MESSAGING: You Are Not Your Target Audience

Interesting reminder by way of Politics and Technology. A small investment in understanding how your audience talks about your issue and the real words they use can pay off big. Everything from press releases to the navigational structure of your website should reflect the language and perceptions of your audience, not the knowledge level or organization structure of your group. Learning the language of your audience can involve setting up focus groups or be as simple as checking your site search logs to see the terms people are using to find your content. Remember, you are not your target audience.

Do you know what ‘reproductive’ means to regular people? Have you checked in with your target audience on that? We asked our target audience and we were told ‘reproductive’ meant having babies. They also told us that ‘clinic’ meant dirty and substandard. And they told us that nurse practitioners were nurses in training — not real nurses yet. Which was a real shame, since our print ads at the time basically said: ‘Come to our clinics for reproductive health care from caring nurse practitioners.’

This campaign was aimed at 18- to 24-year-old guys. I’m 50. If I had only consulted with my own instincts, I would have been wrong at every single stage of this campaign. [ Low Hanging Fruit ]