Website discovery: Define your target audience and differentiate your business

Maybe you’re just starting out, or maybe you were moving too fast to think about your brand. Either way, you find yourself in need of a great website but you don’t have a strong brand or messaging in place. No problem. 

How can I be so calm and confident about this? Because it happens to every business at some point, and it’s my job to help. What’s more, I know that the place to start is probably already in your brain — you just need to articulate it. 

What you need to do is examine your audience — the people you’d most like to talk to — and your differentiators. Whatever it is that makes your products or services great for those people. 

Defining Your Audiences

Let’s start by thinking about your audience. You likely have more than one. Think about your customers or clients, and how they are the same or different. Imagine the best possible client and what they might be like. Now put them in buckets based on why they come to you — or what job needs to be done. 

Product-Based Business

For instance, if you’re a bakery, one line of business might be weddings. When it comes to weddings, the job to be done is making a wedding cake, and likely grooms cake, that suits the style of the big day. Say we call this audience bucket “Brides.”

Another line of business might be birthdays. The audience is likely not the birthday boy/girl themselves, but a loving family member who’s organizing a party. The job to be done here is finding the perfect birthday cake for a loved one. Call this bucket “Birthday Planners.”

Then yet another audience could be businesses of all sizes. They often want a display of desserts for a meeting or conference. Who typically orders the menu for this? Typically it’s an office manager role, so this audience bucket might be “Office Managers.” 

Service-Based Business

Now, let’s take a service-based business as an example. Say you’re a personal trainer. One section of your audience might be out of shape individuals looking to become more fit. You could call this bucket “Ready for Change.” The job to be done is to become more fit. 

Another might be those who are already fit, who want to maintain a certain level of fitness. This audience bucket could be called “Fit Lifestylers” — the job to be done is to maintain strength.

Lastly, you might serve those who are involved in sports or training for a specific event. This bucket would be “Athletes” where the job to be done is to increase performance.

Why understanding your audience is important

And why is this important to understand? Because the key to turning prospects into customers lies in their ability to feel heard and understood. If your message speaks to them, they will relate to your message and your business. 

In order to deliver messages that are relevant to your audiences — messages they will care about — is to understand where they are coming from, and what they need. Knowing who they are and what job they need to do is a fundamental building block of content strategy when you are creating any marketing materials — including and especially your website. 

Defining Why You’re Different 

Next, it’s important to examine why your company’s offer is better than a competitor’s offer. When your prospects are looking for businesses who can help them accomplish their goal, or job to be done, you want them to see your business as THE one for the task. 

How do we do this? By defining how your business is different. 

To determine how you’re different, first, you need to look at your competitors. Choose three competitors that offer the same or similar product or service. If you’re not sure who your competitors are, a quick Google search should help you find them. 

Now look closely to build your strategy.

What do they offer? How do they offer it? It’s also just as important to note what they DON’T offer. Is their offer confusing? How’s the quality? The price? Their customer reviews? If your offer is more compelling in any one area, note it down. Then, try looking through the eyes of your audience buckets. For example, how would a bride react to this? Or how would a Fit Lifestyler think about this? Jot down your observations and ideas. 

How differentiators apply to your content strategy

Thinking about your differentiators doesn’t have to be intimidating. It’s not about bluntly stating that your offer is better than the other guy’s offer directly. It’s about honing in on the components of your business that make you stand out — and how you stand out for people with particular jobs to be done.

When you know that your service to brides is better for them because you take care of the little extras these stressed out ladies need, that’s golden knowledge. When you’re designing or re-designing your website, or making other marketing materials, look for opportunities to highlight those special differences. 

When you do, your audiences will notice you — relate to your message — and decide to hire YOU. 

The Complete Website Requirements Blueprint 

Merrygood has years of experience creating award-winning websites for clients like JuiceLand, Indeed, Tiff’s Treats, and many others. What we’ve learned over time is that delving into the audience and differentiators is critical. And while many business owners find it complicated, all they really need is the confidence to turn what they know into a great site strategy.

In fact, we noticed this so much, we decided to create a program to help business owners save thousands of dollars in their quests to create a custom website — by helping them do their own site discovery. 

Discovery is the phase of a site project where you analyze competitors, audiences, and differentiators to come up with things like a site map, a content outline, a messaging hierarchy, and more. 

We call our program The Complete Website Requirements Blueprint. When you participate, you do your own discovery but we do it with you so you know you’re on the right track. You get expert support without hiring a web team until you KNOW what you want to build. 

If you’re looking for a custom website and want to save thousands on discovery costs, the Blueprint offers a detailed dive into defining your audience, differentiators, and so much more. Find out about the program, here.