Content isn’t king, your audience is

In my first-ever news writing class, back in my first year of studying journalism at Magill, we were told to write a news story as if we were writing for a 12-year-old reader.

I was 17 at the time, and probably pretty contemptuous of tweenies, so I remember being a bit confused by this direction.

However, all these (many) years later, I realise we were actually being coached to always put our audience first. As an editor, when my cadet or young reporters were struggling to find the right intro par or lead and write a story, I used to ask them: “Imagine going home tonight and explaining your story to your mum; how would you start? What words would you use? Now have a crack at writing that.”

As a communications practitioner or professional, I and my colleagues always think in this order: Audience, Channels, Content. Whereas our clients tend to think just about Content – as in what they want to say, announce or launch.

Words mean little, if you don’t fashion them to the person you’re trying to speak to.

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Who are you talking to? What do they want to hear? What makes sense to them? What’s in it for them? Why should they care?

It’s all about the audience and it always has been. They are the king.

Understand your audience

Every piece of communication, internal or external, media or customer, client or supplier, family member or friend, needs to be shaped for the recipient.

Understanding your audience isn’t just about gender, ages and locations, what are their likes and dislikes, their interests and how do they best consume information?

Who is reading your current content, is anyone? Gather data or analytics on traffic, engagement and use.

What is your best-read content? Have you ever asked your target audience questions about what topics, news or content they like from you?

What questions do your customers raise with your salespeople, call centre or customer service?

For a while in The Advertiser and Sunday Mail newsroom, we actually had life-size colour cut-outs of our typical readers – one for each of the audience segments – as a reminder to all of us in the newsroom who were actually writing for. If creating personas or archetype audience helps, by all means.

Cut-through comes from actually listening

There is so much content being generated around us and at us that most people think it’s the volume that will help them get heard. Before you create and publish content, think about why what you want to say might be of interest to your audience. What’s in it for them? How will it help them?

Cross-channel approach

Getting in front of the right people, the right way. Once you’ve determined your audience, and have in mind how to speak to them, the tone to take, you should plan to push out your content on the channels your audience use, not the ones you are used to. Use all touchpoints to reach them. You might hear someone refer to this as an “integrated” approach. Be consistent, ensure the messaging is seamless and similar across all of them. Nothing wrong with some people getting repeat messaging.

Stand out from the crowd

Just because you now know your audience and are reaching out to them on the channels they most consume, your messaging still needs to be presented in the best possible way. Get creative. Think visual. It could just be ensuring your image is actually focus sharp. Create videos or reels. Introduce an interactive element.

Importantly, preview your content before it goes out. Can’t tell you how many EDMs I get where the font size is too small to read on my laptop or phone or the text is TLDR – too long didn’t read.