Last time we checked in, I promised to walk you through the parts of a content strategy, and we took the first step by looking at the importance of business goals. And I will absolutely maintain that business goals are a top priority when it comes to building a successful content strategy – because business goals give you a direction to follow. It gives you purpose and a desired outcome. All good things. But the second most important part of any content strategy is knowing your target client.
Now, I prefer to call my target client my dream client, but for the sake of education – I’m going to stick with the target client because I really want to emphasise the target part of the phrase.
With that caveat out of the way, we can jump into why you need a target client for your content strategy.
What’s a target client?
Your target client is the group of people you are creating content for – the people you want reading your words, visiting your website, and booking your services.
For example: if you are a popstar – like Taylor Swift – your target client is predominantly women and teenage girls who will resonate with the feelings of love and heartbreak.
On the other hand, a band like Tool, is not going to satisfy the hopes and dreams of the Swifties and will focus more on middle-aged men who have been a part of their musical evolution since their debut in the 1990s. This audience is significantly more noni-conformist and identifies more profoundly with the band’s angry undertones and complex rhythmic style.
In either case, the success of their business relies on them maintaining a steady state of music that caters to their individual audiences. If Taylor Swift, for instance, were to release an album with significantly darker, and more disturbing visuals (the mental kind, because who really reads CD inserts anymore?!) then she’d risk alienating her audience. Just like you’ll never find Tool releasing any music that simply pours their hearts out in at a superficially relatable level (no, I’m not saying Taylor is superficial, but rather that Tool makes you work to find the meaning in their music).
But back to my original statement – your target client is who you are talking to. They are the people you want showing up for what you have to offer. Which means that everything you do needs to be focused on getting their attention.
And to do this, you need to do your homework.
Understanding your target client
Because your content strategy is the roadmap to being able to connect with and converse with your target client, you need to have a solid understanding of who they are, what they care about and what makes their world go round.
In short: I want you to see them clearly in your mind when you close your eyes (why I call them dream clients).
And while this sounds like a lot of work – it totally is! It’s also incredibly important and not going to be as hard as you think if you have a good understanding of your brand.
So, how do you identify your target clients? There are a few ways:
First – if you haven’t, seriously check out my workbook, I’ve given you a nifty table to fill out that will guide you.
If that’s not your jam, that’s ok too! Here’s the information you need to collect and where to get it:
You need to know:
Demographics:
The basic information about your target client. At the very least, you need to know this stuff because it narrows down your client list a fair bit. This includes information relating to your target client’s:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Ethnicity
You need this information to steer your content in the right direction. I mean, let’s be real, if you are selling adult toys, you KNOW your audience needs to be of legal age, but you want to make sure EVERYONE on your team knows that too, so write it down.
Socioeconomic:
Diving in deeper, you will be looking at the social standing of your target client. Income
- Education
- Marital Status
- Occupation
This helps you with things like your pricing, determining who your buyers are (ex: married women do the majority of household purchases for their families), and how to tailor your messaging. It’s all wrapped together.
Psychographics:
Up next is diving into their mindset.
- Attitude
- Lifestyle
- Values
- Interest
Making sure that your values and your representation of a lifestyle are in sync with your target client’s is going to make you easier to resonate with. You want to be sure you aren’t shoving a square peg in a round hole (and you won’t be because you have a brand strategy), but knowing how your business lines up with your clients will make it easier to talk to them.
Behaviours:
This list is not complete – you can dial it in further, but knowing the basics here helps.
- Buying Habits
- Online Habits
- Media Influences
- Technology Use
Why do you need to know behaviours? This tells you where you are likely to find your target clients and how to push out your content. For example, you might be targeting a business – and they usually hire freelancers through LinkedIn. Well, it makes no sense for you to be on TikTok does it? Analyzing behaviours allows you to get to know what your target clients are up to, where they spend their time sharing and learning, when you’re most likely to find them online to engage with. It’s all tied into how they behave.
So where do you get this lovely information about your target clients?
I’d say break out the books, but we don’t do that anymore!
Analyze your customer base: Once you have a few clients you can actually start to understand who is attracted to your offering. Which will help you refine who you are speaking to. It might even reveal that you have TWO (or more) target clients. Which is totally ok!
Check out your web traffic: You might also want to take a look at your website traffic and understand who is visiting your site.
Social media: Use social media to learn more about who is following you. Scope out your competitors and see who is following them. Follow their followers and get a sense for who they are. Compare and contrast your own brand against those competitors and tweak your learnings to align with your target client.
Engage with your customers: It doesn’t hurt to ask! Don’t be afraid to ask your customers questions, find out what they like, what they don’t like, what they feel when you work together and build on that.
What now?
Well this wraps up the second part of “How to build your content strategy”.
It’s a lot of work, I will agree, but when it’s done, you have this glorious document that incorporates the vision you have for your business, outlines clear goals, demonstrates an understanding of your audience, and outlines the types of content and places you need to be using to maximize your brand presence.
And of course, that’s the goal, right?
