Decode Your Target Audienece in 6 Steps

When you set out to be successful online you need to focus on your target audience right from the start. The results from your research will map out the setting for your marketing and can even help you decide on products and services. Then you need to figure out the most effective headlines to use your long tail keyword phrases in to draw in the traffic. This organic traffic is what will get you to the top of the search engines and stay there when done correctly.

Check out the 6 most effective steps to take to find and decode your target audience:

1. Who Are They? Demographic profiles are limited in their potential to uncover motivations and buying patterns. For example, consider the following five people:

A single male in his early twenties renting an apartment in NYC and making more than $100,000 a year

A married mother of four in Wisconsin that is a stay-at-home parent and has a total family income of less than $40,000 per year

A divorced father of two residing in Alaska, on a farm, with a net worth of several million dollars

A couple in their thirties with no children, living in Boston, coping with unemployment

A retired couple in their seventies in Texas with fourteen grandchildren and fixed retirement incomes

2. What’s Their Most Pressing Issue, Problem, or Desire? Whatever the issue – whether longstanding or short-term – it’s the entrée into the discussion and your invitation into their lives. If you understand this from two perspectives, you’ll be much better equipped to be everything from create powerful content. As you develop your audience profile, do your best to articulate what drives them in terms that they themselves would use. This permeates every level of a successful marketing effort.

3. Where Do They Get Their Info? If they do read blogs or newspapers or other publications, which ones do they spend time on? If they’re looking for reviews on products similar to yours, who do they trust? As you move down this line of inquiry, a whole litany of questions will open up for you. Before you move to the next step in your process, be sure that you can answer how your prospects get their information in a holistic and meaningful way.

4. What Benefit of Your Product Solves Their Problem? If you’ve done your detective work earlier on, you’ll be able to articulate the problem that you’re addressing and the benefits that your product or service offers. For example, if you consider the SEO space, there are a number of problems it solves for businesses and a number of benefits that it provides. Someone hiring an SEO agency wants to build their online presence. It could mean more leads for your sales team, more customers buying your product, more people reading your content, more people sharing your ideas. More leads and customers is very compelling to a small business in growth mode.

5. What Sets Off Their BS Detector? First, always act with integrity. If your brand is known for being honest, ethical, and delivering value, you’ll become a trusted source. Second, you need to understand the dynamics of your market well enough to be able to identify the standard bad claims. Finally, back up your claims with proof. Proof can be in the form of numbers, outside studies, testimonials, endorsements from trusted sources, and many more. Take the time to figure out what would back up your content and spend the time to work it in.

6. Who Do They Trust? One last note that’s often overlooked when building audience profiles: who do your readers, viewers, or customers trust? The more connected you are with trusted brands, the more that trust and belief in expertise is transferred to you.

Do you focus on building trust with your brand and already have these steps covered? Or can you tell us which ones you feel should be the main focus point?

Article Source: Forbes

Image Source: Jeremy Levine on Flickr