| By :
Steve Shaw
Have you ever gone to a dinner party and been asked, “What business are you in?” If your business is online, this can be a tricky question to answer. If you fall back on your usual answer of what your business is, and you start explaining things using terminology that is unfamiliar to your new friend, you will soon see their eyes glaze over and their mind start to wander. It takes special effort, especially for those of us who have virtual businesses, to explain our businesses to people in the “real world”. It is helpful to step outside of your usual circle of acquaintances and to try to explain your niche to someone who doesn’t have the first idea what your field is about. Why would you want to make a connection with someone who doesn’t understand what your product is? Consider that you might have potential customers who don’t know that they need your services. For example, my usual target market is people who are interested in marketing their websites. Anyone with a website who is already interested in marketing it would be very interested in my answer to the question, “What business are you in?” But what about business owners as a whole? Many business owners just think it’s enough to have a website and have no earthly idea that they need to market it. I need to educate them about the potential of their website as a marketing tool and also teach them how to market their site. I call this an untapped target audience--those who need your help but don’t know it yet. Let me ask you--who is your untapped target audience? Have you thought about writing articles to help spark their interest? This article template is designed to help you with this. It is very simple: Step 1: Imagine that you are at a dinner party and someone has asked you “What business are you in?” Write down (or type up) your reply for this person in your untapped target audience. Here are some guidelines for you: *Be very general--remember that you are giving a bird’s eye overview of your topic. *Avoid niche jargon--use language that your grandmother or neighbor would understand. *Focus on the needs of this person in your target market rather than on yourself. Your reply should not refer to your business, but rather to your niche. *Include in your reply what types of people you serve (and remember, you’re talking to someone who is this type of person but who just isn’t aware of it yet). *How does your niche benefit those in your target market? *Write as if you’re having a conversation with someone. You might need to do some backward explaining in order to get some of this information in so that it makes sense. *Your goal is to demonstrate (rather than convince) that the type of work that you do could benefit this new friend of yours. You provide the objective information about your field and who you serve, and the goal is that your new friend makes the connection that he could in fact use your services. Alternatively, your goal could be that your new friend becomes interested in learning more about your niche. Many times it can take a person a while to warm up to the idea of needing new services, and it pays to be patient and accommodating. Step 2: Now, it’s time to look back over your reply and identify key ideas. These key ideas can then be used as article topics. What do think--will you try this? I have found this article template to be very effective at reframing my thinking and helping me come up with article topics designed to draw readers from my untapped target audience to my business. From using this template just one time, I was able to generate at least 8 laser targeted article topics that I had never thought of before. I hope it works as well for you!
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