In the last two posts I defined content marketing and the benefits, and then having a plan, a strategy before engaging, and now let’s dive into your audience. Because, how are you going to execute any successful outreach if you don’t have a good handle on who your ideal client audience is well beyond the basic demographics.

The most efficient way to understand your ideal client audience is by creating what we refer to as your “buyer persona” (ie your ideal client avatar).

The most important way to develop a keen understanding of your ideal client audience is of course to have conversations directly with them, and this can come from your past experiences handling their needs, or in the case of pivoting your practice in a different direction, about listening carefully online.

Social media audience analysis can give you insight to what content topics are most relevant and meaningful to your specific audience, and you can them map out your content marketing strategy, to move your prospects from awareness to evaluation to the conversion stage.

Know that today’s discerning audience wants your content and messaging to be hyper personalized, and this is why when I speak to attorneys we spend a good amount of time narrowing down their expertise to a niches.

Even more important than basic demographics such as age, sex, income, location, occupation, level of education, etc. is psychographics. These are demographics used for classifying people by their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria. The important point here is that it allows you to better understand the motivation behind their choice of hiring a particular attorney.

Here are the 3 main areas among many you want to focus on initially…

1. What are the interests of your target audience?
2. What kind of activities to they participate in?
3. What are their attitudes/opinions towards particular subjects?

And, these 3 psychographics are the ones you must know to successfully map out your content marketing strategy…Because basic demographics will show us WHO our ideal clients are, but psychographics will more importantly tell us WHY they will trust you, and hire you.

Another way of putting psychographics is “IAO” (interests, activities, opinions)…

1. What are their interests?

This is shaped by surrounding culture, socioeconomic status, and self identity.

2. What activities does your ideal client participate in?

Beyond simply hobbies (someone may or may not have), be asking how they spend their time, making an effort to understand how this person spend their time.

3. What are their attitudes about ___ ?

This is a bit tricky to discover about your ideal client audience, since you’ll have to narrow down your focus significantly to what it is specifically you want to find out about your client’s attitude. Start out by discovering their opinion on a given topic. Opinions reflect values, which in turn reveals a person’s motivation and this is gold when you are assembling a content marketing strategy.

These demographics are hard to find, or interpret, but well worth the effort. It is truly here that you learn to understand your audience so you can serve them in a meaningful way – and isn’t that what it’s all about?!

Next week I’m excited about talking story time, narrative and how to entice curiosity, a journey that transports and resonates with your ideal clients!