Your business is starting to grow, but the question that hits you is “How to take it to the next level?” What could you do to reach out to a larger audience and build a connection with them?

The good news is you don’t have to spend huge money on ads all over the place to build an audience. One of the most effective ways to build a loyal following is through creating content. 

Providing content to your target audience can give you much higher returns than just running a bunch of ads.

Read on to find out how your business can use content marketing to build and maintain a strong target audience.

Content Marketing

Content marketing connects you and your audience through personal information and relationship building. Your brand provides content that helps your audience helping them form a relationship with you.

The content helps you bring potential customers to your website and it keeps existing customers on your team. Your content is a way of showing them that you want to help them and connect with them.

Content marketing is different from straight ads because the information is beneficial to your audience. When you help them with their needs, they feel connected to you and your brand.

Audience Building Steps

Your content marketing has to be focused or it will not achieve its purpose. To focus your content you have to pick your audience and pick your voice.

Pick Your Audience

Knowing how to create content starts with you deciding what audience you are aiming your content at. You can say your product is for all people, but if you don’t aim at a specific audience you will get lost in the noise of the web.

You need to drill down to who your core audience is. What problems do they have and how can you help them? What are their habits, challenges, dreams, etc…? 

Your audience is real people and you should focus on what their life is like. Give them a name and build a full persona around them. This doesn’t mean you won’t help others outside this person, but it gives you something to aim for.

Pick Your Voice

How will you speak to your audience? Will your brand be seen as the trusted guide and expert? Will you be formal or casual in your communication? Does your content focus on facts and stats or does it use humor to communicate?

These are all examples of questions you need to ask yourself to discover your voice. Your voice is how you speak to your audience and how you connect with them. 

Let’s say your audience is 25-30yr olds who need SaaS services for their growing companies. You can tailor your content to speak on the growth headaches young business leaders have.

Plan Your Audience’s Journey

Now that you have a specific audience in mind you can think about what their journey with you looks like. You want to come up with the journey that takes them from not knowing you to building a strong relationship with you.

Connecting Points

You want to find the places to connect with your audience. If they have problems, what is the first thing they need? Your content decisions will come from that.

If your audience is digitally based leaders, you could start with simple checklists on the latest trends in tech. You could format your blogs as a go-to source for their tech interests to connect with them.

These are ways of introducing yourself to people. You don’t want to come on too strong and overwhelm them upfront. Give them something to show that you really want to help them.

You want to plan your content to grow with the interest of your audience. You give them more content the more they buy into you. When they sign up for emails or subscribe to your podcast, they are showing interest.

Map The Journey

Take some time to plan the journey for your ideal audience. What does your blog post get them to do? What call to action will be at the end of your podcast? 

All roads should lead back to your main website, but you want to give them something at each level of the journey. The goal is to build a relationship with them where they become lifelong customers.

You can even map out their journey on paper. Put down their favorite social media spots and ways of digesting content. Focus your content on the places they are at. 

This will help you not waste time putting content out that no one will react to.

Creating Content for Audience Building

Content is a big word that can stand for a lot of things. What you want to do is focus on doing your content well. Don’t get into the trap of trying to do everything when you think of how to create content.

Pick two or three main areas of content to start with and grow from there.

Blogs and Articles

Writing your own blog and submitting articles to other publications are great ways to get your name out there. Search engines will often pull up blog content based on the search.

Write blogs and articles focusing on the keywords your audience is searching for online. Use your writing to showcase your business by showing yourself as an expert.

Podcasts and Videos

Podcasts and videos are great ways to be seen as an expert and to connect with your audience. Youtube is one of the largest search engines in the world, so those keywords are important!

This also helps you connect relationally with your audience. They get to know you and what you are like. This will help them trust you and guide them to look at your products.

Personalized Content

These are deeper levels of content for your audience. Things like ebooks, whitepapers, and special videos are all examples of deeper content. To get these your audience should give you their email to have some buy-in.

The content is still free, but you are asking them to give you their email so you can start building your email list. You can then use the email list to give directed content to your audience.

The Recycling Element

Looking at the list of possible content could short circuit your brain! “You mean I have to come up with something for all of this?” The good news is you don’t because your content marketing strategy can have repetition.

This is the ability to recycle your material into different forms. You can write one blog post and turn it into multiple forms of content. The material could be used to make videos or do podcasts.

You can get quotes from it for social media posts. You could even take multiple blog posts and put them together into an ebook that you offer people. 

There is nothing wrong with using the same content in different formats. Many people absorb content in different ways so presenting it in different ways is a smart thing to do.

Consistency Is King

When it comes to tips for creating content, remember that consistency is king! Dedicate yourself to a few main areas where your audience lives and stay consistent with content. 

Consider Your Realities

What kind of content can you and your team produce on a regular basis? You want to look at what types of content you will make and how long good production of that content takes.

Will someone on your team produce it or will you have someone else make it? What kind of time frame can you count on? These are different questions you need to answer as you come up with your plan.

Great content that comes out once a week is better than poor content that comes out three times a week. You don’t have to overwhelm your audience, but you do want to impress them.

Quality is the keyword for content for audience building. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you want it to be the best it can be each time you put it out.

Intentional Content for Your Audience

Creating content happens when you are intentional about the purpose of your content and the audience you want to reach. The work you do upfront to find your audience and your voice will help you build content that connects.

Thisisbrandhouse.com helps service-based businesses find the best ways to build their brand and find their audience. They help small businesses develop strategies to successfully reach their target audience.

Check out their services and set up a free consultation. Let them be your brand strategy experts so you can focus on running your business.