How Good Blogs Define Their Target Market
Blogging is more than simply writing ramblings on a page. Bloggers need to be focused in providing content that is aimed at a specific target market.
Any blogger who is aiming to make an income online needs to look at the market in which their blog is targeting.
Do you know who your blog target market is?
If your answer is no then STOP. You need to address this now!!
If you are writing for the wrong target market, then you might as well be driving on the wrong side of the road. Everyone else is going to swerve past you, but no-one is actually going in your direction. This is bad news!
Photo courtesy of Vizzual: Flickr
What are the advantages of targeting the market?
It goes without saying that your market are your potential customers. If you try selling jewelry to someone who is looking for dog kennels, what do you think will happen? OK, you might get the odd sale, but overall, your sales are going to be incredibly poor.
It is important to think about WHO your readers are, WHAT it is they want, WHY they want it, and HOW you are going to provide it!
If you get this wrong, you are not only going to waste a lot of time and effort, but also potentially a lot of money from wasteful advertising.
Neil Patel at Quick Sprout is very clear about why you should define your target market, and we all know how successful his blog is! This is what Neil has to say on the subject:
But defining a target audience is a best practice for anyone that needs others to give them something. It might be a salary, an investment or money in exchange for a product or service. Whenever you need something from someone you go through at least some of the steps in defining a target audience.
Many bloggers simply start ‘blogging; without giving any real thought as to who their readers will be. They are then left scratching their heads wondering why no-one is commenting, no-one is subscribing and no-one is buying their products.
The result? A frustrated and lonely blogger, who feels that they are talking to themselves and will ultimately end up quitting their blog for pastures new.
Does this sound familiar?
If so DON’T PANIC, because there are things that you can do right now.
Analyze your blog to determine the target market
Think about your blog for a minute and answer these questions:
- Do your posts follow a specific niche? Are the posts geared towards the same subject or are you talking about how to change diapers one minute and how to create a pretty garden the next?
- What kind of readers are going to be attracted to the type of information that you have to offer?
- Are the products your selling matching the content that you provide on your blog?
- Does your email subscription give information that is related to the content on your blog or are you going off topic?
Identifying the answers to these questions will help you to determine whether your blog is following a single niche and therefore will help you narrow down who your target market might be.
Once you know what your readers want, that’s awesome…..just keep giving it to them. Don’t try and guess what they might want. Tailor your information to be specific to their needs.
Narrow down the specifics of your target market
Ok, so you now know who it is you are writing for. But, do you really?
- Where do they live?
- What is their age?
- What is their household income?
- What is their gender?
- Do they have children?
All these specific demographic questions will help you to determine who your actual readers are.
Answering these questions over time may actually change your target market. You may start your blog with one market in mind, but after time realize that your site is actually appealing to a different set of people. This is ok provided that you know this is happening and can tailor the products you are selling accordingly.
You want to understand who your market is so that you can meet their needs satisfactorily. If you are shooting around in the dark hoping to hit that target, the chances are you are going to be way off!
How can I find out who my readers are?
There are many ways to determine the readers that are attracted to your blog.
A great place to start is Google Analytics. If you havnt got this set up on your blog, then I would advise you to do so as soon as you can. Your analytics are invaluable to helping you determine what is happening on your site, providing details of where in the world people live, their age, gender, pages they are reading, keywords used to find you and so on.
If you are not sure how to check your Google Analytics then Moz has a fantastic guide.
If you run a Facebook page, this would be another great place to look at who your demographics are by checking out your Facebook insights. You need to have over 30 likes on your page to make use of this tool, but it is incredibly useful for letting you know who is interacting with your page.
For those of you using Hootsuite to set up your social media automation’s, you can also use the insights provided with Hootsuite Pro.
Take note of the questions your readers are asking!
Do you find that you are being asked lots of questions in your comments?
What kind of questions are they?
Are they along a similar vein?
People that are asking questions are interested in what YOU have to offer them. These people are your target market. They have read your post, digested the information and then thought of something else they want to know.
Questions are awesome!
You will know who your target market is, as these are the people that will be finding your information useful to them. They will be sharing it with others who also find it useful and before you know it, your market is standing right there in front of you.
Your Turn:
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Do you know who your target market is?
Is this something that was easy to determine or did it take a lot of time and analysis?
Please share your experiences with us below.
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Written by Catherine Holt
Catherine Holt is the founder of Blogging Tips 101. She has been an internet marketer since 2012. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Google and Pinterest.
Catherine,
I must admit I’m a bit split on this issue. I do see the value in niche sites particularly if you’re selling something, but some of my favorite blogs are more well-rounded. I think ultimately it depends on what your goals are.
What do you think?
Brittany
I think that if you are wanting to make money online then a niche site is incredibly important. You would just be making life a lot harder for yourself trying to sell a product if the readers are all coming for different things. How on earth can you sell them something when you don’t know what it is they are looking for.
If however you have no intention of making money online and you are blogging purely for the fun of it, then a specific niche is not really that important. If traffic, stats, income is not your mail goal, and you just love to write and have a play around with design and meet some people then certainly blog without a niche.
I agree that it does depend on what your goal is. If however you want to have a successful blog (whether its income based or not) and to see it rise in traffic, then I do feel that a niche is important to ensure that this happens.
You know the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”!
I appreciate your thoughts here Brittany
Hey Catherine,
Targeting the right audience has always been an issue for bloggers and marketers. I know it may not sound easy but it isn’t even that hard. As you said, Facebook insights is also a great way to know your audience.
Seriously, some of the bloggers really don’t care about their audience and promote irrelevant products on there blog. Which results in no clicks or sales generation.
I hope after reading these tips provided by you most of them will surely know how to and what to market.
Nonetheless, wonderful post Catherine.
Have a great week ahead!
Cheers!
- Rohit
Unfortunately it is something that a lot of bloggers fail to define Rohit. It is something that can be narrowed down, but it does take the time and persistence to review your stats and insights. Not all bloggers want to do this.
Sometimes I think that bloggers post what seem to be irrelevant products on their blog more because they are not clear about who they are promoting too, rather than not necessarily caring about their audience. This occurs when they have no clear direction or path for their audience and unfortunately all too often leads to disappointment and walking away from their blog. Narrowing a focus will definitiely help with this issue.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your ideas
I fully agree. It’s really hard to create content without knowing your market. Quantcast is also a place I would suggest. Plugin a competitor and get demographics from there. It could help specialise your tone and message further. Another superb topic Catherine
Thanks Dennis. I had not heard of Quantcast before, so I might just go and check that out for interests sake
Thanks for sharing your idea!
No prob. On a side note, your readers will probably need to turn on Demographic tracking inside analytics as well. It’s pretty easy to miss.
Hi Catherine
I completely agree. It’s incredibly important to understand your target market. I’m not sure I understood that from the start though.
I’ve gradually been narrowing the niche on my main blog. It targets some specific areas around blogging but does let me have a slightly broader outlook as it’s about my blogging journey!
For the niche sites I’ve set up, they are very targeted. I do a lot of keyword research and base articles completely around a set of just a few of them. That’s certainly helped me to rank quite quickly.
The trouble with that approach is that you can also run out of things to say very quickly. That’s not such an issue where I’m purely setting the site up to make affiliate sales though. They tend to keep their ranking well without the need for being updating constantly.
Refining the niche can be really tricky Tim, especially when you have so much to say. It is a good way of ranking and will of course help readers to be clear about what they can expect from you…which is always a good thing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here
Hi Catherine
Very relevant post for those who want to achieve their blogging goals with least amount of spillage.
Selling to a crowd means just hoping a few of them may need your product and one or two of them may buy it. So here the turnover ratio is hardly 1 to 5 per cent.
Instead of that if you just gather ten people around you who really need your product it is more likely half of them may buy your product. Here turnover is 50 per cent and total number of buyers are also more than the ones you made from the crowd.
This is possible if a blogger has perfect concept of how to identify his target audience and how to attract most relevant visitors to his blog.
This post is complete answer of all the queries which a blogger may ask to define his target audience to sell the right product and make big sales.
Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderful post.
Thanks Mi. Whilst it may sound easy to sell to a crowds it is really difficult. Everyone in the crowd would want different things and you can provide everything. Half the time it would be hit and miss and that is no wa to run a business.
Like you say, a smaller number of people that are especially interested in what you have to offer will be more productive for sales. Sometimes it can be trial and error working it out.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your ideas.
Hi Catherine,
It helps SOOOO much to have your readers focused on you as an authority who does 1 thing.
Like, if I were a lawyer, I’d practice law. I’d not dabble in medicine, or some other profession, because this would confuse folks who thought I was a lawyer.
I’m the guy who helps pro bloggers retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. That’s it. I’m not the guy who does anything else.
My target marketing is bloggers who want to become pro bloggers. If you want to travel you’re in my hyper targeted market.
Either way, if I broaden that market to fit in affiliate marketers and/or self help coaches who want to travel, I’m a doctor who is trying to offer his law advice. Confusion.
Stick with 1 niche, and hyper target it. Let people know you for doing 1 thing, 1 job, 1 profession, and they’ll respond to you more favorably.
Wear 1 hat. Work 1 target market. Prosper.
Thanks for sharing Catherine.
Super points!
Tweeting through Triberr.
Ryan
Thanks Ryan. You are a great example of someone who knows how to refine their niche. It is clear from the outset what our blog is about and who would benefit from it. Your readers are either interested in what you have to offer or they are not. There is no confusion!
Thanks for sharing
Hey Catherine,
Great tips and it’s noted that finding out who your target audience is is EXTREMELY important to any success you plan to have in blogging. It took me a while to figure out that this was an important step that needed to be taken but I’m certainly glad that I ultimately figured it out.
One of your headers read, “Analyze your blog to determine the target market” I think that you should be determining who your target market is BEFORE you even start a blog. And that’s something that alot of people don’t realize or they’re not told.
Great post once again.
Have an awesome weekend.
- Andrew
I agree Andrew, defining that target niche is incredibly important for success. It’s not an easy thing to do, but will certainly pay off if you can get it right.
Absolutely analyze your market before you start a blog. Not many bloggers do this, probably because they are just eager to get going. Once you have started and you havn’t defined your niche, it’s not too late IF you put the work into it.
Thanks for sharing Andrew
Hi Catherine, I feel you wrote this post for me. I do have a wide scope on my site, but do feel that my topics do go hand in hand(well I hope they do). Great advice and I will be more aware of keeping my posts closer together so to speak. I do agree you need to tailor your posts with relevance to the sales side of things.
A wide scope of posts can work on occasions Jennifer, but it depends on what the aim of your site is and what you are offering your readers. Looking at your analytics will help determine what your readers are interested in, and this may help to narrow things down a bit for you. It can be difficult to refine things when you have so much to say, but your blog will benefit for it in the long run.
Glad you found this post useful and gave you some food for thought. Thanks for sharing here today
Hi Catherine,
You know the old saying… If you don’t have a target you’ll miss it every time. lol… I love that.
I learned that if you’re trying to reach everyone you will reach no one. When I first learned public speaking, my speaking coach used to tell me, “Don, each time you stand on that podium you are talking to one person and one person only. What will you tell him or her?”
It’s funny, when you speak or write to one person the audience will feel like you’re directing it the them. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me or emailed and asked if I knew what was going on in their lives? “It’s as if you were speaking to me?”
It’s relevant, personal, memorable and highly effective.
Everyone wants to feel like they are known and understood. When they identify with you, they want you!
I think the reason most don’t define their market is because it’s hard work. But, it’s also rich, rewarding and exciting.
You offered some awesome suggestions! I hope people read closely! There are many techniques and strategies to find your target audience and some of the ones you offered are really helpful.
Catherine, I hope you have an amazing weekend!!!
~ Don Purdum
That is an awesome saying Don! Trying to please everyone will ultimately end up pleasing no-one as you never know who you are aiming for. It is so important to keep the target in mind and focus your efforts towards them.
Defining the market certainly is hard work. It can also at times feel like you are spending a lot of time without achieving much which can become very frustrating. It is important at these times to remember that all the groundwork and the research will pay off in the long run and the focus now will be rewarded later on.
Thanks for sharing your ideas here and contributing to this post