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What Are Your Audience’s Challenges and Priorities?
In order to speak to your audience’s problems and needs, you need to understand them. The best way to understand them is through primary research, surveying and studying your audience directly. Online surveys are a great way to collect this data.
If you don’t have the time and resources to conduct primary research, you might consider secondary research. In this approach, you can analyze other parties’ findings and make conclusions that will help guide your business. Independent industry organizations are often a good source for such data, though the disadvantages of secondary research are that you can’t control the parameters, currency, or quality of the data you use.
Of course, you sometimes may need help figuring out the right questions to ask to find out what you need to know. What kinds of challenges and priorities should you be asking your survey respondents about in the first place? Here, it’s helpful to do some good old-fashioned digging. Top areas to look for clues include:
1. Your own online content
If you’re already publishing educational content , this can be a strong indicator. Identify high-performing content to find which pieces have generated the most traffic or have been shared most frequently on social media. Are there are common threads in the subject matter? This can indicate an area of particular interest for your audience.
2. Your network
Consult your sales, business development, and account teams to learn what questions and objections they encounter regularly. Are there any commonalties or surprises here? These may be areas to follow up on. You can also start a conversation on social media, asking your contacts and followers what they view as top challenges and priorities in their industry. The answers may be revealing.
3. Online and in social media
Speaking of social media, it can be a great place to gather data without asking questions outright. What topics are trending in your industry? What issues are in the news, and what problems are people talking about?
Better yet, where does your target audience go for advice and insight? Where do they network? You can gain crucial information by looking up leaders among your target audience, finding which LinkedIn Groups they belong to , and following relevant conversations.
Another great source of information is competitors’ websites. Are they talking about issues that you are not?
With the information you gather from these disparate sources, you should develop the raw material for some powerful questions and avenues of investigation. And by using research to understand your audience, you’ll have the basis for a focused and efficient referral marketing strategy, connecting more reliably with your audience and leading ultimately to new business.