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Understanding Your Audience: Don’t be late, they’re waiting!

sovrnmarketing // September 7, 2012

Timing is everything and knowledge is power. Content is not king if there’s no one there to read it. Understanding your audience and the importance of timing are fundamental to blogging success.
As a blogger, you need to know exactly who your audience is and their habits online. Use what you know about your readership to fit into their day-to-day schedule. Think about what they are doing at certain times of the day and how it reflects on their time spent online. Leverage this knowledge to grow your readership and drive more traffic to your site.
Let’s imagine you’re a food blogger and your target audience comprises of moms like Alice, a 38-year-old mom of 3. On a week day morning, Alice sips on coffee and surfs the web for quick and easy dinner recipes in-between dropping her kids off at school and yoga. Too bad you didn’t do your research and submit your blog post “delish din in 10 min” until 2pm in the afternoon. On the fly, Alice took the kids for fast food after their soccer game and you missed out on catching the eye of a huge influencer. Had you known that your blog caters heavily to busy moms with me-time in the morning, you could have timed your post appropriately to reach Alice on time. Instead, you missed out on Alice seeing your blog post, taking action from it, and sharing it with family and friends both off and online.
Proof is in the pudding. Just check out these general stats from our friends over at KISSmetrics in their blogging series: Timing and Blogging.
* Note: the data below is presented in Eastern Time (EST)

While general stats, such as these, are certainly enlightening, it’s also important to do some digging of your own to really zero in on your unique audience. To do this, use your customized analytics to see when readers are most often on your site and use that information to schedule publishing, tweeting, Facebook updates and more. Be sure to consider time zones as well – four hours can be a huge difference in someone’s day.
Bottom line, timing is key. Harness the power of your research and your instinct so that you know when and where your audience is online. Build a strategy with this knowledge in mind and adapt it in a way that aligns with their schedule and routine. Organically, you will ramp up page views, saturate more of the social sphere, and ultimately, become a more successful blogger.

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