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What Does Your Audience Need to Know?

Last week in the Marketing Academy, we talked about identifying our audience and making sure we’re targeting the right people with our message. This week we’re delving into what information do they need to know. Why are they visiting your website or reading your blog? In most instances, they’re reading your content because they have a problem and they’re hoping you have a solution for them.  

Read the blog post or watch the free live training video.

What questions do they have?

When we talk about what our audience needs to know, the first thing to consider is what questions do they have? If you sell a product or service, your customers probably have questions that come up as they think about your offerings.

Think about your sales funnel, what questions do people ask as they go from one stage to the next?

If you know you regularly get asked the same questions from the majority of your customers, those are the things they need/want to know. And if you provide that content for them, they’ll likely want to read it.

When you create content with your customers in mind, they often repay you by consuming what you’ve written. You’re not just trying to push your message at them but instead listening to them and sharing what information they need to know.

How do you find out what your audience needs to know? 

Maybe you’re sitting here, reading this post and you’re not sure what your next step should be. You want to create the content your customers want but you don’t know what questions they have. Well, there are ways to find out.

If you have a sales or customer service team, talk to them and find out what questions they get on a regular basis.

• What do customers need to know before they buy?
• What questions do they have after they buy?
• Are there issues that pop up that they need help troubleshooting regularly?

These are all content topics you could address on your website or blog. Don’t assume you know what your customers need, find out first hand.

If you have active social media channels – ask your customers directly. Find out what they’re trying to understand or what their most significant issue or challenge is today. Ask them what’s stopping them from achieving their goal, making a purchase, whatever makes sense for your business.

Do a bit of research

If you have an internal search set up on your website, review the data to find out what people are searching for. While you may already have the information available on your site, they’re struggling to find it for some reason. It may be that you need to create new content to answer the questions or you might be able to move content so that it’s easier to find within your navigation structure. Either way, you’re addressing your customers’ needs, which should help.

There are some great question and answer sites you can use for content research too. Take a look at Quora and Answer the Public. Both provide insights on questions people are asking about specific topics. You’ll likely find questions that you can answer on your website or blog that will help your customers. If your industry has websites or forums that are popular with your customer base, you should review them as well. You never know where the next great idea will pop up.

 Think like your audience

To provide your customers with the information they need, you need to be able to identify who they are and get to know them. Do a bit of research and determine who you are reaching with your messaging like we discussed in the post on identifying our audience and then work to find out what questions they have so you can help answer them.

Your audience is probably composed of different types of people or businesses. In a future post, we’ll talk about creating personas for our audience members. For now, remember that you are trying to reach more than one person and you need to understand the needs of each group. Once you know what questions they have, you can start answering them on your website or blog.

If you’re not sure how to identify your audience or figure out what questions they have, our team excels at this and would be happy to craft the right strategy for your business. Contact us today to learn more.

Register for our FREE Marketing Training Workshop program and join thousands of other small business owners who have learned how to create their marketing plan with our help! Click here to register today.