What is the audience going to do?
Knowing what your audience already knows is the first step to creating a message that will communicate information to them (rather than, say, at them or just near them). The next step is knowing what you expect the audience to do after you communicate with them.
So, ask yourself a couple questions:
- What is the audience going to do with the information I give them?
- What do they want to do?
- What do I want them to do?
Let’s go back to our example: the across-the-room microwave popcorn cooker.
Audience A: prides itself on understanding technology
Let’s say you are writing an article for the New York Times and this time you’ll be featured in the Technology section. People reading this section are generally interested in how things work, at least at a layman’s level.
They don’t just want to know that your new microwave heats stuff up across the room; they want to know how it works and why it’s better. What technological advancement have you wrought to make this possible? And they want to know how your technology changes the way things used to be done. So you’re probably going to want to explain how microwaves work to this audience based on what they want from the information you are giving them.
Audience B: doesn’t care about technology but wants a better lifestyle
On the other hand, consider writing a piece for the Times in the Lifestyle section. What this audience wants to know is how the new technology will change their experience with microwaves. How will it affect their lifestyle?
The odds are pretty good here that understanding how microwaves work now is not relevant to how your new technology will impact the consumer, and so you probably won’t explain it. Furthermore, and much to your dismay if you are in technology, you probably won’t even explain how the new technology works.
For this audience, folks aren’t trying to figure out how something works so much as they are assessing whether they should buy it, and so you shouldn’t focus at all on the technical details of your solution and why it is better than the others. The Lifestyle reader doesn’t care; don’t waste his time.
Focus instead on explaining how the new approach will make his life better, and why he should buy your technology.
Closing the gap between your goal for them and their goal for themselves
Incidentally, while you are answering these questions about what your audience is going to do with the information you’re giving them, you have a great opportunity to tune your content more finely if you are writing a document to persuade rather than to inform.
The opportunity is in the difference between the answers to the questions “What do they want to do?” and “What do I want them to do?” If these answers are different, you can use them to highlight the distance you must move your audience and to construct a plan for getting them to where you want them to be.
