In order to produce content that your audience cares about, it is important to truly study and understand your audience. Awareness of your audience is an imperative that you cannot ignore. If you try to sell things to an audience without identifying them – their needs, their pains, their desires, their wants, and so forth – you’ll fail. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You will not succeed without a thorough understanding of your audience.

There are many ways to learn about your audience. Follow these steps:

* Identify Your Audience – This might take some brainstorming. If you already have a product, try to figure out who will need it. Who has a problem that the product solves? If you are at the point where you have no products but are trying to figure out your niche, figure out who your ideal client is by making a list of the characteristics of the people you’d like to work with. Then, narrow that down even more until you’ve discovered a very specific niche audience.

* Know Their Demographics – When you narrow down and identify your audience, then you should also figure out their demographics. Their sex, age, marital status, education and so forth are very important to help you know what their needs are later when you are trying to create content to promote your products and/or services.

* Follow Your Audience – Once you’ve identified your audience, it’s time to find them on social media and follow them. Join their groups, communities, and social networks. Become part of their community so that you can not only familiarize them with you, but you can also get to know them better so that you can understand their needs more.

* Listen to Your Audience – Now that you’re following them, you can now listen to them. Observe their behavior. Pay attention to their questions, fears, and joys. As you listen you will think of products and services that you can provide, as well as content and information that they need.

* Get to Know Your Audience – As you follow and listen to your audience, you’ll automatically get to know them. If you have any questions for your audience, just ask them. You can conduct a survey, ask a question on a forum, prompt discussion with an interesting blog post. As you get to know them, you’ll automatically be able to produce more content that they really need and want.

* Identify Influencers – As you get to know your audience you’ll also be able to identify those who influence your audience. Every audience has their “gurus” or “influencers” or “authorities” and experts. By creating content that is also directed toward your audience’s influencers, you could create a situation where your content is more widely read and you are called out by one of their influencers.

It all boils down to knowing your audience, and becoming part of their lives. The more you know about them, the more content you can create that produces the results that you want. Not only that, knowing your audience also facilities product and service creation that is on the mark with your audience.