The notion of “audience” can be perplexing. It is key to business writing and promotional writing, but is often hard to pin down. I often advocate knowing who your audience is, what their needs are, and how you can help them. This targeting process ensures your writing will be accessible to the people you want it to impact. In other posts, I describe various methods for identifying and getting to know them. But, if you narrow it down to 10,000, 1,000, 100, or even 10, that’s still a lot of people. How can you please them all?
The answer is, you don’t have to. In fact, you should really be writing with only ONE person in mind: your persona. A persona is a person you actually invent especially for this purpose, a composite projection of your target market and audience, someone you should directly address every time you write. This strategy ensures that you are writing only to the people you can best serve. Here are some ideas for developing and using a persona:
Who’s Your Favorite?
Come on, admit it, you have a favorite customer or client. It’s OK, we all do. That person who is a pleasure to work with, who you have a great rapport with, who you would want around even if they weren’t paying you. Start a list of professional qualities that this person has, such as “pays on time,” “good communicator,” “refers us to others.” Really think about why you like this person so much, and try to pinpoint specific qualities. You can use this method with more than one person as well: simply create a composite list of qualities you like in several customers or clients. Of course, no one is perfect, so also think of qualities you WISH they had.
Get Personal
Include personal qualities as well. The qualities can be real or made up, but the more specific you can get, the better. Your goal should be to have a picture in your mind of an actual person. Does this person like rainy days? Is she a baseball fan? Does he have children? If so, how many? What kind of car does she drive? Where does he live? What kinds of books does she read? What’s his favorite movie? How old is she? You get the idea.
Provide Value
When you have listed a good number of professional and personal characteristics, a clear picture should emerge. Give your persona a name. Say your persona’s name is Lewis. Now, ask yourself what value you can offer Lewis. What questions does he want answered when he reads your materials? What are his concerns? What will it take to address those concerns? What will it take for Lewis to become a customer or client? Use the answers to these questions to guide the information you provide.
Keep Building
Continue to add to your list and refine your persona. Be sure to adjust for changes in your business, your field, and the economy. You may want to set aside some time to revisit your persona a few times per year.
Fear Not
You are narrowing down the profile of your ideal customer or client, in order to attract people who are more loyal and better suited to work with you than if you try to be everything to everyone. Resist the temptation to fear that you will be leaving money on the table by leaving people out.
Do you have a persona? Tell us about him or her in the comments.
About the Author: Karen Marcus, M.A. is a Northern Colorado copywriter who has been helping clients in a wide range of industries to put their best word forward for 13 years.
Need assistance developing a persona? Karen can help! Click here for contact info.
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Such a great post! People often fear narrowing down their audience, but they don’t realize that if they don’t focus in on their ideal client, then they’re unlikely to reach them effectively. I’ve been to so many events where someone introduces themselves and says something like, “I do facials, so my ideal client is anyone who has skin.” Statements like that target everyone but also miss everyone.
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