A few weeks ago I wrote about “Defining The Target Audience For Your Personal Brand” which is one of the first steps of communicating who you are and what you stand for. While the target audience is essential, it is also crucial to be relevant at all times.
Relevance is not an option, it is a must. The people you target are too busy to take a meeting with you, much less engage in small talk that doesn’t add value to their day. So you add value to their day by addressing an issue that is at the top of a target’s priority list, or by asking questions that help them evaluate themselves. Being relevant is often the one thing that separates mediocrity from success.
So I ask you again: How are you relevant? If you do not have a good answer to that, try working with these areas for defining your relevance to your target audiences.
Relevance of message
Every person on this planet has different interests, both business and personal. When I work with coaching clients, I often use the “wheel of life” as a tool to look into different areas of life for their personal development. The same circle could be used when trying to identify the interest and focus areas for your target audience. Just as you can choose what parts of your life are represented in the wheel of life, you can also figure out what different parts make up the wheel for a person you are addressing.
Relevance in space
This means location. Where do you want to get your message across? A highway billboard? Twitter? Try to think of what spots you are more probable to get the message through. It could be on the golf course, in social media or in an elevator (you have defined your elevator pitch, right?).
Relevance in time
Time is just as important as location, as the right location at the wrong moment will not get the desired effect, nor will the right message at the wrong moment. They must work together. Keep in mind that in digital space, most things will stick around for ages and that the message could be interpreted in different ways depending on when it is read. This is why it is very important to put a date on every document, post etc. for the recipient to understand when the message was created.
Do you have an example of when you achieved great results due to pinpointing the relevant factors for your target audience? Please, share it in the comment section.
Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding (covered in this blog) as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).
His company, The Rynge Group specializes in strategy consulting within social media and market oriented small business and idea development.
