Understanding Your Blog Audience for Better Results

That blog you started in high school about your inner thoughts may have been great for self-actualization, but for sales and influence… not so much. Now that you have goals, it’s time to find out where those goals meet the audience’s interests. By understanding your blog audience you can ensure that your blog helps you get results in your business. You may want to start a blog to:

• Be seen as an expert
• Gain influence that you can monetize
• Promote your business

By understanding your audience, you can create content that connects and keeps them coming back.

Audiences may have different needs that your blog fulfills:

• Aspiring to something better
• Looking for information
• Wanting to be entertained

You may even provide a combination of these needs. For example, if you sell home décor, your audience might aspire to have a nicer home and also want to learn how they can succeed in their goal. Looking at nice things and reading your engaging and fun writing style provides the entertainment.

Over time, you can discover your audience's needs by observing what works and what falls flat. However, here are some ways to gain intelligence before you begin.

Understand the Demographics

If you know who your target audience is, this will make it easier to create blog posts that resonate with them. Tailor your language and writing style to your ideal audience. Obviously, a company selling fall fashion to Gen-Z-ers will take a different approach than one selling suits to corporate employees. However, there are a lot of more nuanced factors that you should learn such as:

• Income level
• Family size
• Number and ages of children 
• Neighborhood 
• Car or home ownership

Understanding your audience’s behaviour patterns and personality can also be helpful. For example:

• Are they savers or spenders?
• Do they shop online or in the store?
• Do they crave luxury or just the basics?
• How often do they go on vacation?
• What are their hobbies?

Another highly valuable factor to understand is the audience’s pain point. This is the problem they are trying to solve, or the thing that keeps them up at night. Although it’s a good idea to understand this, avoid focusing too heavily on the negative in your copy as this can turn people off.

Focus Your Marketing Efforts Where Your Audience Spends Its Time 

Although It’s important to claim your social profiles, the majority of your time should be spent where you know your target market is hanging out. For example, Facebook tends to attract a somewhat older crowd than TikTok. Pinterest tends to have more female users than Twitter,.. sorry, ‘X’🙄. These are not hard and fast rules. They all have huge audiences that are highly engaged, so don’t discount them, but decide where your limited resources are best spent.

Some other traffic sources include:

• Search engine ads
• Organic SEO
• Blogging 
• Guest posting 
• Media relations 
• Set Goals

You might want to set conversion-metrics even if you don’t want to sell anything directly from your blog post. You don’t want to make likes your only metric for success, because this may not serve the goals of your business. For example, kittens and inspirational quotes drive likes and get accounts seen in the social media algorithms, but they rarely have anything to do with the products or services the business sells. Controversial blog posts may get a lot of visits and reactions but only resonate with potential buyers in a small number of industries.

• Some conversion style things to track are:
• Where did the reader go after reading your blog post?
• Did potential clients ask for more information or share their situations in the comments?
• Did they download a free resource or fill out a form?
• Did they take the next step such as booking a call or visiting a sales page?

Segment Your Audience 

One of the reasons business owners often resist creating personas is because they realize their target market may have diverse needs and demographics. However, it is possible to have more than one buyer persona and segment your marketing efforts to resonate with each one. 

Connect With Your Readers 

When people comment on your blog or ask questions, be sure to respond. This prompts more people to engage with you and sparks a dialogue. If your audience is large enough, consider starting your own social media group on Facebook or LinkedIn. This will allow you to be in regular contact with your best customers.

Some of the ways you can gain intelligence with a social media group include:

• Asking your audience what they are struggling with 
• Posting polls and surveys 
• Requesting reviews and testimonials 
• Encouraging user generated content 

If you aren’t getting any traffic or engagement on your blog, you may need to look at whether you are being consistent in your posting schedule or whether you need to promote your blog more frequently through strategies such as social media, guest posting and newsletters.

Using your blog to build an email list creates another marketing channel where you can get to know the preferences of your reader through content, surveys and feedback. Offer an incentive to get people to join your list. This could be a coupon, checklist or training video, for example.

Be Authentic 

The more people feel they understand you and your company, the closer they will feel. This will allow you to build an audience of ambassadors that are willing to refer you and share feedback with you. 

Once you understand your audience, you will be able to create deeper relationships with your ideal target market, nail your messaging and convert more followers into sales. 

Use Data

Study your Analytics for both your blog and your social media channels. Analytics includes information about age, gender and location. Competitive research can also help you understand your target market. Who does your main competitor attract? Who follows them on social media? You can also use free and paid SEO tools to get intelligence about your competitor. 

Are you interested in going deeper on your blogging strategy? Book a free consultation. We’ll review your blog and help you find the strategies that can explode your growth and results.