Summary

The article discusses a method for writers to identify and cater to their target audience by focusing on the readers' specific needs and interests through the use of a Venn diagram approach.

Abstract

The author, Shaunta Grimes, shares insights on how to write content that resonates deeply with a specific audience. She emphasizes that a niche is defined not by the topic itself but by the people it serves. By creating a niche avatar, writers can better understand their audience's characteristics and needs. Grimes suggests using a Venn diagram with three overlapping topics relevant to the avatar to generate a range of content ideas. This approach helps in creating content that directly addresses the audience's core interests, thereby building a connection and establishing a loyal readership.

Opinions

Writing for a niche is more about addressing the needs of specific people rather than focusing on a general topic.
Creating a detailed avatar of the target audience member helps in tailoring content to their preferences.
A Venn diagram is a useful tool to visualize how different topics relevant to the niche can intersect and provide a variety of content ideas.
The sweet spot in the Venn diagram, where all chosen topics overlap, represents the most compelling content for the target audience.
Tailoring content to the specifics of the niche avatar, such as location and demographics, increases the likelihood of resonating with the audience.
Offering a mix of content that covers individual topics, combinations of two, and the intersection of all three ensures a diverse and engaging content pool.
The method is presented as a way to not only attract but also retain readers by making them feel understood and catered to.

How to Write Exactly What Your Readers Want to Read

A magical ven diagram.

I taught a class a couple of weeks ago that ended up with a kind of epiphany for me.

I was trying to explain niches to my students. I started where I always start — with the idea that niches aren’t the topics you write about. They’re the people you write for.

So — my niche isn’t writing your first book. It’s people who want to write their first book.

Let’s do that a couple more times.

Your niche isn’t raised bed gardening in Zone 6. It’s people who live in Zone 6 and want to garden in a raised bed.
Your niche isn’t teaching parents how to homeschool math to their third graders. It’s homeschooling parents who want to learn how to teach math to their elementary-school aged kids.
Your niche isn’t planning European vacations. It’s people who need to plan a European vacation.

It’s a subtle, but very important difference. Because those people are real. And they have other things in common. And when you figure out what those things are, you can figure out how to create them and offer them.

And that’s how we build a writing career.

So, let’s get to my epiphany.

I realized that understanding your niche is way easier if you use a ven diagram.

This is a ven diagram:

Three distinct ideas. THOSE are your topics. They connect with each other on their sides (A with B and A with C, for instance) and they connect all together in the middle. That middle is the sweet spot where your niche will realize, for sure, that you’re writing just for them.

Let’s try this out.

Start With a Niche

Let’s say your niche is people who live in Zone 6 and want to garden in raised beds. Pretty specific.

First step is a niche avatar. Creating a made-up person who represents an average member of your niche.

Let’s call her Laura. She’s American and in Zone 6, which means that she lives in the mid-Atlantic or the Atlantic coast, and moving westward through the middle of the country and then up the west coast toward Canada.

The dark green swath in this photo:

Laura lives in Pennsylvania. She has a young family and it’s important to her to feed them healthy food. She’s 30 years old and took up gardening during quarantine two years ago. She likes the idea of raised beds because she doesn’t have that much space — just a regular urban yard.

Move to Topics

Here are three topics that people like Laura might be interested in:

Gardening (A)
Parenting (B)
Urban Life (C)

If we look at that ven diagram again, we can see these connections:

A and C (Gardening and Urban Life)
C and B (Urban Life and Parenting)
B and A (Parenting and Gardening)

And right in the middle is the sweet spot, where gardening, parenting, and urban life all come together.

That gives you a good variety of topics and topic combinations (AKA ideas.) You could write about any of the topics individually, any two combined, or you could find topics that connect all three.

Finally, Ideas

So, if you were this writer and you wanted to write a short nonfiction book, you might come up with these choices:

How to Build Raised Beds.
How to Create an Urban Homestead with Raised Beds.
How to Raise Kids and Vegetables on an Urban Homestead.

Can you see how Laura might get progressively more excited as we move down that list?

Now let’s narrow the choices down even further by adding in more about our avatar. She lives in hardiness zone 6. So just add ‘in Zone 6’ to any of those titles.

Because we know that Laura is a Millennial, we can tailor our book cover and the way we write to her. She’s not EVERY gardener, everywhere. She’s a gardener in Pittsburgh, let’s say, who has a very specific reason for wanting to garden.

And she’s going to see a book or a blog post called How to Raise Kids and Vegetables in a Zone 6 Urban Homestead and feel right at home. Because you’ve written right into where she lives. In that sweet spot where gardening, urban living, and parenting come together.

And if she checks out your blog and sees things like this?

Using Raised Beds to Teach Your Kids Science
Growing Tomatoes in Containers in Zone 6
Building a Greenhouse Out of Old Windows to Extend Your Season
Give Your Kids Their Own Raised Bed
The Medicinal Uses of Wild Carrot and Chicory (note: these are beautiful weeds that grow in Pennsylvania and other places in Zone 6)

And so on. And so on. And so on, forever. Laura will know she’s found her people. She’ll know she belongs here. And you’ll have a fan.

What To Do

Start with your niche. WHO are you writing for? Create an avatar for your niche. Just think about that group of people and write up something that describes an average representative.
Now make a list of topics, based on that avatar description. You need three. What are three things that your niche has in common with each other?
Create your ven diagram.
Make a list of ideas, based on how those three topics and how they combine with each other and all together.
You’ll want some ideas to land right in the sweet spot, of course — where all three topics combine. But ideas that are just about one topic or the combination of two topics are great, too.

And now, my friend, you have a nearly unlimited pool of ideas to pull from. Have fun!

Let me show you how to plan your (big) project — so your good starts lead to great finishes.

Joining Medium with my link is an easy way to support me and my work. Thank you!

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, and Ollie Wilbur the cat. She’s on Instagram @ninjawritershop and is the author of Viral Nation, Rebel Nation, The Astonishing Maybe, and Center of Gravity. She is the original Ninja Writer.