Know Thy Audience

Know Your Audience, Not Just About Your Audience

Keep in mind that there's a considerable difference between knowing about your audience, and knowing your audience.

For example, everyone in the western hemisphere knows about Tiger Woods. Few of us know what makes him laugh or how he takes his coffee, though.  You'll never personally know everyone in your target audience, but you can, and should, know sample members.

Fortunately, you already do; they're your existing customers.
(As if you needed more reasons to be your customers' best friend, this one's a biggie.)

When you know your existing customers well enough to finish their sentences, you'll know what they're looking for online, too.

What do you know about your clients that your competitor doesn't?

If you're not already in the habit, start asking your buying customers what keeps them up at night.  Find out what parts of their day-to-day business distract them from what they do best.  This information, borne entirely out of experience, is one of the most commanding tools in your arsenal.  Used effectively on your website, this seasoned customer-awareness will lead to a valuable trust from your online prospects.

Know Your Audiences' Questions and How to Answer Them

Based on what you already know about your clients, try coming up with three needs or concerns they continually face, no matter how small.  Solve these issues for them through the information you present on your website.  Even if the problems you're addressing aren't part of your core business, you'll be showing a myriad of strangers that your site is useful to them.  And in the information age, that's money in the bank.

If this all sounds familiar, it should.  This kind of attention to customers has been used by deft sales reps for years, and is shrewd on several levels.  What many companies still overlook even today, though, is the value of employing this strategy online.

How well do you know your audience?
Equally important, how are you capitalizing on that awareness on your website?