Content Marketing: The First Question You Need to Answer (But Probably Don’t)

People often ask me the following two questions:

1. How do I get more people to open my emails?
2. How do I write better subject lines?

I always give the same answer to these questions. And I give this answer because all the tricks you could possibly use don’t really matter unless you’ve mastered this fundamental step.

In fact, those tricks could actually end up hurting you more than they help.

I often remind people they need to take a step back.

And it’s critical because you can’t make any meaningful decisions until you answer this question first.

What’s that critical first question you need to ask?

It’s simple and always the place to start: who is the audience?

If you don’t know who you’re speaking to it becomes impossible to create content that truly resonates. Why? Because if you aren’t clear about the people you’re talking to you end up speaking in general terms. And most times these general terms don’t connect with people the way you’d want. Your content marketing fails to make an impact because it doesn’t feel relevant and therefore doesn’t resonate.

If your content isn’t relevant, it doesn’t resonate.
If it doesn’t resonate, less people open your emails.
If your content doesn’t resonate, your subject line isn’t going to help you much either.

It’s the same whether you’re creating content for your email marketing, blog posts, or social media updates.

So how do you create content that resonates and feels relevant to a particular audience?

First, you need to think about the people you’re trying to reach so you can create some segments.

There’s the general breakdown:

• Prospects – People you want to move to customer status.
• Customers – People you want to stay longer and spend more.

A simple breakdown like this helps you understand the context with which someone approaches your content. It also helps you understand where they are in their journey with your business.

You can already see that just with this simple segmenting exercise these two groups would require different content. They have different needs and different questions you need to answer in order for them to take the next action you want them to take.

For example, consider a martial arts school.

A prospect visiting the website of a martial arts school comes in with a completely different set of questions than a customer visiting your website.

A prospect may want to know things like location, class schedules, and the credentials of the instructors. And perhaps your goal is to get them to join your email list in exchange for a special rate after their introductory class.

A customer comes to your website for very different reasons. They’re looking for content that helps them accelerate their training and learnings. You want them to form a deeper connection with you so they continue on with their training.

Think about these general audiences in terms of email subscriber versus non-subscriber as well.

Someone who gives you permission to email them has taken an important next step. They’ve allowed you into their inbox. The conversation shifts to the next action you want them to take based on their segment. Of course, you’re still providing value along the way to strengthen that relationship you have with them.

There’s another thing many people don’t think about:

The types of people you’re hoping to attract. This plays an important role in your tone and the topics you touch on so you avoid people that are troublesome to your business. You’re looking for those people who share similar values. This value alignment is often overlooked but can save you a great deal of headache.

How do you start figuring out the things you need to know about each of these audiences along their journey?

You need to answer the following questions about each segment of your audience:

• What do they want to know?
• What do they need to know?
• What are their needs, problems, and challenges?
• What do they care about?
• What do they love and hate?

Don’t worry if you don’t know this information now. A content marketing approach relies on having a long term conversation with your audience. You’ll learn more as you go and you can make adjustments along the way.

Here’s how you can start figuring out the answers to these questions:

1. Focus on highly-engaged customers — use surveys and social media, email, and in-person to have conversations.
2. Use these survey results and conversations as basis for new content ideas.

You probably already know where to start.

Think about the frequently asked questions and frequent objections you get from your audience segments. Start by creating content around these topics. If you’re having trouble, you now know what your first step should be: go out and talk with your customers and prospects.

The ultimate goal is to create relevant content that resonates with a specific audience. If you can do this those things like open rates and subject lines start to take care of themselves. So before you do anything else be sure to ask and answer the question: who is the audience?

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Thanks for reading!

D.