Who Is My Audience? Should I Base My Audience on Data or Depth?

A client recently share how thrilled she was by the work we had done together to get clarity on her ideal client.?

Not only could she see clearly who they were, but she was also using the language we had helped develop to speak to them directly and personally. She was using what she learned in our ideal audience exercise to deepen the way she was serving her clients and to gain more clients who were more aligned with the work she loved.

This depth is my hot take for you: If you’ve taken a superficial, transactional approach to audience work in the past, it’s time to rethink that strategy. In fact, you may want to ditch it entirely.?

It may actually be alienating your people from finding you.?

We do not construct target market avatars (I eschew that term because it is so dehumanizing, and leads to use of language that is disrespectful and anxiety-inducing more on that here).?

Instead, our audience practice centers around deep inquiry into our ideal audience, the humans we want to invite, welcome and nurture in our businesses.

An audience is people who have the potential to become admirers or devotees; to have an audience means to give opportunities to deeply listen.

For me, audiences are like honored guests to my home or to a thoughtful performance I have carefully prepared.

Unlike other approaches, we base our discussion on ideal audience on actual people you have worked with, not on data like age, sex or income level. We speak about their characteristics, who they are as human beings, and then we examine the context they find themselves in. This often leads to a discussion about how they are feeling in the moments before they come looking for you.?

Then we give your audience a specific, tailored descriptive phrase so it makes speaking to them and about them, easier.?(As an example, we call our Root + River audience the intentional defiers, "The Defiers" for short -- people who want to change their industry, their community or the world using their brand.)

The phrase reminds us of all that went into our discussion and everything that is in the soul of the audience itself.?

It’s lovely work and it takes our clients deep into the hearts, souls, and minds of the people they want to connect with.?

Overstimulated and overly avaricious by the ability to use data to hit people up and sell leads and ads, the marketing industrial complex, guided by social media outlets like Twitter, Google and Facebook, has worked hard to convinced us to reduce audience to data.?

Resist the urge to think of your clients in a transactional way. Resist the urge to reduce the human beings seeking your help to swipes, recurring payments or algorithmic possibilities.?

Instead, make it part of your practice to deeply consider who your audience is based on the humans on Zoom, in your inbox, and paying your invoice. (If you don’t, you’re going to end up more and more removed from your audience, giving them a lot of motivation to look for another provider.)?

Try this: Pretend you were going to invite your favorite client into your home for a meal or an overnight visit. Consider how you would describe this person to your family. Think about what you might prepare in advance to be sure they were comfortable. Or, go further, and schedule a visit with your client to conduct what I call The Very Human Check-in.

Be a good listener. Be emotionally available and intelligent. Find out where they are, what they are worrying about, what delights them, what they find the greatest value in, and learn how they want to interact better with you.?

Final thoughts: Combined with the other aspects of our thoughtful, intentional brand strategy, ideal audience is a beacon for that audience to find you.?Therefore it needs to be rooted in deep knowledge of the people you serve. To help be find-able to your audience, it's fine to use what you know about your audience to thoughtfully and intentionally do some conscious marketing using technology, but don't expect a data-driven marketer to provide that depth. That's something you need to enter into that marketing discussion already having.

Your audience is the people and opportunities who are already looking for you. Your job is to speak dearly and directly to them – with depth.