We hear this a lot, and it can become repetitive. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
In the past, I’ve encountered a lot of people who wanted to bypass this step simply keep their audience 'in-mind' only.
By understanding my audience, my team and I at Brown Gyal Diary were able to develop pieces of content that has had over 100,000 Instagram shares across the world, allowing us to have an engaging and responsive group of followers and supporters.
When I first started Brown Gyal Diary, it was my first dive into thoroughly comprehending why this step of marketing development was critical. I needed to find creative ways to connect and keep them engaged. I wanted to go beyond the surface.
In my case, I fit the persona of who I wanted BGD to cater to, so it made things a bit easier. However, I knew that all Indo-Caribbean women did not have mirroring experiences so I needed generalize this target group to better understand how BGD could support them.
Here are 3 things I did to better understand my target audience:
1. I called over 50 individuals who I believed generally fit my potential audience.
I was told in order to understand your audience, you need to speak to them. There is always more to know. When I first started BGD, I put out a call on my social media platforms asking my followers if I could set up calls with them to better understand the following:
What are some of the struggles you had with being an Indian, Caribbean woman?
What do you need from the community?
What kind of stories would you like to hear?
By doing this, I was able to draw similarities and understand a general overview of my core audience. I took tons of notes from the calls and began identifying some key pieces of information I noticed the women would mention.
For example, a lot of the women mentioned the lack of representation for our community, lack of connection to their history, and the misinterpretations of Indo-Caribbean's entirely.
2. I brainstormed my organization goals to be sure it aligned with the audience I wanted to connect to.
Outlining my organization goals gave me a moment to ask myself if it aligned with my audience. I was giving myself a bird’s eye view on who I was speaking to and what I was saying.
I set a mood to put it all together. I lit candles, got nice pens, markers, and chart paper, and began to develop a clear outline on what direction I was taking my organization, but with my audience in mind.
I made sure the two aligned.
3. Created an audience persona chart
We have all heard this one, and this is the part that no-one ever wants to do. I took all the pieces from the two items above, and I began to develop a clear persona of my audience. This part was my favourite because you are painting a picture of who you want to connect with. It can be both the hardest and easiest part depending on how much research you’ve done prior to getting to this point. You can find a ton of audience persona forms online, but HERE’S MINE.
In this section, you may ask yourself the following questions:
What is your persona name?
How old is the person?
What is their level of education?
Where do they reside?
What are their favourite TV shows?
What are their interests/hobbies?
What problem are you solving for them?
Spend 2-3 hours and design your audience persona. It becomes a point of reference later on when making sure your work makes sense.
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Knowing my audience changed the game for Brown Gyal Diary. We were able to continually build a community that people could trust and come to for answers. Knowing my audience kept my vision and mission clear and aligned with everything we put out.
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