Knowing Your Audience Means Avoiding Stereotypes

Remember Becky, the user persona created by marketing executives to represent the target audience of contemporary Christian radio? No one wants to be Becky, and no one will admit to being her, not even women named Rebecca who listen to contemporary Christian radio while driving their children to soccer practice. This is because Becky is a stereotype, not a real person. Creating user personas can be a fruitful thought exercise when developing a marketing strategy, but it is important not to stop there, because then you are marketing to stereotypes, and no one likes to be stereotyped.

Drawing attention to a characteristic you think your target audience possesses is bound to backfire. (That Subaru commercial from the 90s was the exception that proves the rule.) You can probably think of countless examples of ads targeting women where it is obvious that the idea for the ad originated in a boardroom full of men in suits or a bro basement with a ping-pong table in the middle. To create truly effective legal blog content, you need a deeper understanding of your audience.

Letting Your Audience Speaking for Itself

Law firm blogs are not TikTok videos about toys, but there is a lesson to be learned here. Nerf recently decided to add TikTok to their online marketing repertoire and deciding to hire a Chief TikTok Officer for this purpose. Instead of perusing the resumes of business school graduates, they simply looked to the audience of their products and of TikTok. They asked Nerf enthusiasts to submit TikTok videos of themselves showing off their Nerf blaster skills, and they received more than 1,000 entries. The job ended up going to Sophie Jamison, whose videos of Nerf blaster stunts already have a following on TikTok, where she goes by the name Sophie Lightning.

How does this apply to law firm marketing? Your audience probably does not spend its time making videos on TikTok; for reasons that extend far beyond user-generated content, it is in your interest to find out what their social media platforms of choice are. It starts with conversation with real clients about social media; the next step is viewing the social media content and finding out how people could use it, or already actually use it, to discuss subjects related to your practice area. For example, a personal injury lawyer could ask social media users to make videos about living with a permanent injury. A divorce lawyer could ask them to make videos about co-parenting during the holidays or post-divorce financial glow-ups. (Social media users who paid off all their credit card debt in a year once their ex-spouse was out of the picture would probably love to brag about it.) The experiences of real clients, or real prospective clients, will resonate with your audience more than anything you can say.

Videos Are Nice, but Don’t Forget to Blog

No matter which social media platforms your audience uses, they still search on Google, and Google loves business blogs. Choose the legal content writers at Law Blog Writers to create blog content to help you connect with your target audience.