Business Blog Strategy 101: Writing for the Five Customer Types

Are you a small business owner or entrepreneur looking for some digital marketing strategy help to grow your audience? You’ve come to the right place.

There’s a super simple content strategy that you can start incorporating into your marketing plans right now that will help you grow your business. It’s so easy that it’s often overlooked, yet it’s one of the most powerful things you can do when marketing your small business.

Ready to discover the secret and start getting more customers? Let’s go…!

Imagine a stadium full of everyone you’ve ever met.

Absolutely everyone. Anyone you ever said hello to… anyone you’ve ever nodded to in the hall… anyone who sat next to you at work or in a coffee shop or… at the desk next to you in 5th grade. Every. Single. Person.

It’s a lot of people, right?!

Now, what if you had the opportunity to tell all of these people about your business. There are bound to be some customers in that huge stadium. It’s so many people! But there are also going to be people who would never be customers. So… how do you talk to a huge, diverse stadium to find your people?

If you just randomly stood up in your front row seat and tried to tell everyone about your business, it would be super hard to make everyone listen, right? You could yell and scream all you want, but you’d never get your whole section — let alone the entire stadium — to hear your message.

That’s what blogging without a Target Audience is like: shouting into a crowded stadium. You waste a lot of time and energy, and your message gets lost in a sea of noise.

What if you had a microphone (or, if public speaking isn’t your thing, had someone to read a script for you)? Would you just start telling the whole stadium everything about your business? Would you walk around the stadium, talking to each person individually? (Yikes!)

The truth is you’d probably end up somewhere in the middle: dividing the stadium into smaller groups. This is also the most effective way to blog; divide your whole audience up and target just who you want to talk to for each individual post.

Tip 1: “Blogging for a Target Audience” simply means talking to one group of customers, one blog post at a time.

When you divide your stadium o’ potential customers into smaller groups, you can tailor your message to each group.

Existing customers? Put them up in the special box seats, with perks and refreshments. You can chat about things like creative ways to use your products or new features. You already know them, and they already know your brand. So you have a shorthand you can use with these previous buyers that might not mean anything to someone else.

People who will probably never be interested in your stuff?  Put ’em to the side (waaaay over there, in the back)! We’ll just let them go about their lives and not use your valuable time or resources on them. (After, of course, you ping them with a couple of your high level, self-sifting Customer Readiness Questions to make sure there’s really no way they’re customers!)

And potential new customers who are excited about your stuff? They go front and center, so they can see the show. It’s all new to them, so you can give them the whole song-n-dance routine, hitting them with everything your brand has to offer. If they’re going to be customers, they’ll be happily listening to every word from the front row.

Tip 2: When you try to please EVERYONE, you end up pleasing NO one.

Unicorns can be ARE real!

And, maybe, just maybe, you’re one of the lucky entrepreneurs who have a mentor or cheerleader. You know, someone who has your back, no matter what. Maybe they give you some sage business advice or they “get up on stage” with you to help spread your marketing messaging. Basically, a unicorn is anyone who cares enough to help you promote or grow your business in some way. 

If you’re lucky enough to have a rare, beautiful unicorn in your crowd — well, that unicorn stays CLOSE. Right smack dab next to you so you can let that important person know everything you’re doing! You want to make sure they’re happy and know they’re appreciated.

Now that you have your smaller, more manageable stadium groups, would you start telling each group the same info, delivered the same way? Are there things you’d say to one group and not another…? Are there groups you’d skip addressing altogether?

Using a firehose approach of spraying information far and wide and hoping everyone gets wet is a recipe for failure. You could never reach a whole stadium with a single hose. And you can’t reach every potential customer with a single blog post. The many people in the stadium who want to get wet (to know about you and your biz) will be left high and dry. Even though close enough to your hose probably won’t get enough water (information about your business) to get truly wet (and become your next Great Favorite Customer).  And you don’t want your unicorn to die of thirst. You want that mentor or influencer to get special attention, a unique message.

Telling everything to everyone, all at once, is not only difficult for you but ineffective at connecting to your intended audience.

Picking just one type or group of customers to chat with per post will yield the most positive interactions, leading to more new customers. When you break down your audience (all your customers) and start talking to them individually, you get to talk about the things each group is interested in. (See groups below for ideas.)

Tip 3: Breaking your audience down into smaller groups makes it easier to write posts because there’s a single focus.

So the best business blog strategy? Write for just one customer or reader at a time. Then you know you’ll not only reach them, but you can talk to them about what interests them. Writing for one target will focus your writing, narrow your messaging, and ensure you hit your target. 

Blog for These Five Groups

When we were doing research and development for Bloggin’ Ninja, we scraped billions of data points from websites and blogs from around the world to discover what’s the best business strategy for your blog. Using Natural Language Processing in AI, we identified the most popular words, sentiments, and audiences for business blogs…. 

Basically, we did a lot of super nerdy stuff to make a complex process super easy. 

So we’ve created Five Target Audiences that any entrepreneur can use to blog for their business. No matter if your company focuses on products, services, or information, using one of these five groups will help you focus your writing and grow your blog audience — and, therefore, your business. 

WHO ARE INFO SEEKERS?

Info Seekers are people who may not even know they’re looking for your brand.
They’re just looking to solve a problem or question they have, so they search online for their problem.

They may not be there to buy — yet!

But if you can help them find the info they’re looking for — if you can make their lives better by solving their problem — a seed will be planted, and your brand will be remembered.

HOW TO REACH INFO SEEKERS

Do your customers have one question they ask you more than any other? This could be something Info Seekers are searching online. Answer this/these in a FAQ blog post:

What’s a hole many customers have in their lives BEFORE they find you? What’s missing? What do new customers complain about? What are your Customer Pains in your Value Proposition?

Talk about how your brand, business, product, or service can fill those holes or fix those problems in a Helpful Ideas blog post.

Targeting one group with each post makes you more likely to hit your target audience.

WHO ARE SUPERFANS?

SuperFans are customers who love your stuff SO much, they MUST HAVE anything and everything you offer.

They’re super important, not only because they regularly buy from you but also because they help you get the word out about your brand.

Fostering this Social Proof — where Superfans go out and evangelize your stuff to their friends, family, or followers — is one of the most valuable marketing ideas for a small business… but it can be challenging to cultivate.

HOW TO REACH SUPERFANS

While the number of your Superfans will be way smaller than other Customer Types, the value of Superfans for a small business can be greater than all other groups combined.

You literally can’t pay for the value authentic Social Proof provides — that’s why it’s the most difficult to cultivate. It’s worth reaching out to this valuable group with topics specialized for them, like:

WHO ARE INFLUENCERS?

We hear this term thrown around a lot, but what exactly is an “Influencer?”

An Influencer is an online authority who has followers that believe and listen to their opinions, interests, and preferences.

They can be other entrepreneurs, bloggers, social media personalities, celebrities, experts, marketers, thought leaders, and tastemakers.

Why is it crucial to address Influencers? They can help you grow your audience quickly. And when they do, you want to do everything you can to ensure what they say about your business matches your brand message.

HOW TO REACH INFLUENCERS

First – make sure you target an appropriate influencer: your brands are aligned, and you’re around the same size. (If you have 50 followers and they have 500k, they probably won’t “partner up” with you.)

When you give an influencer (or their brand, business, product/service) a shoutout on your socials or a positive mention in a blog post and link to them, they become aware of your brand. If you’ve targeted the right influencer and they like what they see, they’re likely to link back, and, hopefully, they’ll mention you to their followers.

Just make sure you don’t “use” them for a one-and-done transaction. Continue to trade mentions for as long as it’s working for you both, building each other’s brands. This will foster long, authentic, and prosperous relationships for you both.

WHY YOU NEED TO TARGET EXISTING CUSTOMERS

The hard work is done; you’ve already helped your wonderful customers discover your brand.

They’ve seen who you are, what you’re about, and they’ve decided to invest in you. Yay! You’ve made the sale.

Now, don’t throw all that hard work away! Keep your brand top of mind by talking to these lovely people regularly. Then they’ll remember why they decided to invest in you in the first place (and remember to buy from you again).
Don’t abandon them, and they won’t abandon you.

HOW YOU CAN REACH THEM

Remember at the beginning of this article, when you had all of your customers — absolutely everyone who’s EVER bought from you — in that stadium event? Well, think about all of them again, taking the time out of their busy lives to attend, spending money to get there, and eagerly waiting to hear what’s going on with your brand. Woohoo!

But then — you don’t bother to show up.

Wait, what?! You’d never do that!

Yet, that’s precisely what you’re doing if you don’t talk to existing customers. They’ve invested time & money in your brand, telling you they believe in you, giving you permission to talk to them again. You need to show up for them, respect them, and share with them – often. Some ideas:

WHY TARGET JUST NEW CUSTOMERS?

This is usually the first (and often ONLY) category of customers entrepreneurs and new business owners think to target when writing posts for their brand’s socials, website, or blog.

And, yes, we’ve spent all this time going over all of these categories of customers. And you 100% should cycle through all five categories to attract all potential customers. But…! It’s essential to create a wide variety of posts specifically for New Customers. They have different needs from the other four groups.

But there’s so much content out there for customers to wade through. How do you get seen? What can you create that will attract them? What gets potential New Customers to stop scrolling, start interacting, and, ultimately, start buying?!?

HOW TO REACH NEW CUSTOMERS?

While it may be super obvious that you should write posts to attract New Customers, it’s not always obvious what to write. Especially as weeks of coming up with ideas turns into years of posting content to promote your brand and business.

One little blog post can give a small business 50 different ways to interact with all five customer types. (And that’s a LOT of power for one blog post!)

That’s why we scrapped billions of data points off the best performing business blogs on the web: to find the most popular blog post ideas that engage customers.

Bloggin’ Ninja’s Idea Generator with 68+ billion possible titles!

Our Idea Generator serves up billions of engaging Titles, customized for your business profile. Simply choose Who you’d like to write for, hit a button, and you’re presented with all the ideas best suited for that Target Audience.

Bloggin’ Ninja also helps you write your posts, step by step. Just follow the Writing Roadmap, and it will take you through keywording, outlining, and writing, to help you write authentic, optimized content for your business. Easy!

When you fill your Content Calendar and plan what to post, try choosing just one of these Target Customers at a time. Write for one in one blog or social post, then cycle through each Target Audience, watching your overall Goals. (And, just so you know… this blog post is the basis for only one of the Goals our software helps you track. With Bloggin’ Ninja’s Goal Trackers, you’re able to track ALL of your marketing goals at a glance!)

Even if you don’t “officially” track your goals, just remember to talk to one customer or reader group at a time to make your business blog more effective. It’s okay if you don’t cycle through each target audience in order, one at a time, in the same exact order. Just do a review every so often (like once a quarter) to make sure you’re not ignoring anyone. (Because no one likes to be left out!)

Speaking of not being left out…

Want to get in on our 68+ billion possible titles? You can — for free!

Grab your free account now to see how easy it is to click-n-pick titles, organize and fill in the blanks to write amazing content. 

In no time, you’ll be creating all kinds of content, for all five types of customers.

Oh yeah — for your unicorns too. 😉