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Your Audience is Watching

To make the most of your website or web application you’ve got to know who’s going to be visiting it.

It’s not that difficult a question on paper, “who are we talking to?”; but somehow it always seems to get muddled, generalized or just not answered. Worse in large campaigns or across many small ‘random acts of marketing’ it gets copied and pasted from brief to brief, same as the last one even when the goals have changed.

I’ve sat on the side of the table asking the questions many times. It’s not uncommon for the client on the other side to claim their audience is everyone. I’ve heard them say it across a lot of industries from tourism to industrial manufacturing. I can’t tell you if it’s ego, wishful thinking or if they just don’t think it’s important - but I know it’s bad news.

We’re targeting men and women, 25-40 with education varying from high school to university and household incomes of 35 to 100 thousand a year.

What?

You can count the number of companies with products that have that kind of appeal on 1 hand.

Nope, chances are there’s a much smaller segment of the population you’re after. More importantly there’s a much smaller part of the population that’s willing to listen.

But that’s why we get hired. It’s our responsibility - the agency, account executive, developer, freelance designer, contracted project manager - to push back and insist that the audience be better defined.

It’s my experience that coming across the table and proclaiming, “No that can’t be right”, isn’t going to get you anywhere. To get that audience profile down you’ve got ask leading questions for your client.

• Who’s buying right now?
• Who do we want buying?
• What do your clients buy that you don’t sell?
• Where do they live?
• What do they do in their spare time?

You’ll notice there’s a lot of these questions you couldn’t answer without talking to a client personally. But in most places I’ve worked for there’s always a few people on their team that know these answers intuitively. They’re salespeople, receptionists, account managers & tech support people. Your client stakeholder can canvas these people.

In the early parts of a project, knowing your target audience is essential to determining the right next steps. Which tactics make sense, where the media should be bought, what bells and whistles are going to appeal, which technology options are viable: All of these things hinge on who you want to talk with.

Tagged with marketing, project management.