Research your audience, too

You know what you’re going to write about and you know what you’d like to accomplish. You are all set to disseminate, persuade, or inform with your writing.

Before you start, remember that you are writing to communicate with your readers.

First things first

In order to communicate effectively, you need to understand to whom you are talking, and I can prove it.

You are likely familiar with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, those dot-delimited numeric addresses (like 123.45.76.201) that tell the rest of the world exactly where your computer lives on the network so that you can receive e-mail and chat instantly with buddies all over the world. Now, imagine you have to give a 15-second explanation of IP addresses to a friend in business school who is not a computer scientist, but is your age, has used computers, and has tinkered a little bit with the hardware. Sketch out your explanation.

Now, imagine explaining the same concept to your mother who is retired from social work and only used a computer for e-mail occasionally at work.

When you sketch out your explanation for her and compare it to the one you offered your friend, you’ll see marked differences. Why, and why is this significant?

Networks and postal addresses

Being an IT person, I’ve actually done this exercise, more than once. My friend knew the basics of what a network is, the hardware involved, and was comfortable with e-mail and the Web. So my explanation to him centered on computing concepts, leveraging things he already knew. My mom, on the other hand, is not so comfortable with what’s under the hood of her computer and doesn’t really care how any of it works. I explained IP addresses to her by comparing the numeric address to the postal address of her house, something to which she could easily relate.

Different audiences, different needs

The concept in both cases is the same, but it is explained to the two different audiences in two different ways.

In each case, the explanation offered built on the perspective and sophistication of the audience and tried to relate the concept being explained to concepts that were already familiar. In this way your audience is led from an understanding of familiar concepts to the new material you are trying to communicate, traversing your explanation as the bridge between old and new.

Research your audience

You should always research your audience (not just your topic!) as much as possible before you begin writing. The degree to which you understand them—what they know, what they want to know, and why they want to know it—determines the degree to which you will be able to craft a document that presents the new information to them in a way that is easy to understand and leads them to take the action that you desire.