For comms success, make a commitment to your target audience from the get-go
Adapted from the talk ‘Collaboration in Comms: Investing in and Engaging with your Target Audience’ at the Sheffield Granicus event, 20 June 2019
It’s both a joy and a peril these days that audiences have the power to call you out on your work as a communicator. Within moments of pressing ‘publish’, we’re aware of how something lands, and if you’re anything like me, there have been overwhelmingly busy times in the past where you just have to cross your fingers and hope that you’re not the next ‘Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad’ (or more recently, the European Super League).
It’s funny that even mega corporations with the money and the time to complete a wealth of market research and focus group activities still get it wrong sometimes, which makes me think that there’s some flaws in the focus group procedure.
The ‘focus group flaw’, I believe, is down to where they fit into the process. Normally, the comms process looks something like this:
- Identifying a target audience
- Planning promotional content
- Creation of content
- Focus group engagement/tweaks based on feedback
- Sign-off
- Promotion to target audience
By stage 4, you’ve done most of the work. By stage 4, you’ve probably spent most of the budget (if you have one), and spent hours on copy and design. Not to mention that the senior team have already bought into it by stage 4 and want to launch as soon as possible.
Though stage 1 might give you some basic key characteristics to target to, it’s not the same as knowing the audience, being the audience. Which is why co-creation and engagement from the start of the process is not just a ‘nice to have’ any more. We need to start looking at co-creation of comms around stage 2.
I had the amazing opportunity to co-create with Chilypep, the Children and Young Person’s Empowerment Project. Members of their mental health action group for young people (called ‘STAMP’) had been working with NHS Sheffield CCG (where I worked at the time) and Sheffield City Council to create a new online resource. The new Mental Health Passport aimed to make the transition between children’s and adult mental health services much easier.
As the resource itself had been co-produced, we decided that the promotion of the resource should be co-produced too. Honestly at first I found it hard to let go of the reins a bit, but quickly I learnt three golden rules:
- Shut up and listen
- Then add your comms expertise
- Repeat points one and two
Sure, there were definitely points where I helped to steer the ship, but if I’d had my way, the promotional leaflet would have looked something like this, completely ‘on brand’, professional and NHS-levels of reassuring. But the group had a more creative idea, to develop a zine.
What we came out with was something much more exciting and engaging, particularly for the target audience. The pages were colourful, friendly and provided the group the space to put everything in their own words. And why should any of this be a surprise, considering it was directed by exactly the type of people the resource was made for?
Not only was this what was right for the project, but it was a bit of a wake up call for me, that I’m not always the biggest comms expert in the room. Maybe if we had more of these experiences, comms and marketing would avoid any ‘how do you do, fellow kids’ situations. It also meant that we had a group of ‘brand ambassadors’ completely briefed and engaged to spread the word to their peers from day one.
It has been great to see other organisations make co-creation part of their practice, The Children’s Society developing a new brand font with their service users, for example. Let’s continue to make time to include audiences from step one: not only will it save time and Twitter warfare, but it’s the right thing to do.
You can find out more about Chilypep by visiting the website.
