If you’re trying to attract more people to your business or service and aren’t sure where to begin with your marketing, this can help. I hear some version of this from nearly every client I work with, whether they’re running a small business, building a creative career, leading a nonprofit, or coaching clients one-on-one. The question underneath the question is usually the same: how do I get the right people to find me?
The good news is that you don’t have to guess your way there. Instead of starting with a blank calendar and asking “what should I post about,” you can start with a far more useful question: what are the people I want to reach actually looking for? That simple shift changes everything about how you approach your marketing. Rather than something getting posted just because it’s Tuesday and the calendar says so, the better starting point is thinking about the real person on the other side of the search, the social scroll, the blog article, or the email — what they’re trying to figure out, what problem they’re carrying, and what they need to know before they take their next step.
Start With the Person, Not the Post
When you’re trying to get noticed online, it’s tempting to start with what you want to say. But focusing on what your audience needs helps them feel seen and appreciated. In each case, what you want to say isn’t necessarily what the people you’re trying to reach want or need to hear, so approaching from their perspective fosters empathy and trust. Picture how this plays out across a few different kinds of businesses.
A retail shop — A potential customer may not search for your shop’s name at all, especially if they’ve never heard of it. They might search for a specific product, a gift idea for someone hard to shop for, or a place nearby that carries something they can’t find at the usual big-box stores. Whatever words they type, they’re really searching for a solution to something, not for you specifically.
A wedding venue — Someone planning a wedding is thinking about the event long before they’re thinking about you. They might search for a small wedding venue nearby, a place that can host both the ceremony and the guests, or what it costs to book a property for a weekend. By the time your name enters the picture, they’ve usually already decided what kind of experience they’re after.
A nonprofit — Someone drawn to your organization usually starts with the cause itself. They might search for a specific need in the community, a way to volunteer locally, or how they can help. By the time they find you, they’re already carrying real questions about what your nonprofit stands for and where their support goes.
In every case, the starting point is the same: think about the person who is looking for you, not just what you want to tell them.
Who Are You Trying to Reach
You don’t need a complicated marketing profile to answer this. What matters is understanding the real people you hope to connect with and what their lives look like when they start searching for what you offer. A few honest questions can get you most of the way there, and they’re worth sitting with rather than rushing through.
What are they trying to accomplish? — Something prompted them to start looking for information, help, a service, an organization, or someone with your particular expertise. That starting point matters more than you might expect, because it shapes everything they read afterward. Understanding it well is often the difference between content that lands and content that gets engagement.
What questions are they likely to have? — Before someone decides to contact you, hire you, support you, attend something, or subscribe, they usually need a few things answered first. Some of those questions they’ll ask out loud, and some they’ll never say at all. The ones they keep to themselves are often the ones worth addressing most directly.
What might make them hesitate? Cost, time, complexity, and plain uncertainty stop more people than a lack of interest ever does. Recognizing and addressing these concerns openly helps your audience feel supported and confident, making them more likely to engage with you.
What matters most to them? — The things you consider most important about your work aren’t always the things your community cares about most. It’s worth checking that assumption regularly rather than assuming you already know. Sometimes what feels like a small detail to you is exactly what convinces someone to reach out.
These are close to the exact questions we sit down and work through with every new client, because everything else — the calendar, the captions, the blog topics — builds on top of the answers. You don’t have to know everything about your audience before you begin, and honestly, you probably won’t for a while. You learn more by paying attention to the questions people ask, the conversations you have, the feedback you receive, and the things people search for online — which, conveniently, is exactly where the next idea comes from.
Your Community Is Already Giving You Ideas
Monitor your inbox and conversations for questions people ask; these are valuable clues for creating content that truly addresses their needs. A question from a client, a supporter, a fellow musician, or a prospective customer might feel like a one-off conversation in the moment. Still, if one person asked it, there’s a good chance several others have wondered the same thing quietly and never said it out loud. Look for the patterns hiding in the conversations you’re already having, since patterns tell you more than any single anecdote ever could.
The Recurring Question — If people keep asking you the same thing across different conversations, that’s strong evidence it deserves a real answer in writing, not just a quick reply. A question asked once might be a one-off, but a question asked three or four times is a pattern. Writing that answer down once means you can point to it every time it comes up again.
The Pre-Decision Question — Pay close attention to what someone wants to know just before they contact you, hire you, donate, book a session, or sign up for your list. That moment reveals what’s actually holding them back from taking the next step. Addressing it directly and personally often does more than any general marketing message could.
The Common Hesitation — If people regularly pause because something feels expensive, complicated, or unfamiliar, that hesitation is telling you exactly what to write about next. It’s easy to assume everyone already understands the basics of what you offer, but that’s rarely true. Meeting that confusion head-on, gently and without judgment, tends to earn more trust than avoiding it ever would.
The more closely you listen, the less has to be invented out of thin air. The people you want to reach are already handing you ideas — you just have to notice them. Sometimes, in fact, they hand you more than ideas. Every so often, they hand you the words themselves, ready to use.
Let Your Clients’ Own Words Do Some of the Marketing
There’s one source of material that’s easy to overlook simply because it doesn’t feel like marketing in the moment: the things people say about you after they’ve already worked with you, stayed with you, or supported your cause.
A kind email from a client, a five-star review, a guest’s note in a comment card, or a donor mentioning how much a program meant to them can all become something genuinely worth sharing, often with very little editing. These words carry a kind of trust that your own marketing simply can’t manufacture, because they come from someone who has nothing to gain by saying them.
The retail shop — A customer who raves about how a product solved a problem for them, in their own words, often makes a more persuasive social post than any description you could write yourself. A review that mentions the specific gift, occasion, or problem is even better, since it helps the next shopper picture themselves in the same situation. That kind of specificity is hard to fake.
The wedding venue — A customer mentions how perfectly the staff handled their wedding day, giving future guests exactly the reassurance they’re looking for before they book. Their words carry a weight that a polished property description simply can’t match. A single heartfelt line in a guest book can do more work than an entire paragraph of your own copy.
The nonprofit — A volunteer or donor who describes what your organization’s work meant to them can turn an abstract mission statement into something a new supporter can actually feel. Numbers and statistics explain what you do, but a personal story explains why it matters. Both have their place, but the story is usually what moves someone to act.
Reviews, testimonials, and offhand compliments are worth collecting on purpose rather than letting them scroll by. Ask happy clients if you can quote them. Screenshot the kind email before it disappears into your inbox. Keep a running note of anything someone says about your work that surprises you, since those unscripted moments often reveal what your community values most — sometimes more clearly than your own description of your work ever could.
What Are People Actually Typing Into Search — On Google and On Social Media
If you want people to find you online, ask a simple question: what would someone type into a search bar if they were looking for what you offer? You likely know the exact name of your service or the formal title of your craft, but the people you’re trying to reach may describe it in completely different words. They may not know your terminology at all, and they may not even know precisely what they need yet.
And this isn’t only a Google habit anymore. A growing number of people now search directly on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube the same way they’d search on Google — typing in a question or a phrase and scrolling through what comes up.
Someone looking for the retail shop might search “unique gifts near me” or “where to find [a specific product],” long before they’d ever type your shop’s name. Someone looking for the nonprofit might search “how can I help [a specific cause] locally” long before they’d type the name of your organization. Each of these searches, however plainly worded, tells you something real about what that person is trying to work through.
Marketers often call these words and phrases “keywords,” but you don’t need to become a search-engine expert to use this idea well. What matters is remembering that the ordinary words people type into a search bar are clues about what they need from you.
As author and marketing expert Marcus Sheridan puts it, when it’s honest and transparent, content “is the greatest sales tool in the world today.” ² His book They Ask, You Answer is really this entire idea distilled into one habit: when you notice the questions your community keeps asking, and answer them plainly and honestly, you end up building the kind of credibility that eventually leads someone to reach out.
Keep in mind, too, that the most popular search isn’t necessarily the most valuable one for your work. A broad search might be made by thousands of people who have no real connection to what you do, while a narrower, more specific question often comes from someone much closer to becoming a client, a supporter, or a subscriber. Someone searching “boutique inns in [your region]” may still be exploring their options, while someone searching “book a room at [your inn’s name]” is probably ready to make a reservation — and both of those searchers deserve something useful waiting for them.
Meet People Where They Are in the Process
Someone who has just realized they have a problem isn’t necessarily ready to hire you, buy from you, or donate on the spot. They may first need to understand the problem itself, explore their options, or figure out whether they need a solution at all, and what you share can meet them at whichever point they’re standing.
Phase One: Initial Exploration — People are usually just trying to understand something. They’re figuring out where to begin, and they may not even have the right words for what they’re looking for yet. A straightforward, judgment-free explanation gives them a place to start without asking anything of them yet.
Phase Two: Weighing Options — People start comparing what’s available. They want to know what approaches exist, what mistakes others commonly make, and how a process works from start to finish. An article that walks through those questions helps them make sense of the choices in front of them.
Phase Three: Practical Decisions — People’s questions turn practical. They want to know about pricing, timing, what’s included, and what to expect if they decide to move forward. Answering those questions plainly, without burying them in a sales pitch, is often the most generous thing you can do.
Not everyone moves through these stages the same way, and you don’t need something written for every possible scenario. The goal is simpler: understand the questions that matter most to the people you want to reach, and answer them honestly.
A Better Way to Be Found
Being found online was never really about appearing in more places or posting more often. It’s about being found by the right people and being truly useful to them when they’re trying to understand a problem, weigh their options, or decide what to do next. Understanding the people you’re trying to reach makes everything else easier, because their questions become your ideas, their hesitations show you what needs more explaining, and their searches reveal exactly how they’re looking for you in the first place.
Nothing you publish exists in isolation. A single blog article can help someone discover you through a search, understand what you offer, click through to your website, and take the next step toward becoming part of your community — and that same thread can run through your social media, your email list, and everywhere else you connect with people.
You don’t need to publish more simply to stay visible. You need the right thing in front of the right people, at the exact moment it can help them. That, more than any calendar or algorithm, is a better way to be found.
Sources
¹ Andrew Davis, “Content, relationships, trust, success” Collective Content
² Marcus Sheridan, They Ask, You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer
³ Google Search Central, July 7, 2026
