What would you do if some person comes up to you with a solution to a problem you’ve been having? They describe your problem better than you could describe it yourself. You feel like they understand your beliefs, values, and attitudes towards your situation. In a completely non-stalker, non-creepy way, of course. As long as it doesn’t cost you millions, would you or would you not buy from this person? Since they appear to know you and your problem so well, you believe they’ll be able to help you better than others. The same goes for your audience and customers. The absolute best way to make people buy from you or to follow you is to get to know them. To get to know your audience.

As any marketer worth their salt would tell you, any business goal you have depends on how well your audience receives your content.

You need to know your audience so you can clearly identify where their needs overlap with what you’re offering. Whether it’s blog posts, social media posts, website copy, emails, newsletters, or any other form of content, knowing your audience helps you figure out what content and messages people care about. 

Once you have an idea of what to say, knowing your audience also tells you the appropriate tone and voice for your message. Thus getting you many steps closer to whatever your business goal is. You start getting more sales, more leads, more referrals, more followers. 

But to really know your audience, you need to get into their heads. You need to know how they think, what they want, what their problems are, what their likes and dislikes are, the words they use, how they perceive similar products to yours, what brands they like and follow and more.

You probably know this and may have even researched this. And then you may have come across complex information on:

• Customer Avatars
• Target Demographics
• Tools for Market Research Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Competitive Intelligence
• Complex Data Analysis
• and More

And you would have hit the brakes. I know I have. It’s too overwhelming. You don’t know how to start or what to do first. 

But knowing your audience doesn’t have to be that way. Big brands may use these tools, but do you really need them? I don’t think so. And neither do the many business owners I’ve helped. While having a client avatar is definitely useful, there are other ways you can get to know your audience better. Especially if you are a smaller or a solo business with limited funds.

Here are 5 ways to get to know your audience better without becoming overwhelmed.

1. Use Online Forums 

Online forums like Quora and Reddit are where people, possibly your target audience, come to ask questions and seek answers to their problems. Using these forums you can figure out what problems they have. You can see what words they use to describe their problems. What solutions they find valuable. You can find their pain points. You can use these insights to craft content and copy that addresses these problems and offer solutions in the way your audience wants to hear.

2. Get to Know your Audience Personally

Use your current customer base (or look for people you think will buy from you) and set up a short interview call or a virtual coffee date. You can offer them some advice/help if you like in return for getting to know them better. If that seems like too big a step for you, try taking some extra time to get to know your clients on a personal level when working one-on-one. Notice how they talk. What are they usually concerned about when they talk to you? What appeals to them, or scares them, or excites them?  Notice the overlapping patterns and problems of everyone you talk with. You can use these factors or the words they’ve used to describe their problems and offer a solution in your own content strategy.

3. Use Social Media to Get to Know your Audience

Follow your target audience on social media. Notice the posts they engage with more, their likes and dislikes, the brands they follow. What content do these brands use to make your target audience follow them and buy from them? Notice what issues they are passionate about, do they overlap with issues you care about? If so, you can use common threads like this to speak to them on your own social media handles. Here is an interesting article from Hubspot that makes you dig deeper.

4. Figure out the demographics of your target audience

I know this is one of the complex things we talked about above. But it doesn’t have to be that complex. To start with, if you can figure out the answers to these 3 questions, figuring out what your audience wants becomes a lot easier.

• How old are they?  
• What is their gender
• What is their income level? 

Answering these questions helps you figure out things like the social media platforms they mainly use. E.g according to a Hootsuite study, 32% of people on Facebook are between the ages of 25 and 34. 44% of people reachable by ads on Facebook are women, and 56% are men. Whether they will be able to afford your product or not. What words will they be more likely to respond to, what their lifestyle is, what situations would they be more familiar with, and more.

5. Review Mining (we can use customer testimonials too!)

Joanna Wiebe of Copyhackers has written two incredible articles on review mining which are definitely worth your time. Using this method, she managed to get a better understanding of her audience and managed to completely lift a new headline from a review which resulted in a >400% rise in CTR! Her article on review mining will explain this point much better than I can.

What methods will you use to get to know your audience?

If you need help creating content to attract your ideal customer and market your brand without getting overwhelmed, the team at Amazing OBM would love to connect. You can start by scheduling a FREE 30-minute consultation. We are happy to chat, offer you some valuable tips, and determine if we are a good fit for one another in future endeavors!