The number one goal for businesses of all stages should be reaching their target audience—especially when it comes to content marketing, social media, and outbound communication. But many businesses still miss the mark on how to reach the right people who will make a positive impact on their business.
Being strategic about your content marketing can change all of that, and it starts by building a strong foundation for your communication. Whether you are a micro-business or a large corporation, here are three ways to put your brand in a better position to reach its target audience:
1. Understand Your Ideal Customer
Start by thinking in detail about who exactly is your ultimate customer. This is the one person who will most benefit from your product or services, not to mention bring in the most revenue for your business. Break down that persona in as much detail as possible by listing their demographics such as age, income, education, and more.
This exercise will give you a concise understanding of the key characteristics of the customer who will drive the most revenue for your business. Don’t worry, defining your ideal customer will not isolate your other outlier customers who fall outside of the description, it will just lay the foundation for your communication efforts.
2. Define the Voice and Tone of Your Communication
All of your outbound communication and marketing materials should be written with your ideal customer persona in mind so as to appeal to and properly engage them. Use that individual as inspiration to define the voice and tone of your communication—an exercise that will make it easier to be consistent with your company messaging.
In content marketing you cannot be all things to all people. Instead, being really consistent at reaching one person will attract appeal to a broader spectrum of individuals.
3. Send a Consistent Message
Many businesses struggle with breaking down their product or service into a one sentence description, but that’s where it starts. Think about the ultimate goal of your product or service and condense that goal into one sentence or tagline. From there, elaborate layer by layer until you can describe the bigger picture of your business in three to five sentences.
Use this general company description as the foundation for all of your marketing efforts to make sure that your business is sending a consistent message on every communication platform, from social media to company proposals.
Effectively reaching your target audience in any industry requires upfront strategy and attention to detail. So before dabbling in advertising, targeted campaigns, or other strategic communication efforts, the first step of successful content marketing is to know your audience, and then create consistent company messaging in order to engage them.
Taking these essential steps in the beginning will only enhance your content marketing efforts in the future, drive revenue for your organization, and put your brand in a better position to succeed.
Ashley Logan
Ashley Logan, Yakkety Yak LLC CEO and Editor-In-Chief, has built a successful career on the basis of writing for a specific audience so that the customized content reaches the right consumer through original blogs, social media marketing, website copy, and more. She founded Yakkety Yak on the principal of writing for one target audience, with one common voice. She is a native Chicagoan with a master’s of science in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from University of Tennessee.
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