When it comes to getting started with creating your content the first factor to consider is who are you actually targeting and why is that customer a target. Each person has different intents, motivations, problems and each person requires different content to move them through the buyers journey. You need to determine which content to create to get that move happening from the very beginning.
What is a target audience?
A target audience is a group of people who share particular demographics or behaviour. Any messages and content can be tailored to those characteristics. It is also easier to show messages specifically to them, by choosing relevant platforms, publishing schedules or paid campaigns.
Defining the target audience for your business is often a wider marketing issue, though social media may provide additional ways to reach them.
You can help to narrow down your target audience by looking at the following factors:
- Demographic data including gender; age; location; profession; income and education.
- Lifestyle or life stage such as starting university or college; new parents; parents whose children have moved out of home.
- The problems or issues your product or service solves including who might benefit from such solutions.
- The behaviour of existing users of the brand/service/product. What do they use most? Who are they? Why do they use it?
- The behaviour of those users who buy similar products or brands from competitors.
What is a customer persona?
By examining these attributes, you can build a set of ‘personas ’or ‘Avatars’ for your business. Customer Avatars are the fictional generalized representation of your ideal customer and can be really helpful as a shorthand for segments of audiences. Think about the problem you want to solve for that person and this will help establish who that person will be.
Hubspot have a great breakdown of Buyer Personas linked here
A persona will be informed by demographic but centred around real objectives and obstacles. It helps businesses to shape messaging and influences how and what content to generate. Once you establish what content to generate you can then move on to distributing and attracting your ideal audience.
How can you know your audience?
Through Research.
Understanding your current audience and identifying target audiences is an important aspect of any kind of marketing, including creating content.
Expressing the target audience in terms of who they are and their challenges can be really helpful in creating messages which are going to appeal to or resonate with them.
Conclusion
Targeting your ideal customer and creating a customer avatar should be a fundamental element of your content marketing strategy. It creates a foundation for targeting and allows everyone in your business to understand exactly who you’re striving to attract. Once this is established it will be so much more easier and quicker to create content that resonates with them.