Give your audience what they want

Speaking
Written By Liam Sandford
dog waiting for a treat

What do your audience or customers really want? This is the question speakers and businesses are constantly asking. It is not a clear-cut thing that you should be able to answer, but you can get close by gathering data from your target market.

Being data driven in answering this question is critical. Otherwise you are just putting a finger in the air and hoping for the best. You might get lucky in this scenario, but you also may have nobody take away your key message or buy your product as a result.

It’s not just what you give people, it’s also how you communicate it. Some people believe if what they offer is good enough people will gravitate towards it, but that is not the case. Your messaging is at least 50% of the work. Without the message you are back to hoping you are giving people what they want.

Defining what your audience (or customers) want

To start, consider these questions:

  • What specific problem are you solving for the target market?

  • What area of life does your target market experience the problem?

  • Does the problem cause specific pain points or friction in their lives that they deeply care about removing?

  • What solutions already exist? And how is yours 100 times better?

Answering these questions will take you a step in the right direction. Ultimately while you are defining your presentation or your product, you should test these ideas with people in focus groups or via social media to gather an understanding of the pain points your target customer has on the topic — this way you can address it for them in your content or product. It is the reason they attend or make a purchase.

The 2-year test

In the last two years, you have likely grown a lot in certain areas of life including learning a new skill, or achieved a new qualification. With the two year test you can speak to the person you used to be — that is your target market. By using the two year test you understand what people want, because you used to be that person. Write down the steps you took, the problems you encountered, and the solutions that worked for you.

Consider how you can break down barriers or save others time with that knowledge. These pieces are the golden nuggets your audience can use to put into action right away.

Building your pain points database

One way to save time gathering market data, without organizing focus groups, is to utilize social media search. X (formerly Twitter) is an excellent tool to gather data from your target market. All information you get from your searches can be put into a ‘pain point database’ so you can track what your target market wants. You can use this process:

  • Open a spreadsheet, create four tabs: pain points, questions, frustrations, and recommendations.

  • Search for your topic on X (or other social media) and scroll through the latest tab to see the most recent posts that include your topic word or phrase.

  • When you come across a pain point, question, frustration, or resource recommendation on the topic, copy and paste it into the relevant tab on your spreadsheet.

This is your market research. It helps you figure out what people want to know, problems they face, and popular resources that already exist in your topic area (if you don’t already know them). This should not be a one-time activity but something you continue to revisit.

The people sharing this information might be your target audience — it can also be a good opportunity to engage with them, build a relationship, and turn a potential follower into a customer.

Next to each item in your ‘pain point database’ have a tally of how many times you have come across that item. As a guide, categorize each item based on how many times you see it:

If you see it once, add it to your database, and consider if it might be something to address.

If you see it twice, create a social media post providing an actionable item on how people can resolve that pain point or frustration. Use that post to gather further data from your target audience to understand the pain point deeper.

If you see it three times, post about it on social media and provide something of more value (a product, e-book, webinar etc.)

The ‘pain point database’ is how you take burning wants and needs of your audience and use that information to help them.

Actionable takeaways

  • Define your target audience and what they want. This will help you to deliver and meet their expectations, either in a presentation or a product.

  • Use the 2-year test to come up with ideas. When you used to be your target audience it is easier to step into their shoes.

  • Build your pain points database. Use it to develop content and products.

More from me

Liam Sandford
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