Selecting the right audience - Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy

- "Getting an audience is hard. "Sustaining an audience is hard." These aren't my words. These are the words of the rock star Bruce Springsteen, who has won over millions of fans around the world for decades. While acquiring an audience for your content takes a lot of work, the good news is you can make it easier by avoiding common mistakes. Let's walk through two of the most frequent missteps I see new content marketers take and how you can course correct. The first mistake is going too broad. If you try to reach everyone with your content, you risk reaching no one effectively. Your company or organization might have several different types of customers you serve, and that's great. But you don't have to serve all of them with your first content marketing program. For example, I once helped a foot health company avoid this misstep. Their customers included everyone from overweight seniors with foot conditions to runners avoiding injury. Instead of trying to reach everyone, we focused first on runners. We created highly relevant articles, quizzes and diagrams that successfully attracted and engaged runners. So resist the temptation to go so broad that you can't offer your audience relevant content. Now let's shift gears to the second mistake, which is going too narrow. In other words, it's the opposite extreme of the first mistake. If you select an audience that is too specific, you risk problems like running out of topics and not getting enough return on your investment in content marketing. You can use your company's market research to estimate the potential audience size based on a segment of customers. From there, you can estimate the potential value of reaching your content marketing goal with that audience. For example, if your goal is to acquire new customers, you can estimate the impact of a percentage of your audience becoming customers. I like to use 10% as a conservative estimate. To make your estimate even more realistic, plan to reach the full audience size in about three years. You will see the impact on your content marketing goal increase as your audience scales. Your actual content marketing program might perform better and faster than this estimate. But the estimate will prevent you from selecting an audience that is too narrow to achieve your content marketing goal. If growing an audience seems hard, take heart. Even Bruce Springsteen says it's a challenge. Select an audience that is focused but not overly specific, so your content marketing program can thrive.

Strategy