Hallelujah or tumbleweed? lead balloon moment or a fist pump in the air moment (Not sure anyone would really do this but you get the gist of it). Either you’ve failed to spark a response from your audience or you’ve cracked the code and you’re reaping the rewards with oodles of feedback and communication. You desperately want to connect with your audience. Why?
Because you want to grow and nurture your relationships. You want to create a meaningful brand with which your audience can relate to. You want to know what it is that your audience is thinking. Why they engage with certain material and not with others.
Are you talking their language?
As Marie Curie was so famously once quoted, ‘nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.’
You don’t need to fear your customer, you need to learn to understand them. When you are trying to connect with them what tone and style of writing do you use? Are you varying your posts with infographics, pictures and video snippets?
Don’t make it too wordy. Make your writing as if you were speaking to them in person. Sell your story. Your why. People like real people. They respond to emotion. Make what you are saying relatable. Will your audience believe in what you have to say? Be authentic.
What are they likely to respond to?
According to a survey carried out by hubspot in 2017 54% of participants preferred to see video content from brands and businesses that they support. With a close percentage in runners up from email newsletters at 46%, Social Images at 41% and blogs at 18%.
This additional bar chart below demonstrates the power in the type of content marketing that is most popular with particular demographics. Trends state that video marketing and growth in social marketing are set to rise.
Conducting your own research and knowing your audience will help to shape how you try to connect with your audience. Knowing your audience will help to know what they will best respond to.
Who is your audience? Who are you connecting with?
Imagine what your ideal audience member would look like? Can you visualise them as an individual?
Have you identified your audience? Where do they hang out online? Do they hang out online? Which social media platforms are they more likely to visit. Ensure you have regular content or additionally sourced and curated content that is scheduled to be published across all the relevant platforms.
You can only connect with what you know about your audience. The more you get to know your real audience the easier you will find it to engage with them.
A fantastic resource in understanding how to connect is from a TED talk from Dao Nguyen a publisher at BuzzFeed. Dao and her colleagues have devised a formula called ‘cultural cartography.’
Cultural cartography is a hypothesis they have come up with that understands the ‘why’. Why people connect and why and to what they are most likely to engage with.
Why do they connect with some ideas and not others? What is it they engage with? People tend to respond with emotion. They see the relation. They can see the correlation. They relate.
The concept which is discussed in greater depth in her TED talk delves into the powerful ability you have when you understand how and why your audience connects with your content.
What problems do they face? How can you resolve these?
In knowing your customer persona do you then know what problems they are likely to face in relation to your business genre? Your brand?
In today’s modern age of information people have an expectation of information being given. Write to them. Write your article, your blog, your email. Post your video. Solve their problems within your content that you share. Show that you can relate to them. Demonstrate you know what problems they face and that you can help to resolve those problems.
Demonstrate that you are the brand and business they need to be interacting with.
How can they find you? What’s your CTA?
Always ensure that your audience know where to find you, how you can be contacted. All of your work whether it be written or in infographic form needs to have some sort of call to action (CTA).
Be clear. Be concise. Offer clarity. Follow your brand in all that you do and ensure your brand represents how you want to come across. Ultimately that is what is going to sell you.
In summary and in conclusion here’s a bullet point list of my main points talked about in this article;
- Are you connecting with your audience?
- Who is your audience?
- Where do they hang out?
- What information are they likely to most interact with?
- Do your research, get to know your customer persona.
- Watch the TED talk by DAO Nguyen.
Are you connecting with you audience? Have you worked out who is your audience? Are you engaging with them?
Does this resonate with you?
Need a little help in taking the pressure off? Too much to do and too little time? I can help with all types of copy and content needs. I can design packages to work with you in the here and now and for business growth in the future.
You can get in contact with me via my website or you can email me at ambersmith@simplyamberlou.com follow me on Twitter @simplyamberlou or link up with me on LinkedIn Amber L Smith.