Don’t Skip This Step When Creating Content for Your Business

Do you really have to dance to get engagement on Reels and TikTok?

Should you even be on these platforms in the first place?

While it’s tempting to hop on every trend, be present on every platform, and chase cheat codes for going viral, following random tactics can be a waste of time and resources.

Creating content without a clear strategy is like throwing darts while blindfolded — hitting bullseye would be a miracle.

This is why you need a plan.

A social media content strategy is just that: a dynamic plan that determines…

🧑🏻‍💻 Your target audience and how to reach them

🎯 How your social media objectives align to your business goals

📀 The focus, format, and frequency of your content

At Prodigy, we see marketing as the act of creating value for customers to capture value from them in return. And in content creation, we follow the same principle: we start with the customer.

Because without knowing who your target market is, you’ll struggle coming up with content that resonate with them or help them solve a problem. The catchphrase “know your customer” sounds basic and vague, though. How do you know and understand your target market?

This is what the first step of our content planning is all about: Research.

Remember your buyer persona? This is the time to use it!

While buyer personas may come in different formats, ideally they contain these buyer insights that help you create relevant and interesting content for your dream customer. 👇🏼

Pain Points

What problem is your dream customer trying to solve? Why would they invest in a solution like yours? What pain are they trying to ease?

Through this information, you can come up with content topics that bring real value to your audience and position you as someone qualified to help them.

2. Dream Results

What are they hoping to achieve when they work with you? What results are they expecting from your products or services?

When you know their desired future state, you can be strategic in selecting the customer reviews you share, as well as the features and benefits you highlight. You have to make them feel like their goal is achievable — better yet, show that others have achieved it through your offers.

3. Perceived Barrier

What are their doubts about you, your offer, or your industry in general?

You can address their objections through the stories, results, and stats that you can weave into your content. Plus, you can inject little nuggets of assurance at every point of their customer journey so when the time to buy comes, all they’d need is a gentle nudge.

4. Buyer’s Journey

Speaking of, the buyer’s journey is one of the crucial pieces you need when creating content.

It tells you how your audience prefers to consume industry content (Do they read newspapers, sign up for newsletters, or listen to podcasts?) and engage (Do they prefer phone calls over emails? Are they social media savvy?).

Mapping out your buyer’s journey helps you focus on the right channels and type of content.

5. Decisions Criteria

When comparing you with competitors, what factor are they considering the most? Is it price, convenience, or prestige?

When you know their non-negotiables, you can simplify your product’s value proposition and spotlight the benefits they care about.

Since buyer personas often start off as fictional profiles of our dream customers crafted based on limited data and loads of assumptions, they’re not supposed to be static documents.

We have to continually gather feedback and update it as we get insights from our real clients and advocates.

We can do this through:

Qualitative research
Interviews
Buyer legends
Big data
Web analytics
Social listening

Intimidated? Here are 4 ways to start gathering data:

🔎 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀

Pore through customer reviews and mine for golden insights.

What are your ideal customers struggling with? What features or benefits are they looking for? Pick the remarkable and relevant phrases they use and incorporate those statements into your copy.

We recommend reading reviews from your own site or social media pages, your competitors, and online feedback on other products and services in your industry. Keep digging till you find something interesting!

💬 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺𝘀

Think Quora, Reddit, Facebook Groups. Wherever your dream customers are hanging out, go there. Lean in. And listen to the conversations happening.

What are they asking? What are they curious about? How do brands in your industry fit into their life? What are their fears, doubts, or bad experiences with services or products like yours?

Then, answer their questions through the content you create!

👂🏼 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀

You might be surprised by how willing your loyal customers are to help you with your messaging — and how valuable their inputs are!

By interviewing real customers, you can verify the assumptions you made about them.

Maybe you thought your dream customer is always on the hunt for big discounts — only to find out they don’t mind shelling out more as long as they get what they pay for. So instead of always promoting heavy discounts, you can focus on highlighting the benefits and features that make your offer look oh so valuable and irresistible.

⚙️ Invest in tools

You can also invest in audience research tools like Sparktoro to quickly access important data on your target audience’s online behavior: where they hang out online, the influencers in your industry, the podcasts they tune into, and more. You can also explore Google analytics as well as the native analytics feature of the social media platforms you currently use to spot patterns.

P.S. Here are market research mistakes to avoid.