Hey friend,
Ready to turn your blog into an audience magnet? The key lies in clearly understanding exactly WHO your ideal reader is.
Before you grumble, let me tell you that
you can forget about those generic persona worksheets. I always hated filling those things out. Fortunately, we now have the power of AI to uncover the insights that matter.
Before we get to the AI part, there's one thing I want to explain.
Insights from the corporate world for your blog
Working with one of my start-up clients, I became intimately familiar with a messaging architecture that gets right to the heart of what you need to know about your audience.
You don’t need to know about their hobbies — unless that’s what you help people with.
You don’t need to know about their
favorite sports teams — unless that’s what you deal with in your business.
You don’t need to know whether they like dogs versus cats versus lizards unless — you guessed it — that’s important to your clients and your business.
What you DO need to know about, though, are these four crucial elements:
- Use cases — Think of use cases as “jobs to be done.” They’re specific jobs or functions your clients want you to do to produce their desired outcomes. They’re your clients’ views of where or how they’ll use your product or service. For instance, “LinkedIn post creation” is a use case my audience needs me for.
- Pain points: What keeps your ideal reader up at night? What are their biggest business struggles related to your
niche? You’re probably familiar with “audience pains.” In the messaging world, pain points stop your audience from completing their use cases. For instance, “not knowing what to write about” is a pain point that stops my audience from creating LinkedIn posts.
- KPIs: “KPI” stands for key performance indicator. It’s a metric your audience tracks to measure the success of use cases. My audience might track followers and post engagement to measure the success of
their LinkedIn posts.
- Triggers: Triggers are specific events or situations that motivate your ideal client to take action and seek help NOW. “Top competitor is publishing” might be a trigger that finally causes my audience to contact me for help.
Now, with that background, let’s look at how you can use AI — in this case, Google Gemini — to help you with AI-powered audience
research.
Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is Google's generative AI platform. Like ChatGPT, it has a free and a paid version. Unlike ChatGPT, you must have a gmail.com or a Google Workspace account to use it. If you don't have a gmail.com account, it's easy enough to sign up for one. If you'd rather not, you can also do the same exercise using ChatGPT.
Think of Gemini as your brainstorming buddy. You’ll work with Gemini to ask AI-targeted questions about your audience. Here's how to get started.
1. Introduce yourself. Start with something like: I'm a blogger focusing on [your niche]. My ideal audience is typically [broad description, like female consultants].
2. Explore Gemini's data. Ask
focused questions like:
- What use cases does [ideal reader] want to accomplish with [your product or service]?
- What are common challenges [ideal reader] faces in [their field]?
- What pains keep [ideal reader] up at night regarding [product or service]?
- What content could I create to address the pain points of [ideal reader]?
- What triggers might cause [ideal reader] to hire someone like me now?
3. Explore nuances. Gemini's answers will spark new ideas. Ask follow-ups based on what intrigues you. Converse with Gemini. Treat the AI like your research and brainstorming assistant.
Doing these activities will give you real-world insights because AI taps into broader trends than your personal experience alone.
You’ll brainstorm more
efficiently and generate new content angles tailored to your audience quickly.
As you start to blog about your ideal client’s use cases, pain points, KPIs, and triggers, you’ll position yourself as an expert who understands your audience's mindset.
Give it a try! I think you’ll be surprised by the insights you uncover. But remember, AI is just a tool; combine its suggestions
with your expertise for maximum impact.
Let me know what you discover!
Write on,
Renae :)
