The Design Business Show 207: Get To Know Your Audience Through Audience Research with Nadine Nethery

Nadine Nethery is the Founder of CAN DO! Content and a strategic website and email copywriter for female founders who want to intentionally attract, delight, and retain their dream customers.

Her strategic take on audience research and copy turns every brand touchpoint into genuine connections that drive sales, celebrate loyalty, and surround you with keen brand advocates who happily do the word-spreading for you.

Over the years, Nadine has given global e-commerce success stories, game-changing startups, and industry-disrupting service providers the words to shine and the strategies to build a sustainable business long-term.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Nadine Found Content Marketing + Copywriting

How Nadine filled out the pitch form on the design business show.com
Nadine’s specialty is Audience retention, research, and discovery
Nadine has always loved language and worked as a translator, then after moving to London, Nadine worked in customer service
After Nadine met her Australian husband, she moved to Australia and worked for the Volkswagen PR team for about 10 years
Then Nadine had a few babies and lost the job she loved to do
How Nadine went to work at Australia’s largest retailer, which didn’t fulfill her but gave her selling skills
In the search for what Nadine wanted to do, she discovered content marketing and copywriting, which intrigued her because she has always loved writing and language
The story of how Nadine found a couple of clients through social media and wrote any copy they threw her way
Nadine discovered it took a lot more to write copy than she originally thought, so she took many copywriting courses, which has changed her copywriting approach into a more strategic one
In late 2020, Nadine quit her corporate job to go full-time in her business, where she works with female founders to help with website and email copy that supports their audience
Nadine talks about having more of an impact in her own business than she did in the corporate world

Audience Research

Everything Nadine does is based on audience research – many clients believe they know their audience when they come to Nadine, but it’s usually very surface level
On Nadine’s website, she has a DIY Toolkit that gives templates and strategies for audience research
A good starting point is sending out a survey if you have an existing audience – starting with where they were at when they started working with you, what it was like working with you, any objections they had when working with you, and then you finish with tangible outcomes they had so that you can use that in your copy
Nadine says you should ask very strategic and open-ended questions so clients can explain their experience in their own words, which is gold for your copy
How Nadine works with eCommerce brands and service providers that are in different stages of their business
Nadine focuses on nurturing the audience to look at the bigger picture
Customers come to Nadine for her strategic insights, so she is currently doing everything herself without a team
In her business, Nadine will give design suggestions because she knows how important it is for copy and design to work together
Clients can find Nadine through her website or Instagram
Nadine talks about how to know if your audience is still aligned when you are making a pivot in your business by giving people a choice to opt in or opt-out
How you should clean your email list and social media regularly so you can make sure you are talking to the right people and getting better engagement
Mapping your customer journey is important so you can show up exactly where your audience needs
Nadine gives an example where one of her clients anticipates her customer needs by using past purchases to suggest different products
There are many lessons Nadine has learned along the way, but one big one is staying in your lane – everyone does things differently and shows up differently
Nadine is a big fan of automation and using Dubsado to automate processes in her business and audience research
Check out Nadine’s website and connect with her on Instagram
If you want to see what Nadine does, you can sign up to see Nadine’s Over The Shoulder Tutorial where she takes a project through client research to website copy