Satisfying WIIFM for Your Target Audience
If you read any of a number of business blogs that are available to you online, the chances are that you have come across WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) quite a bit. WIIFM is the concept of satisfying the needs and wants of your target audience before getting what you need for your brand and your business. In other words, it is your ability to solve the other person’s problem.
Learning to put the other person first
When it comes to your marketing materials, if you are not able to connect with your target audience right away (through your content), they will not continue to read what you have shared. If they don’t continue to read, you will not get the opportunity to show them how much you can do for them. It is a simple concept. One of the most important concepts (right from the beginning) is that you understand as much as possible about your target audience.
Understanding them will allow you to give them what they truly need and they will not forget that. That may be more easily accomplished than you think. Once you have established a relationship with them, they will have no problem telling you what they need. At that point, you just need to follow through.
[tweetthis]Consistently write with WIIFM in mind and your readers will be loyal to your brand.[/tweetthis]It is important to remember not to bury WIIFM in your content. Let it shine right at the beginning so that it is obvious exactly how valuable you and your brand/business are to the other person. He or she needs to understand clearly that you can solve his or her problem more effectively and more quickly than anyone else can do. That way, you will be top of mind for them whenever they need what you are offering.
Once you have addressed the other person’s problem right up front, you can express exactly how you will go about helping them (in much greater detail). If you don’t mention the WIIFM concept until further down, they may not even get to that point in your content and your valuable effort will be lost. If you aren’t sure exactly how to present WIIFM in your content, there are some effective ways that you can achieve that. You can make good use of WIIFM on several different types of content.
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WIIFM on your opt-in form: There are times when getting people to opt-in to whatever you want them to do is quite challenging. However, if you tell them right away what they can gain by opting in, they will certainly be more inclined to do it.
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Encouraging your target audience to leave a comment on your blog posts: Even if people are compelled to read your blog posts all the way through, many of them will not want to take the time to leave a comment. If you give them an idea of what’s in it for them, they will probably have not a problem leaving a comment. Those comments are extremely important for your business.
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WIIFM on your backlinks: Often, it is one of the most difficult things to get your readers to click on one of your backlinks, which lead them to a page on your website that you really want them to see. However, if you tell them what they will get out of it, they will click away. It is human nature.
Conclusion
The truth is that there is no content out there (and, yours is no exception) that doesn’t ask the reader to do something. There is always some sort of call-to-action. If you want your target audience to do something for you (connect with you in some way), you will have to make it worth their while. That is why clearly demonstrating what they will get out of doing what you want is so powerful. If you satisfy their needs and wants first, yours will be satisfied in turn.
It is important to remember that your goal is to build a solid relationship with the other person. The way that you are going to do that is by giving them what they need (and that may be one or more of many different things). Not only do you want to build a solid relationship but you want to build a relationship that endures and that is mutually beneficial. After all, you also need to determine what’s in it for you after you have solved the other person’s problem. Satisfying the other person makes you incredibly valuable to the other person and value equals success.
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