Understanding Content Targeting: 6 Steps to Getting it Right
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Content targeting involves creating relevant content for your target audience, focusing on their concerns and your firm's expertise to build trust. To effectively target content, firms should identify audience interests, relate them to their expertise, narrow down specific topics, and create varying forms of content while monitoring engagement. Over time, this strategy can establish the firm as a trusted authority in their niche, ultimately attracting more clients.
Understanding Content Targeting: 6 Steps to Getting it Right
- 1. What is Content Targeting & How To Do It Effectively By Missi Freimark
- 2. What is Content Targeting? • Creating content for your target audience that concerns the issues and topics that keep them up at night. • Your firm should focus on the issues and topics that are relevant to the services you offer. • This intersection of what your audience cares about and what your specialty is helps you become known and creates trust with your audience. In other words, a Visible Expert (or a Visible Firm).
- 3. What are the benefits? • Your firm can focus your efforts around issues that your target audience cares about. • This allows you the ability to focus your keyword targeting. The more focused your keywords, the better chance you have at getting found for them. Think about your SEO! • Your firm can build trust and engagement with potential clients because they are looking for answers on the web. 83.5% of Visible Experts use their company website to reach their audience* *Visible Expert Research Report by Hinge
- 4. How To Target Content STEP 1 Figure out what your audience cares about. Talk to your target audience and find out what they want answers to. You will probably have a good understanding of this already because you talk to clients everyday. It just takes thinking about what you hear from your clients in a strategic way, and finding the themes in what you are hearing.
- 5. STEP 2 Figure out your firm’s expertise and how it can relate to those issues. For example, if your firm provides consulting services for bankruptcy and you focus on the CFOs who hire a consulting company to help them through the process, you might want to focus an issue on maximizing recovery during a distress situation. The CFO cares about maximizing recovery and your firm has helped many firms through this, so you can show how your firm provides guidance and understands the process. How To Target Content What is an issue? Challenges that are current in your industry and important to your target audiences. These should be evergreen - they aren’t going away anytime soon.
- 6. STEP 3 Figure out more specific topics within the larger issue. It’s important to focus on a handful of high-level topic areas that you can truly “own.” Going back to the bankruptcy example, a specific topic you can discuss is when Chapter 11 is the right solution. Your firm can discuss pros and cons, the process, the lead up to filing, the aftermath of a dissolution, etc. How To Target Content
- 7. STEP 4 Turn each topic into content. There are many types of content you can create for your audience. Some are low engagement and are meant to be at the top of the lead nurturing funnel. This content requires little commitment from the reader, and is meant to help you reach more of your audience, such as a blog post. Take your specific topics and turn them into blog post titles. How To Target Content Don’t forget to research your keywords! Each blog post title should include a targeted keyword.
- 8. STEP 5 Turn your content into longer format content. Longer format content is meant to be in the middle of the lead nurturing funnel, and can require a little more commitment from your audience. Examples would be executive guides or an e-book. You can require a reader to give you their email address in exchange for this type of content, since it is more valuable to them. How To Target Content
- 9. STEP 6 Monitor your content online. Use a tool like Google Analytics to monitor your traffic to your content. You can also look at time on page for your blog and how may pages people view. By monitoring these types of stats, you can see what content you provide is useful to your target audience. Are you targeting the right issues and topics? Are you targeting the right keywords? Adjust your strategy if not. How To Target Content
- 10. Types of Content Blogs that incorporate SEO Webinars Books White papers Guides
- 11. By understanding how to target content to what your audience cares about, you will gain more trust and clients. Over time, your firm will become known for owning these issues, and will be the go-to source for information. A content strategy takes time to build, but will pay you back in spades when the full potential is realized. Why Not?