2 builders who never spoke to each other

Research the audience from the traces it leaves

Instead of waiting on interviews you cannot schedule, read what the audience already publishes: the sites and shows it follows, the words it uses about itself, the job postings its employers write. A posting is a stated pain with budget attached, and a bio is the audience describing its own category for you.

The method

1. 01

   Run audience research off the traces people already leave online rather than waiting for interviews you cannot schedule.

2. 02

   For a far bigger sample than interviews can give you, query an audience research tool on a keyword your audience searches, a niche site they visit, or the words they use to describe themselves in their social bio.

3. 03

   Look up which sites, podcasts, social accounts and search terms your audience already uses, and run your competitors' audiences through the same check.

4. 04

   Read job postings in your buyers' industry, because a posting is a stated pain with a budget already attached to it.

5. 05

   Draw an influence map of who your buyers listen to and how they can be reached, so the planning question becomes where and to whom you should market rather than which keywords to bid on.

What it returned

• Amanda Natividad frames it as five questions: what they read and follow, what they think about the problem, what shapes their decisions, what they do on your site, and what tools they use; she lists no contact list, no team buy-in and no ten weeks of lead time as why interviews stall.

• A query for people with B2B marketing in their bio showed YouTube taking the largest share of that audience's visits and Quora heavily over-indexed against the average web user.

• Amanda Natividad uses this to test whether a platform still matters for a given audience, naming the shift from Twitter towards Bluesky and Threads and whether the audience really uses ChatGPT or Perplexity in place of search.

• Amanda Natividad browses Indeed, Wellfound and niche industry boards for where companies are putting resources and which tools they expect people to know; searching marketing in Los Angeles showed her the openings skewed to coordinators and producers.

Sources

• A One-Size-Fits-All Social Media StrategyAmanda Natividad · sparktoro.com · Go where your audience is. · 2024-06-19
• Audience Research Newsletter: Mini Buyer Persona; Podcast Pitch Advice; Influence MapsSparkToro · sparktoro.com · Use an influence map to guide your marketing strategy · 2026-04-21
• How to Find (Not Guess) Your Target Audience: A Data-Driven Approach - SparkToroAmanda Natividad · sparktoro.com · Industry and Market Trends · 2025-04-09
• The Fastest Way to Understand Your Audience Without Talking to Them - SparkToroAmanda Natividad · sparktoro.com · What “Understanding Your Audience” Really Means · 2025-05-08