Patrick Biddiscombe shows how to find where your audience actually spends time. Build buyer personas like "Small Business Brenda," use SparkToro to research their habits, then check Google Analytics to see which channels drive real traffic and conversions.
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So you just created a great piece of content you posted and wait for the views to roll in, but all you hear is crickets. If you aren't getting quality engagement, you could just be posting it in the wrong place. In this video, I'm going to break down how to identify your audience's preferred channels, AKA how to get your content in front of the people who actually want to see it. Let's get into it. Number one Buyer Personas. These semi fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data can provide invaluable insights. They not only inform about your audience is but also provide hints about where they might spend their time online. Here's one I created earlier Meet Small Business Brenda. This information lets me know that Brenda is the perfect audience for bite sized but super valuable content. Now, while all of this info is valuable, knowing Brenda's media habits will help me better pinpoint the channels I should be investing in. My content would catch your eye here if it's distributed through Instagram, Pinterest, a business focused podcast or an entrepreneurial blog. Having a clear buyer Persona empowers us to create content that resonates. If you want to attract your own small business Brenda, enroll in our free course. You'll master content distribution and get a grip on inbound marketing, all while earning a free industry recognized certification to show off. Number two Conduct online research. The Internet is filled with information about consumer habits. You can dig through industry reports, blog posts or forums to gather information about where your audience might be consuming content. Don't worry, there are tons of tools tools that can automate that process. Today we're going to focus on one called SparkToro. It provides detailed insights into your audience's behavior by analyzing millions of social and web profiles. Type a specific phrase that describes your target audience into the search bar. For example, if your target audience is digital marketers interested in SEO, you could enter SEO experts or digital marketers, then click the search button. SparkToro will then analyze data from around the web to generate an audience Insights report. The report will will help present you with a variety of data, including the top websites your audience visits, the social media accounts they follow, the podcast they listen to, and the YouTube channels they watch. This will help you get a grasp on where your audience spends their time online. Use this data to identify the platforms where your audience is most active. These are the channels where you should concentrate your content distribution efforts. Number three Collect Audience Feedback. You can gather this invaluable direct feedback with one or a few of the ways I'm going to break down for you right now. Online surveys and social media polls are excellent tools for gathering quick insights about your audience's specific preferences. With them, you can reach a broad range of people with minimal time and minimal effort. Surveys are good for deeper dives, but if you're looking for quick answers, polls are your go to, especially on Instagram. You can find out what people think about pretty much anything and get results right away. Here's how. Go to your story. Tap your profile picture at the top left corner or swipe right anywhere in the feed. Now you want to create a new story. You can take a new photo, record a video, or upload an existing one from your gallery. Tap the post it at the top of your screen and then select Hold. Type in your question in the ask a question field. Since you're interested in preferred channels, your question could be something like where do you prefer consuming our content? You'll see two default answer options, yes and no. Tap on them to customize, e.g. instagram and YouTube. Add as many options as you need, then just drag the poll sticker to a good spot on your story. Use your finger to resize or rotate it if needed. If it looks good to you, then tap your story at the bottom left corner to actually publish it. Whether you go with a survey or poll, try to craft concise and straightforward questions to get insights into where your audience typically consumes their content. Oh quick pro tip. Be cautious with the wording of your questions and answer options. Poorly phrased questions can lead to skewed results. It's the difference between this call and this call. One on one interviews allow for a deeper dive into customer preferences and are excellent for gathering qualitative insights. You can start here by reaching out to a select group of customers who are engaged with your brand and set up interviews via zoom or phone calls. Prepare a list of open ended questions that encourage them to share their preferences. Yes, we know the platform where they consume your content, but this is your chance to dig deeper. You can ask you mentioned consuming our content primarily through social media. What do you like best about that platform? This method is definitely much more time consuming but often gets richer data. It can also be super beneficial for a niche target audience. On the other hand, focus groups are similar to one on one interviews, but they include more people. They allow you to collect feedback through a group discussion. Discussion get started here by recruiting a group of your target audience and hosting a moderated discussion. Be aware that while great for grabbing data, focus groups can cause group think. This is when everyone rallies around an idea for the sake of moving on or avoiding conflict. Open ended questions and a skilled moderator can help mitigate this. No matter which method you go with, remember to have your questions focused on how they discover new content, what platform they use the most, and what types of content they enjoy consuming. These types of questions will not only give you a sense of where your audience prefers to consume content, but also what types of content they're actually interested in. This next tip is a little less relevant for newer businesses, however. If you're a bit more established and want to dive deeper into customer data for content you've already launched, review your analytics. Tools like Google Analytics can provide critical insights into which channels are driving the most engagement and and conversions. Just go to your dashboard, head to Reports, and then traffic acquisition. This is where you'll see which channels are driving the most traffic and engagement for your site. Invest in the ones that are and think about falling back from the ones that aren't. When it comes to figuring out your audience's preferred channels, remember it's not just about creating great content, but also about placing it where your audience hangs out. Target don't just broadcast. If you found this content valuable and you'd like to dive even deeper into the world of content distribution and inbound marketing, take our free course. You'll learn how to evaluate your distribution options, set a distribution goal and test new distribution channels, all while earning an industry recognized inbound marketing certification. As always, be sure to comment and subscribe below. Until next time, I can't find this.
Client info have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
