How to Connect to Your Audience When Writing
To learn how to connect to your audience when writing, you have to study the elements involved. The simple trick is a technique that’s as old as storytelling, yet as relevant today as the latest Oscar winners and the most successful brands. To tell a good story or write a successful blog post, you have to remember who your audience is.
Advertisers have been tapping into this phenomenon for centuries. Blogging is no different, really; it’s just so much more fun and way less intrusive! So here are five tips to discover how to connect to your audience when writing blog posts. These techniques will help you write more effective blogs for yourself or your clients.
1. Know Your Audience
This first step is the most straightforward, but perhaps the most difficult. You may think you know your readers, but until you do some research, you’ll never know how to connect to your audience when writing your blog posts. Your resources, including time, determine how thoroughly you dig into this aspect of audience evaluation. Some common methods include:
- Develop personas. Use all your market research data to create specific individuals who represent large segments of your audience. A persona may include a photo, a name, family members, employment, income, hobbies — everything you need to personalize and get to know that segment. You can develop multiple personas, if desired.
- Send a survey. The most direct way to learn who’s reading your blog posts is to ask them. Publish a survey, asking just the most important questions you want to know. The longer it is, the less likely your readers will complete it.
- Study the analytics. Technology has advanced to the point that your computer can track who stops by your website. Analytics breaks down that data by location, age, gender and more. Use this information to better target your readers.
2. Learn What Questions They’re Asking
If you want to know how to connect to your audience when writing, you have to write about topics that matter to them. If they’re worried about taxes, to give a topical example, then provide information about taxes that they can use. If conversion rates are keeping them awake at night, write about how they can improve those rates.
You can’t learn what questions your readers are asking until you know who they are. You can’t know what they search for or care about unless you do the research. Find out, if you can, what information your target audience is searching for. Think about yourself. Ask yourself: what are the last three phrases you typed into a search engine? That’s an enlightening first step in this process.
3. Answer Those Questions
It sounds so simple, but this process is often anything but. People change day-to-day. What was topical and relevant yesterday may be old news today. But depending on your business and your industry, some information is always going to be relevant. If you’re a plumber, write about how to fix a leak. If you’re a web developer, tell your readers what a website does, what it needs and why.
If you can help your audience learn something or gain valuable information, you’ve earned their trust. Gaining trust is the biggest single accomplishment when you want to know how to connect to your audience when writing. Once you become a trusted source, your readers not only accept the information you provide, they look to you for those answers.
4. Use Language They Can Understand
How to connect to your audience when writing blogs takes your readers into consideration with every word you commit to the page. Make sure they understand the point you’re making. Make sure the word you use is clear in the context you’ve presented it. English is a versatile language, and there are often many ways to say the same thing. And yet only one will do.
If you have the most useful information ever, but if you don’t deliver it in a way your audience can understand, you’ve failed. Write in a tone that’s comfortable for them. Use words like “you” and “your” to engage them. Once you’ve gained their trust, they’ll have a better aptitude to learn.
5. Deliver It in a Timely Way
Your audience doesn’t always ask the same questions every day. Some are more topical than others. Address those topical questions in a timely manner. If a holiday’s approaching, determine the trending worries, questions and issues. Then tackle them in your blog. You’ll generate more traffic if you’re answering the right questions at the right time.
Learning how to connect to your audience when writing blog posts means keeping up with the news and discovering how it may affect your target readers. If it’s relevant and timely, it’s worth exploring in a blog post. It’s also a good way to draw attention to your blog. When it comes to writing a blog, your readers are the most important audience.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.