There’s a time and place for everything.
Choosing the right strategy depending on the situation leads to better results.
It sounds so obvious. Yet so often, people are blindly following the advice of “Make sure you know your audience, and your content clearly targets them.”
Whether you’re creating for moms, teens, watch enthusiasts, gamers, foodies, Trekkies, or doctors…it doesn’t matter. The truth, and the following piece of strategy, applies directly to you:
The best results are achieved when your content is able to draw in people that may not even care about your subject matter…and make them care.
Let’s take the example of fitness. You have a piece about a workout that will give you more energy, and improve your mental conditioning…with only 20 minutes a day. How do you position it?
You could hyper target your niche, following the traditional advice. Your title is “Fitness junkies rejoice! This new workout will blow your mind in only 20 minutes a day!” You’ve clearly addressed and understood your audience, and you’ve successfully alienated anyone that’s not not a fitness junkie.
Instead, consider the approach of, “I found a new daily habit that saves me 4 hours a week…and makes me feel incredible.” Then you write the piece framed around the idea that you’re saving 40 minutes a day, yet achieving incredible results.
Do you see the difference? In the second example, you’re still addressing your core audience…but you’re casting a significantly wider net which encompasses people who may be hesitant to work out, as well as those that aren’t even in the “workout” mindset. You’re able to reach a much, much larger group of people and see much bigger results.
There are exceptions to this rule, as implied by my initial statement. Choose the right strategy for your situation. There is a time and a place for hyper-targeting: for example, if you’re selling women’s watches via targeted advertising, you may want your content to appear stylish and feminine. However even in that case, consider widening your net just a bit to include women that may not be into fashion, and drawing them in…then test your results.
The bottom line is that the top companies in the world, whether in content or sales, draw in audiences that aren’t already interested in them. That’s how growth, and scale, inherently work. Do your best to try to always widen that net, and you’ll see great results.
