Write For The Right Audience: 5 Key Tips for Content Writers

Knowing your audience is essential to creating content that resonates, persuades, and builds trust. It’s critical to remember that you’re not writing for yourself or even for your client. You’re writing for your client’s audience—those who purchase their product and use their services. As a content writer, your job is to get consumers to take action, notice, care, click that link, ask for more information, buy the product, or book the service. After years of writing content for various clients, I have come up with five essential tips I use to write compelling copy that resonates with the right audience:

1-    Research Your client’s business: Before signing that contract, learn as much as possible about your client. You cannot appeal to their customers if you cannot understand their business. It’s as simple as that.

2-    Understand your client’s needs: What is the purpose of the copy you’re writing? Is it to persuade, motivate, inspire, draw a sigh, or incite an “aha moment”? Ask questions to learn what’s at stake.

3-   Amplify your client’s voice: As a content writer, your voice and tone must match the client's. You’re the magician behind the scenes, not the main attraction. Your job is to make your client look good, and if your voice and tone don’t match theirs, your copy will confuse rather than engage. Start by researching your clients’ social media platforms. Study their posts, look, and feel. Write down their keywords and phrases; notice which posts get the most likes or clicks and which fall flat. Pinpoint the problems, so you can create wins.

4-    Create relatable content: The main job of a content creator is to get people to take action. They can only do that if the content they read appeals to their needs. For instance, if you’re writing copy for an education website to help parents subscribe to their tutoring services, then you must find the right words to highlight the problem, amplify the need, and offer the solution in a way that parents can relate to.

5-    Listen, Read, Learn: Successful content writers are lifelong learners. You must have your pulse on the industries you serve. What are their needs? What are they looking for? What makes you unique?