Marketers often talk about 'the audience' as though it's a single individual.

'Our audience likes educational content.'

'Our audience prefers videos.'

'Our audience isn't ready to buy.'

Really?

All of them?

Every last one?

An audience can contain people with very different needs, interests and levels of understanding.

Some may be encountering your business for the first time.

Others may have followed you for months.

Some are researching a general problem. Others are comparing products. A few may already be customers.

Treating all these people as one enormous person makes your marketing less relevant than it could be.

A useful organic marketing strategy recognises those differences and develops content that addresses them.

That doesn't mean producing completely separate marketing campaigns for every individual.

It means understanding the important groups within your audience and what they might actually find helpful.

Which is a much better starting point than simply shouting the same message at everybody.

Audience research often begins with demographic information.

Age. Location. Job title. Company size.

Those details can be useful.

But they don't automatically explain why somebody might buy your product.

Imagine you've created a customer profile.

Her name is Debbie. She's 38. She lives in Surrey, enjoys yoga and has a Labrador.

Lovely.

Does Debbie need marketing automation?

Nobody knows.

Apparently, we've established her preferred weekend activities before identifying whether she has the problem our business solves.

Understanding your target audience means going beyond basic descriptions.

What are people trying to achieve?

What frustrates them?

Which decisions are difficult?

What information do they need before considering a solution?

Two customers might have completely different backgrounds but share the same problem.

And two people with identical job titles might need entirely different things.

Which is why assumptions based on a few demographic details are rarely enough.

Sorry, Debbie.

I'm sure the Labrador is delightful.

A more useful approach to audience research begins with needs and motivations.

Suppose you're marketing a platform that helps businesses manage organic marketing.

One potential customer might struggle to publish consistently.

Another may produce plenty of content but have difficulty building an audience.

Someone else might attract interest but lack a sensible way to nurture relationships and convert that interest into sales.

These are related problems, but they're not identical.

And the content that helps each person may differ.

Instead of starting with 'What shall we post on Tuesday?', start with questions such as:

What is this person trying to achieve?

What's preventing them from doing it?

What have they already tried?

What might they be confused about?

What would help them take a useful next step?

The answers give you something far more valuable than a collection of vaguely interesting personal details.

They give you a reason to create particular content.

And a clearer idea of who that content is for.

You don't necessarily need an enormous research project to begin understanding your audience.

Useful clues can come from the conversations and interactions already happening around your business.

Look at the questions customers ask.

Notice recurring problems in enquiries and support conversations.

Pay attention to what people say they found confusing.

Review relevant search queries, frequently visited resources and the subjects that generate meaningful interest.

Ask customers what prompted them to look for a solution.

And, where appropriate, invite people to tell you what they'd find useful.

You should collect and use personal information transparently and respect people's choices. Audience research doesn't require quietly compiling a dossier on everybody who visits your website.

The important thing is to look for recurring needs.

If several people ask the same question, you may have a useful content topic.

If customers repeatedly misunderstand a feature, perhaps your explanation needs work.

If a particular problem comes up in conversations, you might have found an opportunity to help more people.

Your audience is telling you things.

You just need to listen.

Let's keep this practical.

1. Group people by relevant needs.

You might distinguish newcomers learning about a subject, people comparing solutions and existing customers looking for guidance.

These groups don't need identical content.

2. Connect those needs to useful topics.

Create explanations for beginners, practical advice for people exploring solutions and more detailed information for those evaluating your product.

Keep publishing regularly across those relevant subjects so you have more opportunities to reach the right people.

3. Review what happens next.

Which topics attract relevant interest? What questions remain unanswered? Are people exploring further, joining conversations or taking meaningful actions?

Use what you learn to refine the next round of content.

This is where customer segmentation becomes useful.

It helps you make more informed decisions about what to create, what to explain and which next steps may be appropriate.

Not because every customer fits neatly into a box.

People are inconveniently complicated.

But because a little understanding is considerably better than none.

Once you understand your audience better, you can make your marketing more relevant.

Someone discovering your business for the first time might need a straightforward introduction.

A returning visitor may appreciate deeper information about a particular subject.

An existing customer might benefit from practical guidance that helps them get more value.

Connected content and appropriate marketing automation can support these different journeys.

For example, somebody who chooses to join your community and expresses interest in a particular topic could be offered relevant information.

Someone with a product question could receive a useful answer or an appropriate next step.

You don't have to treat every interaction as an invitation to begin the entire sales conversation again.

The aim isn't to create a completely different marketing operation for every person.

It's to make a consistent, scalable operation more relevant to the people using it.

Which seems like the sort of thing marketing ought to be doing anyway.

Frank Rabbit is an all-in-one automated organic marketing platform connecting strategy, content creation, audience building, nurturing, conversion and monetisation.

The idea is to make organic marketing work as a connected operation.

Create and distribute regular, useful content so relevant people can discover your business outside Frank Rabbit.

Then cultivate relationships, connect with your audience and develop commercial opportunities on-platform.

Automation and next-best-action prompts can help maintain relevant activity as those relationships develop.

Because reaching people is only the beginning.

You also want to understand what they need, give them reasons to stay interested and help them move forward when they're ready.

An audience shouldn't just be a number in a presentation.

It should become a collection of meaningful relationships and opportunities.

Anyway, the meeting has finished.

We've reached 43,000 people.

Nobody knows who they are.

But Debbie's Labrador has an excellent engagement rate.