Who Is Your Audience?

Do you really know how to define your audience? Here are tips on how to get a pulse on their moods and needs to make truly compelling content.

Last year, I worked with more than 30 content experts to create a book called The Content Entrepreneur. The project was spearheaded by Mr. Content Marketing himself, Joe Pulizzi. All of us submitted chapters, and I, along with Author and Editor Robert Worstell, massaged that prose into this amazing book.

As you might guess, the book is geared to people desiring to forge a business around content that they have or will be creating. In some ways, I am talking to myself as this Substack is a deviation from creating content to line other’s pockets, to hopefully, now line my own!

I am sharing my chapters:

• Who’s Your Audience

• Tying Content to Audience

• Basic Social Media Strategy

here on my Substack - because all three apply whether you are writing as a content entrepreneur, brand creator, or a content marketer. I’ve add a few parenthetics below to make sure those of you brand and content marketers feel spoken to.

There are references here to The Tilt, one of Joe’s more recent endeavor. If you are a content entrepreneur, writerpreneur, or a notsosurepreneur, The Tilt, can be a fantastic resource.

So let’s talk about finding and defining your audience!

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In The Tilt's 2023 survey of content entrepreneurs, 64 percent say the biggest challenge was growing their audiences, followed by making sure their content gets found (51 percent). (And if you think about it, one leads to the other.) Way down the list is another audience issue, with 27 percent of respondents concerned about finding their niche audiences. You can see the results in the figure below.

It is good to see “audience” issues represented. After all, without an audience, you don’t have a business.

How Do You Grow an Audience?

Well, first you have to really know your audience. The Tilt characterizes content entrepreneurs as passionate. They have deep knowledge of their subjects—and want to impart knowledge to their followers. And that’s a great start. In fact, many of you may target a persona who looks very much like a former you—the you before you became an expert.

But it’s one thing to know your subject matter. To truly engage with your audience, you need to take that expertise and make sure it is both empathetic and compelling.

Stay with me. Those are two different thoughts.

Empathetic means understanding how the folks in your audience are feeling—in any situation. If you presented them with an innovation, are they resistant, scared, nervous, excited, champing at the bit?

Compelling means capturing attention, being so persuasive that a person wants to take action.

Every proposed piece of content must have these two characteristics in your content strategy. Channel your inner anthropologist. Conduct both primary and secondary research to learn more about the population you are studying. It’s one thing to read a report that says people don’t like to stand in the chilly rain waiting for a bus. It’s another to have stood in the rain with them to observe how they are actually behaving. Are they trying to protect personal items from getting wet by shoving them under their clothes? Are they fumbling with umbrellas? Are they huddled next to others to stay warm?

[This type of observation is critical in consumer brand publishing - and not yet adopted as table stakes in business to business. It’s a major mistake and a great opportunity to speak to your audience in an evocative way.]

That level of detail is how you authentically connect with your audience—and expect their content needs. Is it a book? A blog? Podcasts? Coursework? Clever merch?

Conduct Primary Research About Your Audience

To gather as much information about your audience as you can, conduct as much primary research as possible. Start with the techniques of an ethnographer (observing behaviors): one-to-one interviews, focus groups, surveys, polls. The key to research is to understand what it is you are looking for. Let’s consider empathy—what conditions happen that cause your audience to be frustrated? Excited? Curious? Don’t look at all people as a monolith. See if you can’t find patterns by gender, age, location, profession.

If you can swing a survey, which can cost upward of $5,000, you can garner amazing stats that can drive publicity and a slew of content—just from the insights. It’s a great way to take a pulse (and prove to sponsors that you are the expert).

But let’s assume you don’t have the $5,000. You can still conduct research by observing what others are asking through search engines. A great tool is AnswerthePublic.com, which will let you do three searches a day for free. For example, you can type in “woodworking” and find out people are wondering:

• What woodworking items sell the most?

• Is woodworking a dying art?

• Can you rent woodworking tools?

If you are passionate about woodworking, these might be the topics you create around.

Another great tool is marketmuse.com, which also allows daily free searches. It not only helps you determine topics, but also shares words around those topics that you should include in order to rank for SEO.

Stand in Their Shoes

A terrific exercise is to conjure up several personas who might be interested in your content. Be specific. Imagine a person coming across your offering. Is it through word of mouth? If so, who is telling the person? A parent, a lover, a best friend? Why are people suggesting it? Are they finding you through Google? What is going on in their lives that is making them seek you out? Are they a parent or childless? Are they time-constrained? Feeling an economic pinch? Looking to further their career? Looking to have fun? Rushing to get a job done? Entertaining a large crowd?

What is their mood? Marketers call it “pain,” but I prefer “mood.” As a content entrepreneur, you are trying to use your authority to persuade people (who often put up an automatic logical barrier) to find value in your creation. So what is the typical mood of your audience?

Looking at your audience in this way helps you create segments and personas. A single working parent may be interested in very different content than a childless one. Maybe the person is looking for humor—or maybe a process that will ease confusion. Or an athlete recovering from an injury will want something very different from one in the prime of his or her career. The former might look for inspiration—or just understanding.

[If you need some help conjuring these scenarios, you might get some ideas by using a tool like ChatGPT from Openai.]

Audiences are not a monolith of a single mood. We have good days and bad days, and people of the same demographic can view the same thing as a hill to be climbed or a reason to curl up and take a nap. Create content accordingly.

Learning About Your Audience Is Continuous

Taking a “pulse” is never a one-and-done. As you know with your own pulse, it slows when you are resting and speeds up when you are racing around. So you can’t do a single survey and say, “Aha! I got it! I know everything about my audience.” Stay engaged with the people in your audience, so they stay engaged with you. Conduct one-off polls within your content. A WordPress plug-in called Forminator allows you to ask questions like “Which day of the week would you like to receive a newsletter?” or “Would you rather read a book, listen to a book, or hear a podcast?”

Stay engaged with your audience, so they stay engaged with you.

These types of polls are not statistically accurate, but they will give you insights about what your audience wants. The polls also build connections with the members of your audience—where they feel they are being heard. If indeed you find out that 70 percent want a podcast, mention that fact when you launch your podcast. And make sure you use the second person when you do: “Because 70 percent of you wanted a podcast, I am happy to say I got over my nerves and am launching it today.”

Notice not only did I used the coveted “you,” but I also shared that I “got over my nerves” to meet your needs. The people in your audience (even the 30 percent who didn’t respond) will feel like they are part of a community—and they will have a greater trust in you for sharing your vulnerability. Most people are cowed by the idea of speaking in public or being recorded. Sharing your humanity will go a long way to bridging that divide between audience and true followers.

Understanding your audience is a vital step in improving the content you’re producing. Focusing on meeting customers’ needs and improving their mood toward your offering will help you to achieve your income goals.