Know Your Audience
The old adage “Know thyself” is not as valuable as “Know thy audience” when communicating to others. So many times we make creative or content decisions based on our own window to the world. I was at lunch with my peers last week and a fellow producer commented on a commercial that is on the air for a casino. He thought it was ridiculously bad, but his dad loved it. Guess what? Dad, a senior, is the target audience for that commercial. It doesn’t matter what we think about the message, it’s all about being effective with the audience who is receiving it.
At JPL, “Who’s the audience?” is one of our first questions we ask our customers. When the client says the target is “everybody” or “middle-aged men,” that’s not much to go on. We dig deeper. The more accurately we define who is receiving the message, the more effective we can be in shaping the message to their needs and interests.
Are we capturing the attention of GenY with an edgy web page and Flash animation or are we making an emotional connection with seniors with a video montage of flowing images, warm voice and easy listening music? We can’t assume. We will end up being disingenuous. Just because the audience is young African Americans, do we assume that they all want to hear hip hop music and street slang? And can we presume that just because they are seniors, they all like Lawrence Welk?
So, just how do we get into the heads and hearts of the people we are communicating with? It’s simple. Ask. We employ solid market research. There are a number of marketing resources on the Internet that can provide fee-based information about large target groups. We can also conduct focus groups. We conduct focus groups for our clients at JPL or partner with another provider. When the budget or time-frame is tight, we can implement informal surveys. For example, when developing a nurse recruitment message for a local hospital, we reached out to family and friends who are in the nursing profession.
We rarely communicate to the masses these days. Effective messaging, whether it’s about a product, brand, idea or organizational change, is about identifying the target audience and finding the best ways to talk directly to them. Many agencies and marketing firms have employed the use of a persona, a detailed representation of the target customer including gender, age, occupation, living situation, and even a name. If our persona is Fred, who is a 40 year old machinist with a wife and two teen age daughters, we can ask ourselves, “How would Fred react to this? Or would Fred buy this?”
The better we know our audience, what makes them tick or what ticks them off, the more effective we will be in educating, communicating, persuading, or selling our products, services and ideas to them. Our writers are able to create scripts with a “voice” that resonates with their readers. Our cinematographers and editors choose styles that are aligned with the message and audience. Our graphic artists make good decisions about whether fonts should be visually interesting or simple and easy to read. And, having a clearly defined audience can help prevent stakeholders from hijacking a project with their own personal biases. When the marketing director says, “I want detailed descriptions of our product line” and we respond by saying “your customers have told us they know your product line and are more concerned about service,” we speak with credibility.
So go forth and be “true to thy audience” and in so doing you will be helping your customers achieve the results they want.