How to Define Your Audience and Reel Them In

How To Start a Money Making Blog (Series), Part 2

Whether your creating a product or selling a service online, the best, most effective way to connect with your audience is through email.

Why? Because you own it.

A social network can change algorithms, or delete your account at any time. You’re constantly having to “play the game” to get your offers seen by your target market.

There’s a smarter way to work.

With an opt-in email form, if done correctly, you will have the email addresses of people who have pre-qualified themselves.

They are people who, by giving their email, have told you, “I align with what you’re saying and I’m most likely going to want what you have.”

Your goal is to connect with the people who align with you, not with someone who doesn’t. You’re not appealing to the masses, you want to focus on help the person who resonates with what you are providing.

Qualified leads are way more profitable than quantity of leads. You don’t want to be chasing after everyone.

Even a small email list of 100 people can make a stellar profit if those hundred people are people who speak your language.

In this Part 2 of our How To Start a Profitable Blog series, we’re going to go over how to define your avatar and their unique transformation, create and implement your freebie they need, and set up your email list.

You can read Part 1: How to Start a Profitable Blog here.

Step 1: Define Your Avatar (Audience)

In order to know who you are targeting and how you are going to help them, you need to first define, “them.”

An avatar is a person you have in your head of who you are writing to. You are helping to solve this person’s problems and bring them from where they are, to where they want to be.

You want to start mapping out their transformation at this stage. It will bring clarity to how you are going to be able to help them, and what steps you need them to learn first.

Write out their problems, their feelings, their successes and failures. Who they will be when you’re done with them and how they will feel at that point.

This person can be based on someone you know (or combination of people), it can be based on where you were at the beginning of your journey, or it can be completely fictional.

You can also have more than one but make sure they have a common problem you’re helping with.

Over time your avatar will change as you begin to get to know it better. As in, as you learn more about who your target audience is. This will come through emails, messages and comments you receive on your content.

Here are some questions to complete:

• Name
• Age
• Family status
• Kids
• Pets
• Gender
• Do for work
• Leisure activities
• Travel
• Books/music/shows
• Biggest struggle
• Other struggles
• Personality quirks
• Goals/dreams/desires
• Financial health
• Physical health
• motional health

You can add more questions based on your topic.

For example, if your topic is cooking you can say what level your avatar is at, how much they cook versus eat out, what meals they like, what foods, health issues to be mindful of, etc.

As you begin to shape your avatar, you are further tapping into what problems they have and how you can solve them. This is going to shape your content. Write it all down.

Your Avatar Story

Let’s take our home cook. Well, it turns out they aren’t actually cook. They’re recently married, female, 28 and never cooked a meal from scratch.

Jane excels in takeout and boxed or canned meals but loves dreaming while watching the Food Network. Her favourite show is Masterchef. All those creative minds making something from nothing!

Jane really wants to learn how to cook but has no one to teach her. Her Nonna was a great cook and she remembers helping in the kitchen when she was little but her Nonna passed away many years ago.

Her mother worked three jobs to make ends meet after her dad died in an accident so they grew up on KD and microwave dinners.

Jane and her partner have health issues and one day want to start a family. Money is tight but a good doctor encouraged Jane to change her diet to help resolve some issues.

Jane’s ultimate desire is to be able to cook healthy meals, from scratch, every night.

As you can see by this brief overview, it’s like walking through someone’s life and poking around corners and asking to learn more.

For Jane, she’s a beginner but remembers the warmth of her Nonna’s kitchen. She’s got the love and desire. She loves the creativity and skill that comes with working in a kitchen and exploring different cuisines.

You can target things like beginner knife skills, what basic kitchen supplies to have, how to stock a whole foods pantry, beginner cook meal ideas, exploring spices, etc. Taking Jane through the skills she needs in order to make homemade meals from scratch, every night.

Maybe Jane has a specific diet she needs to follow or no health issues and just wants to learn how to make food like her Nonna.

You decide what your target audience is. Once you do, you’ll begin to attract people who resonate with Jane because they feel they are Jane.

Step 2: Create Your Freebie

Now that you know more about your avatar and the transformation or journey you’re going to take them on, you can plan your freebie.

A freebie or opt-in lead magnet is something your avatar is going to find very useful. You’re going to give it to them in exchange for them giving you their email address.

It should generally be a short, easy-to-make item for your target topic (niche).

It should take you about 15 minutes to make (minus any tech learning). Anything longer than that is a product. Save those ideas for your tripwire down the road.

Your freebie should help your reader with an immediate problem. This provides great value to your reader and make you their go-to person to learn more (your goal!).

Go back to what you’ve brainstormed.
What would be a quick, easy resource for your avatar to start with?

You’ve thought of their pain points, now think of what tool might make it easier.

Is it a quick video demonstrating something? A printable checklist or worksheet? Make it something quick and easy to digest and gain a little (or a lot) of movement towards their goal.

I like to use Word, PowerPoint or Canva to make my freebies.

Some ideas are checklists, 5 steps or less processes, quotes, easy DIY, or roadmap.

Let’s go back to Jane. She’s a beginner starting from scratch. She has a pantry and fridge full of pre-made meals.

Perhaps something like a pantry staples for healthy eating checklist.

Or 5 easy, cost-effective healthy meals with 5 ingredients or less that will be a good place to get her feet wet in cooking.

Start with one opt-in. You can have more eventually but start with one. Learn from it, tweak it, and try again.

Save your freebie as a PDF or whatever format you choose. Ensure that it has your website and logo on it. Also include copyright.

Step 3: Setup Your Email List

Ok, so you’ve defined who you’re writing to, what the transformation you’re taking them through, and you’ve developed a tool to help them with their first step.

Next is delivering that tool to them!
If you haven’t set up your email marketing tool yet, now is the time.

I recommend Mailerlite (free under 1000 people) or Convertkit.

Both have similar capabilities. If you go for Mailerlite then you’ll eventually want to upgrade and switch over to Convertkit.

It’s up to you if you start with them now so you don’t have to worry about porting over your information.

The Lingo

Opt-in/Freebie/Lead magnet/Incentive – the resource you’re offering for free in exchange for their email address

Landing page – a single webpage where the only thing viewable and clickable is what you want them to see or click. They cannot see or click on any other pages of your blog.

Automation
Sequence

Let’s get to setting up your first opt-in!

Step 4: Setup Your Freebie

Ultimately, you will write posts where your freebie will fit nicely into.

But you can start with setting up an easy landing page for it while you work on your blog content.

Whether it be posts or a landing page, this is the where you will drive your traffic. You want to get the most eyes on your opt-in form (at least 1000 before you tweak anything), and use your freebie as an additional attraction to giving you their email.

Remember, your goal is not to attract everyone, but to attract your avatar.

Your whole blog can work for your freebie too. For example, If you are speaking on organizing and do a printable on quick organizing tips, you could have that offered anywhere on your site. And, therefore, more options to drive traffic to.

This is why it’s so useful to really figure out what your message is and niche down, rather than speaking on too many topics at once.

Freebie Tech

Now, here’s the general tech you won’t find most people sharing.

First you will create your opt-in form or landing page through your email marketing provider (Mailerlite or Convertkit).

Upload your freebie into Dropbox. You can create a free account easily. They also have a free app which is very useful if you’re creating content on the go (or during nap times!).

Create and copy the link for it by clicking on the details and “create link to share.”

You now have 2 options:

1. Add an immediate download when someone signs up for your email list.
2. Add the download link to the first email of your welcome sequence.

For Option 1, go into your opt-in form and select the incentive/direct to link section. Add in your Dropbox link.

The last character will be a 0. Change this to a 1. This will make the document immediately download once they click the link.

If your freebie is a video, get the video link (make sure the privacy settings on the video are view through shareable link only), and add that to the box.

Option 2 is what I recommend.

Through this route you have your reader confirmed on your email list and they’ll be reading an email directly from you which gives you another opportunity to connect and build that relationship.

You will simple add a link in your first email to your new subscriber, that they can click for an immediate download or viewing.

We’ll cover how to do that, and what to put in your Welcome Sequence in Part 3: Setting Up Your Welcome Sequence and Social Media (Driving Traffic) series.

Now you have your audience, a lead magnet set up to pre-qualify them and now it’s time to start writing!