Blogging and online marketing is hard work as it is. There is a combination of elements that need to work together such as design, technology, content, sales strategy and the list goes on and on.
But there is one thing that will determine if your online business is successful or not, it doesn’t matter if you have mad eye candy on your website, all the latest technology or a great sales strategy ready to ship products out the door. It’s a very simple concept and yet, probably one of the hardest to nail down…
You need to know your audience.
But in this case let’s assume you know who your audience or your target market is.
Let’s do a quick exercise and answer the following two questions:
- When you write a post, are you writing to your potential client or are you writing to the industry?
- When you engage in conversations on social platforms, are you talking to your prospect or are you talking to people in your industry?
It’s very easy to get confused. It happens to me.
Sometimes I don’t write about a topic because I see other bloggers out there already published something before me. Sometimes I don’t post stuff that I think is too basic in the industry.
If you feel the same way sometimes I’ll tell you this: You are making a mistake. Most of this has to do more with your ego than anything else.
Who Should You Write For?
You should write for the person that needs your advice. The person that says thank you because you just shared a quick tip that was valuable.
In fact I think that you, as a publisher of content, are responsible for that audience. If you are a blogger in the travel industry and there is a group of people that have subscribed to your blog, is because those folks are relying on you for information on traveling tips. They like you and your content and they have made you one of their choices, if not their one and only choice.
Quick story. When Google+ launched the amount of blog posts published was overwhelming to me (and it still going on…), to the point that I didn’t want to write about it. There was nothing else to say. There was also that ego whispering in my ear that, what if my post is not as good… But in the meantime, the SocialMouths reader or subscriber that enjoys the content and the style here, or hopes to get their advice here, didn’t get anything on the topic.
Blogs have audiences and they are not necessarily the same ones, your audience knows how to google and they know they can find information but if they subscribe to your blog is because they enjoy getting this kind of advice from you. I don’t read all blogs about minimalism, I only read a couple of them that I made my favorites over time.
You have your own audience and and your potential buyer. Write for them.
Who Should You Ignore?
Ignore the industry. Unless you are an industry publication or course.
While you engage in conversations with individuals in your industry, and don’t get me wrong it is a thing of beauty, when it comes to producing content you should completely forget about them. They probably already know what you’re talking about, there is no value in it for them.
When you involve yourself into creating a great piece of content to impress everybody in your industry, you are doing it to feed your ego. If you are focused in delivering epic shit with loads of value in it for your audience/prospect, the content on that piece will be completely different.
Don’t worry if it’s too basic for your industry or if the topic has been covered before by other bloggers. The industry, your peers, collaborators and competitors are NOT your target market, they’re not even your readership.
The people that need your advice is the people that are likely to convert into a subscriber or a potential buyer, not the people in your industry.
Focus
In other words, forget your industry and focus on answering those questions presented by the consumer in your niche, by your audience or community. Focus on adding value to their lives and forget about keeping a good image in front of your peers and competitors.
Put all your knowledge, talent and experience together and deliver it to the people that needs it. If somebody says “I already knew that” then that person is not your target.
Producing content for the wrong audience is very time consuming and leads you to no sales.
How about you, is it easy for you to keep the focus on your audience when you write content?
