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I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential. Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash

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Shifting demographics

Recently I read that traditional marketing demographics are narrowing.

Traditionally, TV, radio etc needed broad categories to work with and it suited marketers to keep us sorted according to such categories (eg male or female, age 18 – 35 or 35 – 60).

However,  social media is more interactive so can target people according to interests and tastes rather than assuming majority of x group has those tastes. For instance, instead of targeting all women aged 18 – 35 you can specifically target people who like cooking for friends.

It is an interesting thought and makes marketing both easier and harder, I think. For one thing, you can get very specific about your audience and approach that smaller group – in this case, a smaller group will have a higher response rate as they are already interested. However, it may take more effort to know who your demographic is (it is easier to assume men over the age of 30 than to categorise men over 30 with trade qualifications who like fishing for example!)

How well defined is your target demographic? Do you specifically target that group every time your business communicates with the public?

Adding the basics around your blog content

Last week I asked what features do we expect to find in a blog, beside the actual content. So this week I will answer the question 🙂

I think there are many features but using them all creates a cluttered look that can overpower the content so it is worth deciding which features best suit your needs and your readers. However, here are some of the basic features that I think are important and pretty much form the base level of reader expectations:

  • an about us page (regardless of what you actually call it) gives background information that can be really important and interesting. For example, it tells me if you are an expert or an enthusiast and whether you provide a service/product related to your topic
  • a search function is handy either because I only want to read certain information or because I want to reread something I read previously
  • previous posts gives me a better idea of what the blog covers – and confirms that there are actually other posts available (not so obvious in the essay-style posts I mentioned last week!)
  • a list of categories is something I find very useful in blogs I visit – it lets me read about topics I am particularly interested in rather than wading through posts on other topics. This is especially important in a blog with a broad appeal – for example, a blog on business may have categories of marketing, accounts and sales techniques which I could ignore if I just wanted their time saving tips
  • many blogs include a blog roll so therefore many people expect to see  one and I’m adding it to this list although I personally don’t pay much attention to blogrolls when I visit blogs

While perhaps not a basic, some form of subscription notice is also a common and useful tool to offer on your blog – make it easier for people to keep up to date with your blog and you are likely to have more loyal readers. You have various options – a RSS feed, email notifications or a newlsetter susbcription are probably the most common and obvious.

Are any of these features you find more important when visiting a blog? Any that you have chosen not to use on your blog for some reason? Why?