Asking The Big Questions (Market Research Series)

The big questions define the paths for the smaller questions about who your audience is.

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LJ Barnum & Fahad
December 06, 2024

We’ve asked you before and will ask again: Who do you help? Do you know how your audience impacts your business's revenue potential?

Think about it like this: if you have a service that caters to quick one-off interactions (like a c-store) you’ve got two (three) options: increase volume or increase services offered (or both).

On the flip side, if you’re a realtor, you’ve got several extra options: increase volume, increase complexity, or expand services offered (or a mix of any!).

One’s not better than the other - just the approaches are different.

Which approach?

The one catered to your audience!

Catering your service to your audience is the secret to “frictionless” sales. 

(There’ll still be people who need help and support buuuuut…it’s far less.)

If you already know your audience - meaning you’ve got a dossier of who they are you can reference - there’s not anything else in this lovely newsletter for you.

If not…

We asked, you answered

To kick off the year, we’ll be covering shorts and reels!

TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, all the social media platforms are embracing user-generated video content.

(Even X, burning to the ground as BlueSky takes all the users - which is sure to follow the trend on video eventually.)

The prominence of short-form video (aka reels and shorts) rose during the pandemic and hasn’t stopped.

We’ll help you get your slice of the pie.

(Stay tuned for all the fun stuff.)

The Indirect Impacts of Audience

We’ll get to what questions you need to answer about them in a minute - but what’s the impact of putting an hour (give or take) to define your common audience?

For reference, your audience will affect:

  • Writing: simpler writing for a more distracted audience was a big shock to us.

  • Design style: if audiences need to know everything upfront, it’s imperative to keep info front-and-center.

  • Customer service channels: let’s just say if your audience struggles with technology…email and phone. Just save yourself a headache.

  • Send/post frequency: you’re busy - so we only send once a week. Things like that. :P

  • Best methods of promotion: kids don’t use Facebook - they’re on TikTok and YouTube! So Facebook ads are likely to be a bottom-half promotion method. 

For example: we know you’re likely a busy professional between 25-55 in Las Vegas, NV working as a realtor, retail specialist, or therapist who doesn’t have the bandwidth for a daily newsletter but still doesn’t know what to do for marketing.

That might not exactly be you, but you’ll likely recognize yourself in there somewhere and we just don’t have enough similar data points (people like you) to pick you up on analytics! 

(Soon, we will find you - dun dun DUNNNNNN)

Questions To Define Your Audience

Start by opening a doc or making a spreadsheet to organize your thoughts. The goal is for this to be one page (aka a white paper, dossier, or one-pager).

  • Basics - What are the most common customers? What gender? Location? Age?

  • Goals - What goals do they have when it comes to your product? What kind of big plans or wishes do they have?

  • Problems - What problems do your customers have before they can get what they want? What difficulties or struggles do they have?

  • Feelings - What are they afraid of because of these issues? What emotions and feelings do they experience? What do they think they can't do because of these problems?

  • Desires - What would be a good experience? What would be the opposite of any problems or worries? What would be the best outcome?

Once you’re done, you’re not done! 

Revisit your dossier often to center your brand and make sure your messaging and methods are impactful to your audience as it grows.

Questions or need a second pair of eyes?

Hit reply to this email or comment below!

This Week’s Campaign

Tiny Homes, Big Living

Showcase unique or innovative tiny homes, highlighting their efficient use of space and sustainable features. Hint: here in Vegas a lot of Toll Brother’s homes fit that description.

Art Therapy Techniques

Demonstrate simple art therapy exercises that viewers can try at home to express their emotions and promote relaxation. Draw more people into working on themselves by showcasing that therapy doesn’t always involve a fainting couch.

Thanks for reading this week guys, catch you next Friday!

LJ & Fahad

Photo by Seth Reese on Unsplash