How to Engage Your Target Audience: Three rules to live by

In my last video, I talked about the importance of showing versus telling in content marketing and I touched on some pretty important points. I realize that grazing is not elaborating, so I wanted to write a short guide on how to engage your audience, no matter what their job title is. 

Allow me to start off with a simple statement: I am not a marketer, I am a storyteller. Engaging people with words is quite literally my specialty. You might think that using only words without the camera, actors, and special effects to draw attention, is impossible-- I’m here to tell you that it’s not. 

How can you possibly have the same lasting effect of a great commercial without all of the bells and whistles? 

I want you to remember something: Words are the most powerful (and cheapest) tools we have at our disposal. The rules of understanding how to make them work for us are...

Rule 1. Know who you are writing for

Who is your target audience?

What are their biggest pain points?

What challenges do they face in their role?

No one person is made exactly the same as their neighbor, we all have different interests and different things that we care about. The same thing goes for your target audience. What may incite a CMO to click on your blog post, might cause that CISO you’ve been targeting for half a century to turn away-- Even if the product in mention would serve them both. 

You don’t want to assume that your blog posts and articles will cater to everyone because if you do that, you'll miss engaging the people who might actually buy your product, the people whom you are trying to win in the end. 

Rule 2. Don’t be afraid to get emotional

The key to powerful blogs and articles is emotional engagement. In order to incite emotion in your audience, go off of the blueprint above. Take some of those pain points and tell stories around them. If you want an example of how to do this, just keep reading:

You: A super cool and innovative Voice of the Customer Solution

Your Target Audience: CMO’s at Fortune 500 Brands

“...Using machine learning and AI, we ask your customers the right questions at the right time…”

How does the question above incite that CMO to complete your call to action at the end of the post? Spoiler alert! It doesn’t. This sentence reads like every other run of the mill sentence they’ve read dozens of times before in your competitor’s posts, and in most sales emails.

Don’t do that.

Instead, try something like this: 

“...We know how hard it can be to get your customers to fill out the questionnaire at the end of their shopping experience, costing you valuable insight into what keeps them coming back time and again (PAIN POINT). The problem is that customers exit out of generic surveys like they exit out of pop-ups; they don’t want their shopping experience to be interrupted by something they don’t care about. What if there was another way? A solution that caters questions according to your customer’s shopping habits and preferences, ensuring that no matter where they are in their shopping journey…(Hello SOLUTION)”

See the difference? 

By addressing a major pain point according to the job title you are trying to engage, it gives you a segway straight into your solution without sounding overly salesy.

This leads me to my next point…

Rule 3. Humanize your content

Remember that thing I kept saying in my video? The thing about not being an infomercial? Well, I’m about to emphatically drive that point home yet again:

The reason why people change the channel when they hear the familiar sounds of a screaming infomercial is because they don’t care enough to watch them. Infomercials are the epitome of robotic, overly salesy, unrealistic content. When your customer sits at their computer and they get that email from your marketing team about your latest blog post, you want them to read past that first paragraph, right? Well, they won’t do that if your content reads like a term paper or a sales pitch-- like an infomercial.  

If you struggle with stepping out of the overly-formal writing box, let me give you a hand: record yourself talking about your product, record the words you say and how you say them. How would you describe your solution to a friend or your peers?

Are you excited? 

Passionate? 

What words are you using to convey your message?

Write words the way that you speak them, use your language like a megaphone. Most people like content that speaks to them, that’s what makes boring subjects interesting!

Your headline makes them click, your words make them stay

I said it. Do you want them to just click and disappear after skimming? Or do you want them to read the whole thing and realize that they really do want to fill out that contact form? Before I sign off and go enjoy the rest of my Key West getaway, I’m going to leave you with this: Address your target audience’s pain-points and tell stories around them, stories that you have the perfect solutions for. Lastly, speak to your audience, don’t lecture them! Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about engaging your prospect. Write for them and the problem that you can help them solve.

If you need help with humanizing your content, don’t be shy! Message me send me a note at [email protected]. I’m always happy to chat.