[DAY 3] Defining your target reader and writing for them
Yesterday, we talked about finding your niche—the sweet spot where your passion, expertise, strengths, and experiences overlap.
Today, we’re taking it a step further:
Who are you writing for?
Because here’s the truth: If you try to talk to everyone, you'll end up talking to no one.
Even within your niche, not everyone is your audience.
And the more specific you get about who you’re writing for, the more engagement you'll have.
High engagement rate = more sales
So how do you define your ideal reader?
There's no ideal reader.
Don't go defining personas, avatars or empathy maps.
Yes, they will give you some insights, but it's hard to write for someone non-existent. Your subconscious will reject that and your content will not be relatable.
So what then?
Here's a tip that helped me move forward with this: write for the younger you and focus on solving painful problems.
The truth is there always gonna be someone who's two steps behind you.
Write for that person.
Don't overthink it.
Just write.
It's not perfect, but it helps you get started.
I started like this, and later on, I learned my audience is in a different age group and much closer to the beginner level than I thought. I had to adapt my content strategy a bit, but I was already growing.
Once you have some people in your audience, start interacting with them.
Collect the answers and look for patterns - what's repeating? Write those down if you have to.
Your job is to solve those problems with your content.
The more painful the problem, the more loyal your audience will be.
If you can solve their problems better (or differently) than others, they’ll keep coming back for more.
Think your solutions are not unique enough?
Bring a different angle from your MOAT (find more about that in yesterday's email).
Example: My readers struggle with growing and monetizing their Substack. That’s a problem a lot of writers are talking about on Substack. But only I can give people some insights from my decades of experience in building and selling subscription-based services.
It's that simple!
What’s Next?
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how to create an irresistible offer—the kind of offer that makes your readers think, “It's stupid not to buy?”
See you then, Yana
P.S. Get deeper into this and define your reader's problems, struggles, fears, and challenges to get valuable insights about your content. It's part of my flagship Write2Sell column, where I talk about growing your Substack.
P.S.S. I still haven't announced this yet, so you're the first to know: I'm deep-diving into these (and some more topics) about Substack, compiling them into a flagship course, called Substack Quest - where you'll have everything in one place. All my strategies, case studies and tools I use to achieve these results. Once I complete it, I'll increase the price (currently just $5/month (paid annually)). Upgrade now and secure your spot at this low price forever!