It’s tough.
When you spend hours crafting a blog post with great content, helpful tips, and an actionable takeaway, you deserve to get lots of people reading it.
But, what happens when you don’t? What happens when no one – or only a handful of people – read it?
What do you do? How can you make sure that the next time you write a post this doesn’t happen again?
Well, you make sure you’re doing one very important thing – you’re proving to your readers that you understand them.
You see, there’s so much noise out there, so many people promising to solve your readers’ problems. So you need to stand out. And one of the ways you can do this is by making sure that you prove that you’re getting what your readers are going through.
Here’s Why This Is So Powerful
Think about the last time something bad happened to you. What does a great friend do? They listen. They make you feel heard and understood.
This makes you like them, and trust them even more to help you solve your problem.
Now, imagine your blog readers being in the same position.
They’re struggling. They’re overwhelmed. They’re on the verge of giving up.
So, what should you do? Listen. Make them feel heard. Make them feel understood so that they trust you, like you, and want to stick around, because they believe that you can help them solve their problem.
That’s the key to making sure that your readers keep coming back for more – proving to them that you:
- Actually understand what they’re going through
- Can help them
How Do You Prove That You Understand Them?
You use the Toyota Production System 5 Whys Method.
This is a super simple technique that’ll help you get to the heart of why someone would even read your blog post in the first place.
All you need to do is start with a problem your readers are struggling with, and ask why five times.
Asking why this many times will help you uncover the deep-rooted reason someone wants to solve that problem.
An Eye-opening Example
Say we’re social media consultants, you and I, and we’re thinking about a problem a lot of our readers have – they don’t have enough Twitter followers and they don’t know how to get more.
So, we’re going to dive into what’s really going on by asking ourselves – as if we’re asking our readers – why, 5 times.
Us: “Why do you want more Twitter followers?”
Them: “Because I want to grow my business faster.”
Us: “Why do you want to grow your business faster?”
Them: “So that I can start making good money.”
Us: “Why do you want to make good money?”
Them: “So that I can get out of debt and stop worrying about money so much.”
Us: “Why do you want to get out of debt and stop worrying about money?”
Them: “So that I feel less stressed and can actually enjoy building my business.”
Us: “Why do you want to feel less stressed and actually enjoy building your business?”
Them: “Because right now it just feels so hard. I feel like I’m constantly grasping at straws and I have no idea what to do. I wish I could just have an easy button that I could push to grow my business. Something I know works.”
A-ha! We just uncovered that our readers want 4 major things – to:
- Grow their business faster
- Make more money
- Overcome money-stress
- Enjoy building their business
And, we’ve realized that the real reason they want more Twitter followers is so that they can stop stressing out. They want an easy done-for-them strategy that’s proven to work to grow their business so they can stop grasping at straws.
The Key in All This is Really Knowing Who Your Readers Are
Now, you need to do the market research before you can make any assumptions about why your readers would care about your post.
I assume that if you’re at this stage in your business – where you’re blogging regularly – you know this stuff already.
But I still need to make sure I say it. Or else you’ll just end up driving yourself crazy trying to figure out what’s going on in the mind of your readers.
So, do the research first.
How Can You Actually Use This to Get More People Addicted to Your Blog?
Once you’ve uncovered why someone cares about what you’re talking about, and you know the problems and pains they’re struggling with, you’re ready to take the next step.
You’re going to use that information in the opening of your blog post to help your readers appreciate that you totally get them.
This will draw them in to the post and make it more likely that they’ll keep reading. And the more they read, the greater opportunity you have to get them to like and trust you enough to sign up for your email list – and maybe even buy something from you down the road.
So, say for example we go back to the Twitter follower problem.
Now that we’ve used the 5 Whys Method, we can write the introduction of our blog post.
The Beginning of Our Blog Post Might Look Something Like This
“You’re overwhelmed.
You want to grow your business and make more money, but it’s just not happening as quickly as you’d hoped.
You’re stressed out, have bills piling up, and you just wish you had an easy button you could push to grow your business fast.
You know that using Twitter is a great marketing move. But you don’t know where to start.
I do. And I can help.”
See how I took what we came up with when we used the 5 Whys Method and just wrote about it?
I’m painting a picture for the readers of what life is like right now with a hidden promise that, within the blog post, I’m going to help them overcome their problem and get more Twitter followers.
It’s Really a Simple Two-Step Process
Step 1: Uncover why someone would care about reading your post.
Step 2: Talk about that in the introduction so you can draw people in.
You see, getting more people reading your posts doesn’t have to be complicated.
It’s all about knowing what’s going on in the minds of your readers and helping them see that you get them, and can help them.
Once you master that, it’ll be a lot harder for people to peel their eyes off of your blog.
So, go try out the 5 Whys Method and write the intro to your next blog post using what you uncover.
I have a feeling your readers will love you even more for it.
