By: Felicia Pratt Ellis

I hope you really enjoyed the article last week Thursday regarding your Target Audience.  Understand that it’s very important to know who you need your message to go to.  Too many times we want to reach everyone but we all don’t talk the same or have the same pain points. Talking to me is different from talking to divorced women in her 50s or 35 year old single mom.  As you continue to work on your marketing message and gather clients start with knowing and understanding your customers.

The second item I want to discuss is what you do after you know your audience.  Well this step can be fun to some and tedious to others.  This step requires a bit of ongoing research and patience.  In this step you want to find out where your target audience hangs out.  What forums and Facebook pages do they like? What groups are they apart of? Are they on LinkedIn, What blogs are they reading?  You want to find out where they are so you can hang out with them.  I’m not talking about shoving more salesy stuff in there face, but really getting to know them and understand their needs.  By reading what they read, being in the forums they are in you begin to get into their mind and get a feel of what they need and are looking for.  This can be valuable information for you and your business.  You may realize that your product or service may need to be altered a little or you are offering something they don’t need at all.  This will give you some great insight to your audience.

Also while you are hanging out feel free to interact with them.  Don’t sell to them, but answer a few questions if you can.  Show your audience that you can provide them with information they need.  Just be a friend providing information.  You can also take their questions and create a blog post providing the answers like I’m doing with this series.  I know that if one person in my audience has this question, it’s safe to say that others have this same question a well.  So I wanted to provide a place where people can get the answers they are looking for.

Action Step

Make a list of forums, groups, magazines, anything that your target audience may be a part of or reading.  Figure out how you can be a part of their community. Secondly spend a few minutes a day hanging out in their community and seeing what kind of questions they have and maybe even answer a few questions here or there.  You may even find content for a blog post.

Felicia Pratt is an author, WordPress Enthusiast and a Social Media Fanatic that supports women entrepreneurs who run their business online. She helps them connect with their customers and build their online presence so they can increase their visibility and provide consistency in their branding and marketing efforts. Through various entrepreneurial endeavors, Felicia has finally found her niche empowering women by helping them leverage their content effectively through social media and blog content management.