Here’s My Perfect Formula for Nailing My Audience Every Time

You don’t even need a degree to understand it

Let’s talk about a big problem I see with many new writers — not knowing who they’re writing to.

“But, I want my writing to be for everybody,” you say. No, you don’t.

If you write for everyone, you’ll write for no one. Why? Because if you try to appeal to everyone, your writing will lack depth.

For example, this post likely won’t help seasoned writers because they already understand the importance of writing to an audience. But it may help newer writers who still earning foundational principles.

If you don’t learn how to pinpoint your reader, you’ll never:

• Attract a following
• Become an authoritative voice
• Hold your reader’s interest

Fortunately, you can use a simple formula to nail your audience. It works whether you’re writing a long-form post, social media content, or a book.

Let’s take a look.

Solve X for Y

I never cared much for math in school. When they threw letters into the mix? Forget it.

But this simple little formula can give your writing clarity and direction. When you have clarity and direction, the entire writing process becomes easier.

Solve X for Y

The X stands for “problem,” and the Y for “audience.”

Think of it like this: This post solves X [problem] for Y [audience].

Here are a few examples:

• This post solves the how to identify an audience (problem) for new writers (audience).
• This post solves how to write opening hooks (problem) for content marketers (audience).
• This post solves how to discipline your kids (problem) for parents of toddlers [audience].
• This post solves how to set a budget (problem) for single moms who want to save money (audience).

Notice the formula never appears in your writing. It’s merely there as a guide to help you think about your audience and how you can help them.

This doesn’t mean everything you write has to be a “how to” post. You can solve problems through interviews, case studies, list posts, even fiction.

The point of defining your audience is to guide you, the writer, in knowing what you need to share to help them.

Make it personal

But what if you’re writing an opinion piece, or a personal essay?

Regardless of the form or genre of your writing, it needs to resonate with your readers. To achieve that, you have to give your readers something to grab onto in your writing.

Let’s say you’re writing a personal essay about a difficult episode from your childhood. If you want readers to relate to it, it has to be more than just a therapeutic exercise for you. So don’t give us a journal entry, show us how you overcame this problem.

Showing doesn’t require you to break your process down into five easy steps. You can tell the story of how you overcame that particular episode and what you learned from it. The story itself will connect.

Why? Because readers love to project themselves onto the person in the story. Their situation may be completely different from what you faced. But the fact that you overcame it is enough for most readers to see themselves in your story and resonate with it.

Don’t overcomplicate it

The biggest challenge is to not overthink the problem and your audience. You’ll likely want to solve multiple problems for multiple people and everything you write.

Don’t do it.

If your post or article solves multiple problems, it should be multiple pieces of content.

The internet is big. So don’t get hung up on writing about the same thing or fear everything you write will sound the same. Even your followers and fans need to hear information multiple times before they take action.