Running research on your audience doesn’t have to be hard or boring for that matter.

I learned a few tricks along the way that can compound the insights you get.

Today I want to share one of them because it’s something I’m working on too.

In fact, get ready, because I’ll use it on you by the end of this email.

When researching your audience you should always start by mapping out their journey.

In the past I recommended creating a vivid picture of the steps 5 years, 5 weeks and 5 seconds before they found your brand.

And that’s great.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much I obsess over understanding the context behind decision making and the psychology of your prospects.

Well, there’s one great question you can ask your best customers, that will guarantee you can find more of them and extract even more information out of their brains.

(be wary though, I specified “best” customers. You don’t want to ask this to unqualified leads or non-buyers)

Ready?

Just ask them where they hang out.

In other words, what news websites do they read? What industry communities do they interact in? What Youtube channels do they subscribe to? What social media accounts do they follow? etc.

And even, if it’s something seemingly unrelated, like their personal hobbies. Because there’s a myriad of ways through which they could have stumbled on your brand.

You don’t want to miss out on learning about these nuances.

The more of a wide net you can cast on the places they hang out and engage in, the better you’ll get to know them. And the more chances you’ll have at polling a bigger pool of people just like them, aka your potential customers.

It’s easy to overlook these questions when you’re running customers interviews, because they seem irrelevant to the conversion at first.

But again, we want to learn EVERYTHING about the context behind their decision to buy from you, not only the how and why for visiting your website and taking out their credit card.

The clearer the picture, the easier it is to speak with (not to) them in your copy.

And talking about hanging out, if you want to spend some time with me and with a few copy folks, I just started an AMA on the r/copywriting Reddit channel. If you have any questions just post it either there or reply to this email.

And before you go…

I told you I would use this technique on you, so:

What other newsletters do you read? I’m super curious to know, just hit reply with a name or two (I know you subscribe to a ton, don’t be shy).

Quote and reflection of the day:

“you can act your way into feeling long before you can feel your way into action”

– John C. Maxwell, How Successful People Think

Taking action when you don’t feel like you can do it, will lead you to the feeling you seek. The biggest breakthroughs come when you  realize you got where you wanted before being ready for it. You just prioritized action over feelings.