In this edition of my newsletter I'm going to share with you why it's so important to research and analyse your audience and exactly how I do it.
If you've never done this, and even if you think you've already got a good understanding of your audience, I can promise you that you're missing something BIG.
Most coaches and consultants I work with tell me they know their audience. But when we start working together and I practically force them to do this research they're amazed by what they discover.
Not only is the real problem people are facing often very different to the assumptions made based on a few casual conversations and observations, but the kind of wording people use to describe their problems is very different from the 'creative' wording used by most people.
So why is it so important to research your audience?
Well, it all comes down to breaking through the 'noise' on the Internet. People have become immune to marketing messages.
We've become so bombarded by marketing that we switch our brains to autopilot when surfing the internet and most things are filtered out.
It's possible to break through that filter though, and the way to do it is through using things that are very familiar to your audience and that they think about a lot and are even aware of at some subconscious level. Things like the biggest problems they're dealing with and what life would look like if they could solve those problems.
This is the basis of the research you need to do. In essence you ask your audience 2 things:
- What's your biggest problem/challenge? (In relation to your offer)
- What's the outcome of solving that problem/challenge?
It can be worded however you want but it needs to be in simple language (a 10-year old child should get it), crystal clear and relate to your offer somehow.
So, for example, for me it's pretty straightforward. I just ask: when it comes to LinkedIn what's your biggest challenge? And then: Supposing you can solve that challenge what's the outcome?
For a relationship coach it might be: what's the one thing that causes the most problems in your romantic relationships? And then: if you could solve that problem, how would your relationships be different?
You get the drift...
It's most effective when you work with a specific niche. Click here to read more about why working with a niche is so powerful. And if you don't have a niche and want to know more about how you can discover yours, click here.
The problems a niche faces are usually very similar. For example, CEO's will usually be facing things like work/life balance, cashflow or talent retention. Parents might face things like not knowing how to discipline children in a positive way, LBGTQ+ people may face things like struggling to talk openly with their parents, etc.
A niche (a group of people within a market) can often use jargon, acronyms or industry specific words that make them stand out. But even if they don't you'll find that some words are more prominent that others. You'll also find out that those words are often very different to the ones you use to describe their problems.
When you talk about people's challenges and aspirations in the words they use to describe them it breaks through the noise and makes them feel like you truly understand them. And if you've done your research, you do!
This draws people to you and makes them want to know more. Even if they aren't quite ready to pay money to solve a problem, if they are in future, you'll very likely be the person they think of to help them.
Not only that but this research will give you all the ideas you need to create content. When your content focusses on solving your niche's problems it will get lots of attention and traction!
How to approach your audience
I recommend 3 ways to do this, and you can reach out to past/current clients, potential clients in your existing network or potential clients you'd like to work with in future.
- Reach out in a chat either on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc, (build rapport first if it's someone you don't know) and just ask the questions right there so you can copy and paste the answers into a spreadsheet.
Pros: It's relatively quick. It's personal. You can guide the conversation if it goes off track. You can copy and paste the exact words your audience uses into your spreadsheet.
Cons: Not any really! - Reach out in a chat to invite someone to a call to help you with your research.
Pros: It's very personal. You get to build a relationship. If their problems are something you help to solve there could be the opportunity to invite them to a discovery call and perhaps even create a new client.
Cons: It's time-consuming. you'll either have to record the call or write very quickly to capture the exact words people use. - Create a short survey with the minimum number of questions and send it out by chat, email, carrier pigeon, etc.
Pros: It's quick and saves you time and energy. You can have it auto-populate a spreadsheet if you use something like TypeForm or Google Forms. You capture the exact words they use easily.
Cons: It's not very personal and unlikely to build many relationships. It's easy for people to misinterpret the questions and you have no chance to guide them back on track. It's tempting to add too many questions and water your data down or put people off completing the survey.
Whichever method you use (and I recommend a combination of all 3) you need to get at least 30 responses for it to be meaningful, preferably 50-100.
When using surveys, don't be tempted to add any more questions. Keep it to the minimum, for example:
- Name
- Email (optional)
- Profession or industry (optional)
- Biggest challenge
- Outcome of solving the challenge.
Make it as quick and easy for people to complete and you'll get more responses.
Hack: Add these two questions to your application for when people book discovery calls with you so you're constantly collecting new data.
How to analyse your data
Stage 1: Find the common themes
So, once you've collated your data you need to analyse it. Here's a spreadsheet you can use to capture and analyse your responses. Note that in the second tab there are some examples from my own research to help you with your own.
In the spreadsheet you'll create extra columns for 'challenge category' and 'outcome category'.
Then go through line-by-line and try to categorise each response. You're looking to create 5-10 categories overall, never more than 10! This is not an exact science and sometimes you'll have to shoehorn some items into a category that may not be a perfect fit. That's fine. It's about getting a macro view of what people are saying at this stage.
Do a couple of passes with this part to get it as accurate as you can.
Then put a filter in the spreadsheet. Just click anywhere within the table and click the filter button.
Filter on each category you created and count up the number of responses in each category. This will tell you the most common 'themes' people are thinking about. Stage 1 complete!
Stage 2: Find the language your audience uses
Now for stage 2... Find out the exact language people are using when they talk about their problems.
I recommend you do this 2 ways. First of all just get the general language.
Remove any filters from the spreadsheet and select the entire text from all responses in the problem column. copy and paste into TagCrowd. This will give you a word cloud. Write down the most prominent words and consider the ones you may want to start to use in your marketing. Do the same for the outcome column.
Now, go back to the spreadsheet and filter on the most common category(s) and repeat the exercise. This may look similar to the general word cloud but the language here is much more important and focussed on the most common problems so this is the kind of language you definitely want to use, especially in places like your LinkedIn headline and on the home page of your website, etc.
Here's my latest word cloud. I'll be adding some of these words in all my marketing over the coming weeks.
