Who among us is obsessed with audience? If you’re a content writer or copywriter, you likely spend a lot of time thinking about the personas or audience avatars that we’ve created for our outreach. (Greta, 32-year-old marketer in charge of social media and impact reports for a small college in Western Canada, passionate about storytelling and a knitter in her spare time). But how often do we revisit these characters, update their values, and think about what they want from us? Here are a few steps we can take to keep our personae fresh:
Updating periodically
The best we can do is keep a file on their interests and look out for our regular inspiration sources for articles about the audience. Think about how your persona would react to various changes in the industry or political situations and how their workload differs at different times of the year. By taking the time to build out their profiles on different subjects, we make them even more real, and we are less likely to base our outreach on tired information. What does 20-year-old Ali think about AI and the American political climate right now?
Meeting audience and surveying them
This feels like a big task, but meeting your ideal audience doesn’t always have to involve a big focus group or a long and formal survey. I just completed a short survey by a magazine looking for ideas on what story topics to write about. The survey offered a gift card as an added incentive, and the questions didn’t take much time to answer. I was willing to help. Another way to survey your audience can be to add a couple of questions when speaking with clients informally. For example, ask about their plans for the next few months, what content forms they like or are exploring, and what they’re reading lately.
Offering something different
Experimentation is so much easier now with metrics, so try testing new content types and see how your audience avatars react. If you’ve always offered longform blogs, try a short blog with bullets. Or a video. Then see how your people react. When a new form works, add it to the mix.
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