#2 Know Your Audience
Plus Crisis Comms, the danger of 'Storyfication' and what Prince Harry can teach us about office dynamics
Last week I opened by talking about two-way communication.
This week I thought it might be helpful to expand on how to put an ‘audience-first’ approach into practice.
Know Your Audience
On Black Friday 2015 US outdoor adventure chain REI decided to shut their doors and take to social media to implore their audience to do the same and #optoutside.
It was a bold, risky move.
There was every chance REI’s message could have been lost, along with their sales. Instead, the company tapped into a zeitgeist – a cynicism amongst their customers towards the hyper-commerciality of Black Friday.
In the end this risky move proved to be a winning strategy.
Not only did REI build trust and empathy with their key audience, the company gained acres of free, positive coverage and a 25% uplift in traffic to their online site.
Now, I’m not suggesting that every brand – or leader – should execute a plan as audacious as REI.
But what I am saying is that you need to really know your audience if you are going to engage with them in a meaningful way. What they are thinking; the culture they inhabit; the conversations they are having.
REI understood their audience so well they were able to get ahead of the conversation.
Tips to understand your audience
Content marketing, engaging social media, great press coverage, internal comms which leads to change – all stem from knowing your audience.
And knowing your audience doesn’t just influence what you create, but how you create it - and where you ship it.
For instance, if you’re writing for an expert audience, forget the lengthy background section and jump straight to the juicy bit.
Time-poor audiences will appreciate short, sharp, punchy mobile-friendly content, whereas an informed audience might want a longer-form, more complex blog-post.
So how do we define our audiences? Here are some useful tips:
Establish your purpose. What outcome do you want to achieve? I tend to use three categories – Inform, Educate and Act.
- Inform is just that. It’s time to fill in your annual review. Submit your tax form. We’re hosting an event on Tuesday night.
- Educate raises the bar. Here’s how you conduct an annual review, or the information you’ll need to fill in your tax form. It’s the brilliant, funny, thought provoking discussion at your event. You are adding to the sum of a person’s knowledge.
- Act. Shifting someone’s thinking to such a degree that they a) not only modify their behaviour, but b) actually act on it - this represents the holy grail for most communicators (here we’re talking culture change, driving sales, new business growth).
Review what’s already out there. Who is already writing on this issue? Has another department already pulled together some content, or communicated on this topic? What are competitors saying? Which journalists regularly comment on this subject?
Do some analysis. Outline your target group, gather as much information as you can. Who are they (age, background, defining characteristics), where do they hang out, where do they get their information, what formats do they prefer, who else do they follow, hear from, engage with, buy from? For internal comms, employee surveys are a seam of gold to mine. Externally it pays to hang out where your audience does. What do you notice? How knowledgeable are they about your subject matter, and what’s their attitude towards it?
Look to the horizon. Once you’ve established your primary audience, you can think about your secondary audiences. People outside your demographic who have ‘skin in the game.’ This is a great way to expand your reach, but is equally important for spotting emerging reactive issues - who might take a critical view of your content, strategy or actions?
Create an audience profile: likes, dislikes, attitudes, education, demographics, location.
List the areas you connect – as a leader, a brand, an individual: where are your common interests (subjects you are both passionate about such as customer outcomes, a better workplace, a societal or economic shift, a book genre). Think about what relevant experiences you can share (personal anecdotes, employee stories, content you’ve loved like a favourite film or interesting article).
Finally … deliver value for your reader. Be helpful. Be useful. Solve a problem. Point your audience in the direction of something interesting. Tell an entertaining story. (More to come on this in a future edition).
Truly understanding your audience and finding common ground helps establish credibility and trust.
Thought provokers
I came across some real gems this week.
First up. This article on crisis comms - The Ghosts of Groundhog Day - is one of the best I’ve read. Empathy plays a key role and the past is no predictor of the future.
Talking of which, I loved this quick 2022 Almanac from IPSOS Mori talking about the big events of 2022 and their impact on the audiences of 2023. This kind of curiosity about the world and its horizons are essential for risk - and opportunity - spotting.
Next is this interesting take on the storyfication of the internet, which argues we’ve relied too heavily on storytelling conventions to understand the world around us, which has resulted in a “narrative takeover of reality” that affects nearly every form of communication … The danger of this arises when the public fails to understand that many of these stories are constructed through deliberate choices and omissions.
“What do we want more, than to lie in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member?”
I’m increasingly wary of catch-all calls for ‘narratives’ - especially by corporate leaders. Often what’s produced isn’t a narrative, but at best a set of key messages. And at worst such narratives are a deliberate attempt to obfuscate - or obscure a lack of clarity or inaction - in the guise of nice sounding words.
Finally, I’m not passing comment on the Prince Harry saga – the online world is positively aflame with hot takes – but I did see this interesting tweet by Suzanna Zeedyk; “The fight between Harry & the Royal Family is an example of the Drama Triangle in full flow. A whole battlefield of Persecutors, Heroes & Victims ...” Which sent me to this video on the Drama Triangle - and a lost couple of hours on Saturday afternoon reading up on The Empowerment Dynamic by David Emeralds and Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle.
I’ve observed teams, departments and even whole organisations operating in the Drama Triangle. And hold my hands up to having done it myself. Two outcomes especially spring to mind: the toxicity of inter-departmental conflict and its impact on all involved - and a more recent phenomenon - senior leaders infantalising their employees by insisting on the absence of ‘bad news.’
That’s all for this week. I’d love to hear your thoughts – or tips – on defining audiences and my thought provokers.
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Rachel