Who Is My Audience?
Advertising pieces are audience-driven tools. They are extensions of an organization's brand's promise to customers. I have been fortunate enough to be on the developing end of communication pieces that address the needs of the businesses and organizations that I represent, and the needs of their prospective clients and stakeholders.
My strategy for developing advertising copy that gets results is to first identify the overall goal. Oftentimes short-term goals have a different objective than long-term goals. If our overall contract is engagement to develop a branding campaign that raises awareness, it’s not uncommon that a client will have a short-term goal that drives traffic into their business, or enrollment into their classes. In reviewing this goal, I seek to answer the following:
- Who is my audience?
- Where are they?
- What need does this demographic have that my client can meet?
- Based on their lifestyle, how can my client’s product or service meet a specific audience need?
- What is it that I’m asking my audience to do?
- How can I make this action easy to accomplish?
After creating a profile-or multiple profiles-of my audience, I identify rhetorical appeals that I can employ to generate compelling copy. This step is often missing in standard agency copywriting where they take a market approach that fails to take into account rhetorical techniques.
I then review other pieces that have been done in the space in which I’m writing. Again, I love the idea of building upon other texts. When audiences are in need of a product or service, the outcome desired is the same: an improved situation. So whether it’s a college education, or the attaining of a GED®, or banking services, audiences want a “better” from any new experience they have with a product or service. I keep that in mind as I’m reviewing muses for the intertextuality they bring to the process.
The following represents a sampling of advertising pieces that I have developed as a member of The Design Group team. I am pleased to have shared these pieces with my clients and the public across my nine-year career.
Outcomes Addressed
Analyzing a variety of rhetorical situations:
- Writing for audiences and contexts other than teachers and classes