The Importance of Knowing Your Audience

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1 The Importance of Knowing Your Audience Tanja Vesala-Varttala Principal Lecturer in Marketing and Communication RDI Coffee on 24 April 2018: How to make a difference and create content that captivates

2 Knowing your Audience is Key to Success A brand needs to be meaningful & useful to its audiences Audience: What s in it for me? Captivating brand stories are those that satisfy and exceed the needs and wants of the audience How do you know what your audience finds captivating? Empathy & imagination & research needed Branding is about doing things tell stories about action and purpose with emotional resonance

3 Attending to Multiple Audiences Make audience profiles and prioritize them: you cannot reach everybody with the same message Priority to the most important customer group (based on profitability) Audiences may have diverging or conflicting interests Make sure you do not alienate any customer group with your stories Stories are exchanged between people, never between organizations or target groups

4 Customer & User Personas Based on audience profiles, draw up lifelike customer personas Example from a student project: institutional decision-maker Jukka Based on Jukka s needs & expectations, make a content plan Identify key words (SEO!) Plan and produce content that stands out and resonates with Jukka Identify channels where Jukka spends time and is likely to engage with your content Produce content for the right channel at the right time (analytics helps)

5 Appreciates in a business partner: *Proactive approach *Professional time management *Cost-efficiency *Minimal inconvenience to users during renovations *Active cooperation and dialogue *High-quality work *Ability to attend to client needs *Fast reaction to feedback *Energy efficiency *Adaptable longterm solutions Interested in politics Values goodquality service and cost-efficiency Ambitious, to-the-point, communicative, matterof-fact, well-informed, critical thinker Family, national wellbeing, social responsibility Wellconnected Wants to play it safe Tries to keep up with digital transformation EXAMPLE: -Jukka Virtanen -MSc (Econ.) -48 years -Institutional decision-maker (real estate development) -Ilmarinen -Married with 2 children -House by the sea in Espoo -Lakeside summer cottage -Floorball enthusiast

6 Arvostaa: *Aktiivisuutta ja ammattitaitoa *Aikataulun pitävyyttä *Kustannustehokkuutta *Remontin aikaisten haittojen pienuutta käyttäjille *Hyvää yhteistyötä ja viestintää *Työn korkeaa laatua *Tarpeiden kuuntelua *Nopeaa reagointia palautteeseen *Vastuullisuutta ja energiatehokkuutta *Ratkaisujen monikäyttöisyyttä pitkällä aikavälillä Kiinnostunut politiikasta Arvostaa asiakaspalvelua ja laatua, pyrkii säästämään Kunnianhimoinen, suorasanainen, hyvät vuorovaikutustaidot, asiallinen ja kriittinen faktaihminen Perhe, suomalaisuus, hyvinvointi, yhteiskuntavastuu Laajat verkostot Haluaa pelata varman päälle Yrittää pysyä mukana digitalisaatiossa EXAMPLE: Jukka Virtanen, KTM 48 v Rakennuttajapäättäjä Ilmarinen Vaimo, 2 lasta, omakotitalo Espoossa, mökki Saimaalla, harrastaa salibandya

7 Brand Storytelling People are busy and their social media feeds are exploding the only way to get their attention is to incite an emotional connection Tell meaningful stories that provide added value and make your audience feel something Stories about real action: showing is more efficient than telling The aim: to build an engaged community around your stories The ultimate aim is to convert your community into participating in your action and in your stories Call to action helps

8 To captivate your audience, you need: empathy and imagination research and analytics emotional connection (storytelling) call to action

9 5 steps Find out the audience profiles of your organization and prioritize them Draw up customer personas describing members of your audiences Decide the objective, style and tone of your content on the basis of the needs and wants of your customer persona (not your own needs and wants) Tell stories that reach your audience and have emotional impact Encourage and invite your audience to join your story