5 Postcard Tips To Understand Your Audience
Imagine yourself in front of a group of fifty year olds. First, you make a joke about a musician who only recently became popular then proceed to talk about issues around the world as it relates to social media (twitter) right before you give them a talk on its effective usage. You have just succeeded in losing every single person in that room. Geoff Hart (2005) Society for Tech communication, ‘almost any attempt to understand your audience will yield results’.
Knowing your audience, and in that same vein, understanding your audience, increases exponentially your chances of being successful in anything. Researching the demographic, implementation of strategies to reach your desired audience, the kind of media preferred by the demographic, the combination of words that make them tick, and the appropriate manner of dealing with your consumers once they are fully within your grasp.
Scout your demographics
It is imperative to know all you can about those you are reaching out to. Know their age, the media platforms they use, words they continually use, lifestyle choices and what their daily life would look like. This research would go in-depth into the demographics of your intended audience. Failure to gather information needed to carry this out would bring about a wastage of your resources when you are ready to activate. All you are able to gather before hand would go a long way to helping you.
Get up close :
This is getting personal with your audience. There must always be an open line of communication between you and your customers. Here is where your research done would come in handy. Having the frame work of who your ideal customer is you must endeavor to interact with them. 1. Who is organizing this event/ promo, presentation? 2. What gets the attention of your customers: what makes them afraid? What do they love to hear? what excites and brings them to action?
There is no general template for dealing with your audience, so you must look at where interests overlap within your audience.
Feel the room
Comedians when they tour different countries have the problem of finding the right jokes for the audience. The same jokes that make a Nigerian audience laugh, would fail woefully in Germany and this is because their everyday life is different in Europe. What a great comedian would do is to feel the room, probe various subjects and wait for your audience to react is it politics, really, religious, fashion, every day life situations that make them tick. Once you get it, don’t let go and ride the the wave to get the best out of your audience.
Do not talk over people’s heads :
Despite the fact you are giving a quality product, service, or you are the master in your domain (you know all there is to know about a particular field) you must tone it down for those in your audience to enable the better understand what you are talking about. You must actively engage your audience and if this means dumbing down your work for global comprehension. You might be confident and slick in your activation or presentation, however you risk losing your audiences attention if you are too complex.
Its not about you :
How many times have we made the mistake of thinking something is good (for us) we do this same thing for someone else and the person does not appreciate it. This principle pervades life itself. Even if we think we are doing the greatest good for people and they are not able to feel a part of the process (like you are doing it for yourself alone) they would not appreciate it. Hence when dealing with your customers you must know they are the center of attention and if you need to bring in something new must make sure they are on board.
