When it comes to building a profitable online business, you need to know what your audience wants.
Without an audience you can’t build a business at all and in order to build a successful one, you need to know how you can help them achieve their goals.
There are multiple ways of doing that and I am sure that you’ve heard or even used a couple.
But what is the best and most creative way of finding what your audience really wants?
The answer is to ask them the right questions at the right time and that means when they are most engaged with your content.
And below you can find 3 creative ways of asking them the right question at the right time.
1. Ask your audience how you can help them?
One of the best ways to get to know your audience is to ask them how you can help them and what is stopping them achieving whichever you are teaching.
They will tell you their most burning issues and this will be gold for you.
It will give you article and even product ideas and best of all, it will help you build a better connection with your audience.
But here’s how I use this strategy to find out more about my audience. When someone subscribes for my newsletter I ask them this:
…just reply to this email and tell me how I can help you, even if it’s something really small.
Hit reply and tell me what is stopping you from creating a profitable online business right now.
And my subscribers (that means you!) reply and tell me more about what stops them from creating a profitable online business and that is gold for me.
If I can help them with advice I do that straight away or send them to a resource that will help them (you) move forward.
In case you are not using this powerful strategy, do this now. Take 5 minutes and edit the thank you email that your subscribers receive.
You will see immediate results from it.
2. Ask your audience what they would like to read on your blog?
If you’ve been around on the blog recently, you might have seen a small widget that asks this:
What topics would you like to see me write next?
And that gets a lot of replies.
Even if not all of them are genuine (some people asked me to write about the Galapagos Islands or cheese and milk) the majority of replies had some really good feedback and it gave me some good article ideas.
In order to use the same strategy, you will need a tool called LeadConverter, which is really simple to setup.
It will take you less than 5 minutes to have a similar widget to your blog or website that will add tremendous value for you.
And this is not the only way you can use LeadConverter to get more insights from your visitors.
For my list building WordPress plugin, Elevatr I am using LeadConverter to get ideas about what features would potential customers want to see added to Elevatr.
As for those that have purchased Elevatr, I am asking what made them purchase Elevatr.
This helps me get more insights about the triggers that made them purchase my plugin and why is Elevatr valuable for them.
3. Ask your audience what is stopping them from purchasing your product?
Another creative way to get more insights from my audience for Elevatr is to use LeadConverter and ask my audience if there is anything that stops them from buying Elevatr.
The best place for me to ask this is in the purchase page.
One of the best insights from using this was this:
I don’t see some samples that could help me determine the product before I buy. A few live samples or even specs would do.
And I immediately added a showcase page on my website featuring designs from existing customers.
Plus, I got some other useful feedback that helped me improve my site and my product.
So go ahead, grab a free LeadConverter account and test these to see how it works for you.
But don’t stop here! Find some other messages that you can use to find out what your audience truly wants.
Why is not knowing your audience a conversion mistake?
Because, if you don’t know who you write for and what keeps them awake at night, you will never be able to convert those users into subscribers or paying customers.
And this is what most people fail to implement: getting to know their audience and always keeping their needs in mind while they write an article/landing page or sales page for them.
Take action! Block some time in your calendar and implement my advice above to get to know your audience better.
Eugen Oprea
P.S.
If you got to this page from a friend, Google or social media, go and signup for the whole free email series.
This is the first lesson of the 7 biggest conversion mistakes that people make (and how to avoid them, so you can get more subscribers and sales).