How to use audience research to generate content ideas
With a huge amount of content out there, writing another blog can sometimes feel like sending words into the abyss. That’s why it’s important to do your research: so you know that your content will land.
When you’ve been creating content for a long time, it’s easy to believe you know your customers like the back of your hand. However, we often see business owners make this assumption, to later find out that they’ve become detached or simply run out of new ideas.
Your customer base is constantly evolving, meaning their values, preferences, struggles and expectations are always changing too. It’s important to make sure that you’re touching base with them regularly, or you risk wasting time on content that no longer resonates.
We’ve worked with dozens of clients like UKBF and Enterprise Nation to help them better understand their audience and develop an effective content strategy.
Here’s how to plan, prepare and conduct audience discovery calls to source content ideas.
Want to learn more about generating content ideas? Read our article on using data and search queries to generate new content ideas.
Generating content ideas with audience discovery calls
Want to find out what content will resonate with your audience? It’s simple – just ask them directly.
An audience discovery call is an exploratory conversation with someone who matches the profile of your target customer. These calls are really effective to help you sense-check everything you think you know about your customers, so you don’t end up creating content based on wrong or outdated assumptions.
At Inkwell, we always aim to start content projects with audience discovery calls and research. This research can take time, but it helps to create a solid foundation for the entire content marketing strategy.
Who should you speak to in discovery calls?
The first step in conducting audience discovery calls is identifying who you want to speak to.
Your first port of call should be existing customers, but we also recommend finding “lookalikes” – people who fit your persona but aren’t currently customers.
You can often find them by putting a request out on LinkedIn, reaching out to your network or approaching them directly. Offer a voucher or a crate of beer and most people will be happy to talk.
The main rationale behind using lookalikes is that it broadens your pool of knowledge. You can speak to more people and get a greater understanding of what your target customer wants from your content.
It also has the added benefit of making your interviews less biased – if you have a good relationship with a customer, there’s always the risk that they’re going to try and tell you what you want to hear.
Conducting your discovery calls
To prepare for your discovery calls, always write a brief beforehand. You want your research to be consistent, which means you need to ask the same questions, in the same way, to each person – think of it like a job interview.
Having a brief also means you can divide the calls up amongst your team or outsource to a freelancer, and people will know exactly what they need to do.
In the brief, outline the questions you want to ask. We recommend thinking about these three areas.
1. The challenges they’re facing in their role and how those are likely to change
Talking about your target customers’ challenges is a natural way to source content ideas. If they’re struggling with something, it’s likely they’re going to search out help or do some research online – both of which can lead them to your content.
When you’re asking about challenges, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
First, avoid using leading questions. Start your questions with “how” or “what” to prevent you swaying their answers in a particular direction.
Questions that start with “Do you think…” or “Have you experienced…” are generally designed to lead people towards a certain answer. Force yourself to start with “How” or “What”. For example, a HR firm might ask:
What challenges have you faced in the last year with hiring?
How do you scope out new roles in your business?
What areas are you working on improving?
Second, dig into those challenges, because that’s where you’re going to find niche content ideas that you could rank highly on Google for.
When we completed some discovery calls for a training company, we learnt that the biggest underlying challenge wasn’t running the training – it was getting it to stick. The fact that staff went back into their old ways in a matter of weeks was the main blocker for managers investing in training.
By digging past the surface challenges – cost, time, value – you can get to the heart of what your customers really want help with.
Third, pay attention to how your persona describes their challenges. Recording the call and using a transcription service like Otter will help you understand the language your audience uses and better frame your tone of voice.
2. Trends or major changes in their sector
The next area to include in your discovery calls is around broader changes in the industry.
While the first section tends to focus on day-to-day challenges that directly affect your customers’ role, this section looks at things like trends, new regulations or changes to best practice.
This allows you to scope out any major milestones that will affect your customers in the future. As a result, you can help to future proof your content strategy, because you’ll have a good idea of what they’ll be searching for in three or six months’ time.
You might ask:
What major industry trends do you think are here to stay?
How will they affect how your role or business works?
What do you foresee as the biggest challenges in your industry in the next few years?
3. How they access advice and learn
Finally, the last section is around how your target audience accesses advice and learns. This is an important section to include, but something most people forget.
While talking about challenges will give you content ideas, this set of questions will provide insight into:
How your content should be packaged
How your audience finds content
If everyone in your discovery calls explains that they’re time-poor and only have time to read things on their lunch break, there’s no point in releasing a 5,000-word guide. You want to make your content easily digestible.
Equally, let’s say podcasts are popular. That doesn’t mean everything you produce has to be in podcast format, but you might consider releasing short audio clips that summarise popular articles on your site.
The information you gather here will eventually feed into your content schedule, when you decide how to format, present and share your content in a way that’s most engaging for your audience.
Want to perfect your content strategy?
Whether you’re looking to improve your existing content or create new content that addresses your customers’ challenges, the team at Inkwell can help.
To learn more about what we do, visit our content strategy service page or book a call now.
