Know Who Your Ideal Reader and Target Audience Is
guest post by D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed.
I’d like to thank John for graciously hosting me as a guest blogger in celebration of the launch of my newest book, 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. Today I’ll be sharing Way #1 (of the 21 Ways) with you: Identifying Your Target Audience.
The primary activity of a virtual book tour is to travel from blog to blog, where you contribute blog posts as a guest blogger. Participating in a virtual book tour increases your credibility as you share your expertise while, at the same time, you are endorsed by blog owners. You receive increased visibility and come—by association—to be seen as an expert.
The best blogs to travel to are those that attract your ideal reader. To make the most of this opportunity, you’ll want to be clear about who the audience for your book is. This focus is an essential component of your virtual book tour, because knowing who your target audience is helps you to identify and locate blogs and blog owners that attract readers who are interested in your topic or genre.
Additionally, this approach provides you with a focus as you begin to generate content for your virtual book tour. Getting your message in front of your target audience and those who serve them positions you for increased book sales and speaking opportunities.
Let’s say you’re a professional organizer who writes on the topic of maximizing the space inside homes. Your target audience could be homeowners. By reaching out to others who serve your target audience, such as realtors, home organizers, virtual organizers, companies that sell organizing materials, and authors who write on the topic of keeping organized, you have the opportunity to reach not only individual homeowners but also professionals who have access to a large number of homeowners.
One of the best ways to connect with your target audience and those who serve them is by joining active and relevant groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. Focus on building relationships, answering and asking questions, and helping others. This strategy will increase your credibility, allow you to make connections, and shine the light on you as an expert.
By establishing relationships with your target audience and those who serve them, you’ll develop opportunities to become a guest blogger on a number of highly targeted blogs, creating a win/win/win situation.
- You gain exposure to new audiences,
- The blog owners have access to relevant content for their readers, and
- Blog visitors benefit from relevant information of interest to them.
Take some time to identify who your ideal reader is and then put your thinking cap on as you give thought to who serves your target audience. Find ways to interact with these individuals and enjoy growing your connections and business relationships. Provide value as you join in the conversation on the social networks. By sharing relevant comments and answers to questions being posed, you’ll be providing content to people who are hungry for information on your topic.
What have you found to be effective ways for connecting with your target audience? Scroll down to join in the conversation.
This post is being written in honor of a virtual book tour celebrating the publication of my third print book. You can enjoy the festivities by joining us on the tour to 21 blogs, in honor of 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. Scroll down to access the virtual book tour schedule as well as a link to the book on Amazon. Thank you and enjoy!
D’vorah Lansky is the author of 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. Visit her book blog and check out the full schedule for the virtual book tour, celebrating the launch of this exciting new book: http://www.VirtualBookTour21Ways.com.
D’vorah offers virtual book tour workshops and courses for authors, entrepreneurs, and virtual professionals. She has taught hundreds of people, across the globe, how to conduct successful virtual book tours. You can purchase her newest book on Amazon at: 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour
About John Kremer
John Kremer is author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, the Relationships Matter Marketing program, and many other books and reports on book marketing, Internet marketing, social media, and book publicity. -- John Kremer on Book Marketing.
John, thank you for being a tour host for this exciting virtual book tour celebration. I welcome questions and comments and look forward to interacting with your community.
Thanks, D’vorah, for your guest post. I hope your tour goes well.
Thank you John! It’s pretty exciting, and folks can learn so much by replicating the examples we’re sharing during the tour. We’re creating quite a buzz and even created a private group on Facebook for purchasers of the book. Great networking and idea sharing taking place. Thank you again John, it’s quite an honor to be featured on your blog!
Knowing who the target audience is may be one of those challenges that takes time to understand. People–including myself–have many interests, and it may be difficult to focus narrowly into a niche. It also may feel too restrictive to focus in this way. But there are ways to do it, which I currently am studying!
Thanks for this great tour, D’vorah!
You are welcome Kate. I hear what you are saying… and here’s a thought for you. Rather than thinking in terms of “niche audience” think in terms of, “who am I writing my book for?” or “who can my book best serve?” This might take the pressure off of you and free you up to share the message that is in your heart.
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Dvorah, where and or how do you find active and relevant groups (mine would be people wanting to start part time businesses) This info sounds great thanks. Jerry
Hi Jerry! If I were looking for folks in that niche, I would create a special report that could be of help to them while connecting them to me. Also, see if you can participate in virtual speaking events or sessions in a way that provides value and training. The tricky part about that niche is reaching out with business opportunities could seem spammy or salesy. That’s why positioning yourself as an expert will draw those people to you. All the best, D’vorah
Do you include forums under the blanket term, “social networks”? A targeted forum is a great place to establish your presence as an expert.
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