself to defining your readership based on how difficult or easy they are to work with, purchasing volume, or profit margin. There may be other factors or reasons to select one specific market over another. Do use a ranking criteria that makes good business sense for the target markets you analyze.
Second, once you have defined the target markets then define the ideal persona (or personas) for your target markets. List all the attributes, characteristics and qualities of the perfect prospect within the target market(s). Also, think significantly beyond demographics. Get to really “know” your ideal prospect. For example, there may be a certain target market that has a potential for a much higher lifetime value than another target market. Lifetime value can be a very significant part of your company’s profitability. Lifetime value takes into consideration the initial purchase but can also include the value of future purchases, reduction in customer acquisition costs, and perhaps even referrals from existing customers. I want you to really think about your ideal prospect profile and define it well.
Third, you need to connect with your target markets in a meaningful way. You need to understand the problems of your ideal prospect. What do your ideal prospects struggle with? How do they talk about their problems? What stories do they tell? What language do they use? What keeps them up at night? How would they like to receive information from you? Who might they confide in?
Finally, once you have a good handle on this then build your content marketing plan with a keen focus on your target audience. Write using their language and use phrases in your content that will help your content to be found in search. You can select these keyword phrases by conducting keyword research to learn which phrases your target audience uses to search for solutions to their problems. Tell a success story that relates to their problems. Write about the benefits your solution can offer them.
Content Marketing – Ideal Audience Summary
Know your target audience well and work hard to connect with them. Your website content needs to connect with your target audience. If you target and get to know your ideal audience well everything you do regarding content marketing will be easier and more effective.
How do you define your ideal audience? Have you created a persona for the decision maker for your ideal audience? Do you know them as well as your competition? Do your know your ideal audience as well as you should?
