A client recently hired me to write a case study as his first step into content marketing. He owned a small business and had never hired a writer, much less a content marketing writer. During our conversation, he covered everything that he thought was important for me to know about the assignment: the focus on the case study, the information about his product, the customer’s contact information so I could conduct the interview, how long he wanted the case study, the deadline, and how much he would pay me.  He assumed we had talked about everything that I needed to know to get writing, but in actuality I didn’t have the most important information needed to create effective content marketing materials–information about his target customers.

With traditional journalism, it is usually very evident who your customer is for a specific article or can be described in one sentence, such as women under 30 years old who are very interested in fitness, or IT professionals who want to learn about the latest technological advances to further their careers. But because successful content marketing deliverables build trust with a brand by helping potential customers solve their problems, it is important that a content marketing writer have a much deeper understanding of the type of reader that the brand wants to attract.

Here are three questions that you should know answer to before beginning the first draft of any content marketing deliverable:

1. Who is the target audience? – Get as specific as possible about your audience for the specific deliverable, such as age, sex, geographic area, education level, and products they currently buy. You may find that the advertising or marketing department will be able to give you very detailed information on the customer. Don’t be satisfied with a simple two-sentence answer. Note that often brands use a specific piece of content marketing to attract a subset of their customer base that they want to grow, such as women for an auto parts store or companies that would need a new software product. Sometimes the customer for your content marketing project is different than the overall customer for the brand.
2. What do they value? – Once you have a description of the audience, spend some time understanding what they care about. It’s not good enough to just understand that parents care about the happiness, safety, and health of their children, or that small business owners want their businesses to succeed so they can support their families and continue to employ their current staff members. You need to really “get” why they care and the degree to which they are passionate. You will get the best understanding by talking (and actually listening) to real people who fit in the demographic.
3. What problems are they trying to solve? Parents may struggle with preparing a healthy dinner after they walk in the door from work, while small business owners may struggle with finding work-life balance. During your conversations, make a list of these challenges your customer faces. We will talk in a upcoming post about how to turn these challenges into story ideas. Successful content marketing is built upon helping people solve their problems and providing information that they need so it is crucial that you have a firm understanding of the challenges that they face.

Be careful that you are not just focusing on the problems that the brand wants the customer to customer to solve using their products, but on all the challenges that the customer finds most overwhelming. Successful content marketing provides answers that the customer can depend on, not just answers that the company’s products can provide.

By understanding your customer and what keeps them up at night, only then can you create really effective content marketing materials that will cause them to turn to the brand for information that they trust.

How do you learn about your audience?