Why Knowing Your Audience Matters for Your Business Website
Tips and Tricks for Identifying and Engaging Your Target Audience
Creating content for your business website can be challenging, especially if you’re a small business owner (SMB) or a freelancer just starting out. Knowing your audience is one of the most crucial aspects of successful content creation.
In this article, we’ll explore what an audience is, why it’s vital for your business, tips you can use to identify your audience, and how to create engaging and relevant content.
What is an audience?
It was a nightmare when my best friend and I started our small business. We had to learn everything from the ground up.
Then, when I began writing website content, blogs, and press releases, I had a lot to learn. First, I had to know what an audience (or target audience) was.
To begin with, an audience is a group of people who are interested in the products or services you offer.
For businesses, this can include potential customers, existing clients, and even competitors.
Understanding your audience will help you customize your content to fit their needs and interests.
Why should an SMB write for an audience?
Writing for your audience is essential for a few reasons.
Connect with Potential Customers – By addressing their needs and interests, you can attract more visitors to your website. They will see content that pertains to what they are looking for.
Build Trust and Credibility – Providing valuable and relevant content can establish your business as an authority in your field.
Increase Engagement – When your content resonates with your audience, they are more likely to interact with your website and share your content with others.
Boost Marketing Campaigns – Finding your target audience will also help you with your marketing campaigns.
There are many reasons why knowing your audience will help your business succeed. Speaking of benefits in marketing, let’s look at the specific areas.
Benefits of knowing your audience
At some point, you will be performing marketing. You may not think so, but let’s look at where you will get the most Return on Investment (ROI).
Copywriting – What is the best way to describe your offers so they purchase from you?
Content marketing – What are the best blog posts, videos, podcasts, case studies, and whitepapers to use?
Email marketing – Your messaging should be clear and concise – and persuasive.
Social media marketing – What platforms should you concentrate on? Should you focus on one or more? Should you consider doing social media advertising?
Pay-per-click (PPC) – I have a funny story. (See below SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is a big one. To begin with, what keywords should you focus on?
When my best friend and I started our business, we concentrated on transcription. I heard paper click as one of the words that had been recorded.
Woe is me; the speaker talked about pay-per-click (PPC), a popular term sometimes associated with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Knowing your audience is important because it gives you the data to analyze where you should spend your dollars and what targeting selections you should concentrate on.
Semrush, recognized as a trusted data provider whose data is used by the biggest media outlets around the world, says the following about the benefits of audience research:
“Carrying out target audience research provides insights that can help your business achieve its goals faster and more efficiently. That can translate to improved customer acquisition, customer retention, and revenue.”
5 ways to determine who your audience is:
Research – Take a look at your competitors and see who they are focusing on. Interestingly, you and your competitors often share the same target audience. So, researching your competitors can help you discover who your audience is.
Create Buyer Personas – Develop profiles of your ideal customers, including their age, interests, and challenges.
Collect Audience Social Media Statistics – Social media platforms can be your best friend when getting audience analytics. Many have audience analytics built into them to give you much-needed information about your followers' demographics.
Interview Potential Customers – Ask them about their interests, goals, and challenges. The more information you get, the better you can tailor your content to them.
Conduct Surveys - You can also use social media polls to ask your audience their wants and needs.
Key statistics
According to Forbes, “Approximately 70 million Americans have indicated that they will start freelancing in 2024, per a recent report, while it appears that the majority of the freelancing population are constituted of Gen Z and Millennial workers.”
This growing trend shows the increasing need for freelancers to understand their audience to stand out in a competitive market.
How to create engaging and relevant content
Here is something special for you. Below, I will give you some tips on creating great content for your business.
1. Attention! – Make it simple. Write to your audience’s capabilities. Complexity only makes your content hard to understand.
2. Relevancy - Your content should be relevant to your headline. It’s a good idea to refer to your headline frequently.
3. Consistency - Whatever tone and voice you start with, ensure you continue all the way through your content.
4. Formatting – Your formatting should be easy to read. I have a mentor who tells me if he can’t read my content on his mobile because my paragraphs are too long, he won’t read my entire article. The paragraphs should be no longer than 3-4 lines.
Combining subheadings, bullet points, numbered lists, and other techniques can all clarify your structure.
5. Easy reading – Your audience will appreciate it if you include images, infographics, videos, and tables whenever possible. It breaks up the content and keeps them interested.
6. Accurate & original - If you use AI generative text during your research, it is critical you only use reliable sources and facts that are true. I suggest that you not use AI verbatim if you have it write a draft for you. Insert “you” and your personality into your content.
7. Increase audience involvement – You can get your audience involved in several ways. Ask questions and look for feedback. There are a variety of ways you can do this. For example, you can use polls, calls to action, comments, and the questions I mentioned.
8. Platform awareness – In this case, instead of knowing your audience, know your platform. Each platform has its likes and dislikes as to what it wants to see when you’re writing. For example, Substack has a different algorithm than Medium or X.
Let's recap what we covered as we finish learning about why knowing your audience matters for your business website. To begin with, you learned what the term target audience is.
Then we jumped into why it’s important for your business, tips you can use to identify your audience, and how to create engaging and relevant content.
Knowing your audience is the foundation of successful content creation for your business website.
SMBs and freelancers must understand their audience and address their wants and needs.
From your ability to grab your audience’s attention to the formatting of your content, the credibility you build, and the platforms you use, your audience needs to come first.
You are responsible for fostering relationships and driving meaningful engagement. Take your readers through a delightful and exciting journey.
Tell them in your own unique way, “Here’s your sign.” Now, go grab your audience’s attention.
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