Establish Authority: FAQ

Read the previous FAQ entry first, then come back here if you still have this question. This answer is primarily for bloggers with established authority in more than one area already – in other words, they have paying customers in more than one target market. If your separate target markets have very different challenges and goals, you can do a separate Perspective Map for each right now, and then after this module, you may get some clarity between these groups. At some point, you’ll need put on that CEO hat and choose a direction as your primary target market. But follow through with the research and see what themes surface from each Perspective Map.

Here’s a little forward thinking if you decide to fill out multiple Perspective Maps: Remember, this is for research purposes. This is a tool you will continue to build on throughout the rest of the program. Consider whether you want to continue researching both tracks for the purposes of this program, or if you want to focus on one target market for the duration of the program.

More details: For example, should I choose stay-at-home moms instead of pregnant women because you’re only pregnant for a limited amount of time?

It’s more what you have the longevity to write about and create products for. Pregnant people have babies and then have friends and coworkers and sisters who also have babies. The need is never ending. Word of mouth can be powerful. Or as another example, the wedding industry is billions per year – and top-to-bottom, a wedding takes only about a year (or less) until it’s planned and finished.

Also, look at what your readers are telling you. What are they already responding well to?

No because “niching down” is about your topic. Blog Smarter starts with the people.

The Blog Smarter framework doesn’t tell anyone to pick one topic over another (that’s your choice!). But if you’re truly wanting to grow your business, ask yourself: Which of your target market options presents the biggest business opportunity? In other words, are there lots of products you could recommend, products you could create or offer, and so on in that area?

Not necessarily. Try to go deeper than “my target market wants me to do xyz” and find out why she wants that. When you read between the lines, you’ll start to uncover common desires for your target market.

More details: I feel like I know my audience pretty well already. Is this just an initial assessment that we’re going to continue to refine, or do we need to spend hours trying to dig deep through data?

Even though you’ve done a similar exercise before, try to push it a bit further. For example, you know what you think you know about your audience – but what does your data tell you? What is the underlying thing that’s important to your target market?

No need to spend a ton of time on digging through your data if you truly do have your finger firmly on the pulse of your target market already. But even if you already know exactly what your target market wants and needs so that you can deliver the perfect content and products to them, I still recommend you go through and collect quotes to use. Not just your words, but your actual readers’ words. Their words are a goldmine when it comes time to sit down and write marketing/sales copy for your products. And it’s something you can’t replicate. Copy and paste those little bits of language into your Treasure Trove so you can refer back to them. They’ll be great raw material for developing messaging later in this program.

Try not to worry about what to blog about yet. This is who you’re blogging for. For now, keep it people-focused and keep researching that ideal reader!

The insights you’re getting into your market at this stage will lay the foundation for everything you do from now on: the posts you’ll write, the social media posts you create, and especially the products you develop. This is a muscle – always be listening – and the more you use it, the more naturally it will come. And then in the “Uncover Your Zone of Authority” lesson, we’ll talk about which topics you should tackle.

More details: I’m so excited about what I’m learning! I’m getting a lot of ideas for products and blog posts and dreaming big for the future! When do I start working on that? I know my reader and I’m ready to move on.

Wait. Trust the process. Take this a lesson at a time without moving on in your head to the next thing. Master this part of the program before you attempt to move to the next step so you’ll build a good foundation for your business in the long-term. Concentrate on this target market person and hone in on her. Hit the “pause” button on everything else for now and just concentrate on figuring out what your target market needs and wants. Especially if you already have your own products.

Don’t ask them what they need because they won’t be able to tell you. Also, you might accidentally ask a leading question (which wouldn’t give you real data – it would be biased because of the question). I recommend listening to, researching, and analyzing your existing data. Or in a real conversation with a reader, just listen. Ask just a few questions about their experience, why those things are important, what hasn’t worked for them in the past, and so on. Then you’ll also be able to derive their need from what they don’t say. Let the conversation flow naturally and see what you can learn. And then in the “Ask the Golden Question” lesson, you’ll learn about one powerful technique for reaching out to your existing readers.

Yes. A great problem statement will be a single powerful sentence you’ll be able to remember and use as a mantra to guide you in making the best decisions for your business.

There’s no need to get creative here: you’ll have the best long-term results if you use this exact structure for your problem statement. Your #1 goal is clarity, not creativity.

Aside from the template pieces, don’t be afraid to cut extra words, get down to the nitty gritty, and keep it simple. Focus in on your target market person. Is your Problem Statement something she herself would say? You don’t want it to sound like a research paper but like you’re chatting with her while sitting on the sofa.

For example: Would your target market say she’s looking for “simple budget decor?” Sure, that’s specific but probably not what she’d say. Look for her actual words and reflect those in the Problem Statement if possible.

In general, you’ll wait to pan to a different target market until you’ve hit a plateau. In other words, no matter what you do, you can’t grow anymore. But a strong brand must come first.

If you’re a well established blogger and already have a strong following from several different segments of people, that’s great! Now think of each product/service/book you already offer and how it relates to a specific target market. It’s time to take an honest look at the types of content already on your site and which ones are outperforming the
other ones. You may be narrowing things down to 2-3 target markets now, or all the way down to a single one. The more you can narrow down your target market(s), the easier it will be to develop strong brand messaging to attract more super fans.

Numbers can help when you’re trying to understand what’s happening, but remember that they’re not the whole story. Part of the Blog Smarter process is identifying that target market and using your website to call out directly to her, so that when she does arrive at your site, she feels instantly that she’s in the right place. We’ve had Blog Smarter alumni with a tiny following who have increased their conversion rates (% of visitors who subscribe) by anywhere from 10X to 32X before the program is even over!

And if nothing has worked for you in the past, then that gives you an amazing opportunity. Because you get to decide who to focus your energy on. And when you focus on that market during this program, you’ll get the tools you need to connect with – and convert – her to join your community of super fans.

The real fear lurking behind this question is…if I make my focus too narrow, then won’t everyone else just leave? What about all those other people? But narrowing your focus doesn’t turn people away – in fact, strongly calling out to a specific target market helps people understand whether you’re worth following. The stronger your focus, the stronger you stand out as a leader – and then people can decide for themselves whether they want to follow you and whether you can help them with their needs/desires. (And with the messaging you’ll develop in later modules, when your Target Market arrives on your site, she’ll see herself there instantly.)

For example, Trina Holden, who you see in the Google Analytics video from this module, has built her brand around “smarter systems in the kitchen.” And some of her top posts (traffic wise) are related very loosely to that. They’re on “oil pulling.” But she gets emails all the time from new readers who say, “I came because of the oil pulling post, but I stayed to learn about smarter systems for my kitchen.”

But remember: At this point, we’re focusing on the people, not necessarily the topic. Throw out any outlier topics that don’t get you any traction (or that clearly don’t fit with the desires of your target market). If you focus on the people first (“people-first blogging!”) you’ll find that you have a lot of freedom within your topics. But we’ll get to that later in the program.

Not necessarily. You do have to build a business around serving the needs/desires of a target market because that’s who will read everything you write, tell others about you, and buy everything you make. But that type of content can still play a role in building relationships with your superfans. Hang tight, and you’ll get some techniques for handling those “family posts and updates” in a later module.

Your target market person sits down at her computer and searches/browses for a reason. As long as you see yourself as “just a producer of content” or “inspirational” you’re competing with any other source of content. Like Pinterest, for example. And they have a WAY bigger marketing budget than you. 😉

You may have trouble seeing yourself as an authority, but that’s part of going through the Blog Smarter process. By the end of this program, you (like another Blog Smarter grad) might be saying, “I’m not just a ‘food blogger’ – I’m a kitchen mastermind, helping people solve real problems in their kitchens and providing solutions, not just recipes!”

If you focus on listening to your market and solving their problems or helping them achieve their desires (whatever they may be), you’ll build your authority.

The emotional connection is something internal that happens within your reader herself. Starting in the next module until the end of the very last lesson in the program, you’ll discover all the different ways to build that emotional connection with your target market – and most of them go beyond the style you use to write your blog posts! For now, just work on your target market, and the rest will come as you go through this program.

But with that said when it comes to writing and struggling to feel inspired, this is the quote that always gets me back on track:

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” – William Faulkner or W. Somerset Maugham or Raymond Chandler (or maybe all of the above – nobody really knows!)

We’ll treat these as their own category because they’re relevant only at certain points during the year. We’ll talk about what to do with this content in module 5.

More details: My list was attacked by spambots a while back, so I have a bunch of invalid subscribers. Also, I once participated in a giveaway promotion and got a bunch of other bloggers signing up for my list instead of my actual target market. Should I do anything about fixing that before I send my Golden Question?

If you suspect your list has a large proportion of invalid subscribers, ideally you should address that before sending out your Golden Question – or any other emails. Here’s why: Every time you email your list, you risk those invalid subscribers marking your message as spam and damaging your sender reputation, and that can be hard to recover from.

If you find yourself in this situation, you can contact your email marketing tool provider to ask for help tracking down invalid subscribers. If cleaning your list is not possible, consider sending the Golden Question only to your engaged subscribers, such as those who have clicked a link in an email in the last 6 months or so.

More details: I’ve experimented with asking a question in my welcome message before (to be sure, not the best question), and so far I’ve received zero responses.

It depends on how you ask the Golden Question – if it’s in its own email, it’ll get a bigger response than if you tack it onto something else. But even so, your response rate will ​typically​ be less than 5 percent.

Think about it like this: Suppose you have 100 subscribers, and the email gets a 20% open rate so 20 people open it. Then those people have to read the whole message, so let’s imagine we lose a few who get distracted while reading, and now we’re down to 12 people. Then they have to think of an answer (now we’re at 9), decide they’re going to reply (now we’re at 7), and actually follow through with typing out their answer and hitting send (now we’re at 4). That’s a lot of steps for someone to go through!

Also, if you’ve never asked your list to reply to your emails before, you’re opening up a new channel of communication with your readers. They may need some time to get used to the idea of replying to you and sharing what’s going on in their life. As you continue to ask the Golden Question and then reply to any messages you get back, you’ll be deepening relationships with your super fans.

Remember from the lesson: The goal isn’t to get a ton of responses but instead to get a few high-quality responses from your engaged subscribers. Quality not quantity.

With that said, if you feel like you should have gotten more responses, here are a few areas to look into:

• Open rate – Was the open rate on the email lower than your typical open rate? Consider resending the message to non-opens with a different subject line.
• Call to Action – Was the Call to Action where you asked the reader to reply as clear as possible? Check out the sample email in the lesson for ideas.
• Email copy – Was the email copy clear and direct about this one topic, and did it get to the point as quickly as possible?

Be careful of asking a leading question – this question assumes that successfully balancing work and family life is the most important struggle for your target market right now. If their struggles lie elsewhere, you need to know that, but this question wouldn’t reveal that. Instead, your Golden Question should help you listen to THEIR needs by asking something more open like “What is your biggest struggle with…” and allow your reader to talk about ​whatever she wants to talk about with that topic. If you try it and it ends up being too broad, remember that you can always go back and tweak it later.

If you can add the responses to your Treasure Trove, that will give you one place that serves as a clearinghouse for all your target market research. ​If that’s too much, prioritize the hyper-responsive super fans who had long responses​​ and/or customers who have purchased products from you.

Another option is to create a special section of your Treasure Trove just for these responses so you can analyze them better. Here are a couple examples of spreadsheets former Blog Smarter students used. No need to do something this involved if something simpler works for you. But if you love pretty spreadsheets with color coding, then go for it!

If you asking a question about their challenges because you want to help them is what caused them to unsubscribe, they weren’t your super fans anyway. They may as well leave now so you can focus on connecting with the people whose wants and needs align with what you have to offer.

The risk is that a narrow Golden Question will not narrow the answers but instead will hinder your readers from answering fully. You want to give them more space to talk about whatever they’re truly struggling with. Remember that if you get an answer and feel there’s more to the story, you can always follow up with more questions or get on a Skype call or Facebook Messenger chat and dig deeper.

More details: For instance, if I’m writing a Christmas family tradition post and I have a content upgrade for that post related to family traditions around the holidays, can I put a tailor-made Golden Question for that sequence that still speaks to my brand promise? Something like: ‘What is your biggest struggle with enjoying the holidays with your friends and family each year?’ Clearly this wouldn’t be the more overarching Golden Question, but with a holiday-themed funnel, it could open up some cool possibilities. What do you think?

“Funnel” implies there’s something to buy at the end and that you already have a product in place. In which case, go for it! But if you don’t have a strong brand underneath, you risk muddying the waters of your target market research at this stage. Keep things simple and get some clarity on your target market and Problem Statement before you dive into the deep end.

More details: Here’s why I ask. A few months ago I deleted the question from my autoresponder because I was running out of time to answer them all. I know it’s good to build relationships but at some point you get too many, and it takes too much of your time to try to answer them all.

Relationship building remains a top priority, even when you run low on time or get a ton of subscribers. You can mitigate this by continuing to ask the Golden Question but then writing blog posts to answer the questions or address the challenges + use canned e-mail responses (that you can customize just a smidge) to point those readers to those helpful blog posts.

We highly recommend Gretchen Louise at gretchenlouise.com for help with tech stuff. She’s a Blog Smarter grad and thoroughly understands this process.

The community leaders will do their best to read/help/comment at different times in the community. In the meantime, an invaluable resource is your teammates. Feel free to tag someone (or a few someones) and ask for extra eyes on your work. Ask questions and help each other. For every question you leave, try to help one of your teammates if you can. This community becomes incredibly valuable when you are all helping each other!

We’ll miss you! Fair warning: conferences can be great for your energy and motivation, but we’ve had a few students in the past get completely derailed from the program because they hear so many competing voices (and so much that goes along with the mainstream “be a good blogger” message).

Here’s my advice: take notes and have a good time, but:

1. Listen to EVERYTHING with your Target Market Goggles on. How will this help your target market achieve her goals?
2. Mentally assess what you hear and determine to put action on the back burner until the program is over.

You can file all your notes in a folder called “blogging advice” and then after the end of the program, you’ll have your CEO cap firmly in place and will have a GREAT sense for which advice you want to take and what you want to simply keep in that file folder for reference.