Audience - Again and Again and Again

The most important consideration when writing is who your audience is. What you write, including your message, your style, the language you use, the concepts you mention or explain, is all determined by who your audience is. Writing is not about you at all. Sure, you're the conduit, and it might be your unique message you're conveying. But it's the audience who matters. You're connecting your message to them.

So, you always need to be asking yourself these questions about your audience:

• Who is my audience?
• What do they already know?
• Do they need to know what I'm telling them?
• Are they familiar with this concept?
• Do they need more background information?
• Have I given too much background information?

A virtual assistant writing website copy about her social media services needs to understand how social-media savvy her audience is. How much jargon can she use? Does she need to explain terms like hashtags, tiny URLs, and Tweets? This means she might need to do more research into her audience (in this case, potential clients). Have they just heard about social media, know they need to get involved, and need her services to do so? Or are these potential clients already involved in social media and just need someone to take over their social media campaigns? The answers to these questions and others help the virtual assistant decide exactly how she'll present her services.

A business coach writing a book on marketing needs to understand her main audience. Are they male or female? At what stage of their business are they? A brand-new business owner has different marketing needs from a business owner who is in her tenth year in business.

A business owner working on her website needs to be creative in writing headlines. An "About Me" or "Welcome to XYZ Business" is *not* about the reader. The business owner needs to get into her reader's mind and speak directly to her reader's needs. What is the reader looking for? What problems does she have? How can the business owner solve those problems?

An author writing an article on veiled babies, or babies born with a caul, needs to know the publication's audience. If this was a publication specifically about this medical issue, the author may not need to explain or define veiled babies or caul. However, if the publication and/or audience is more general, then some definition is in order.

What this means is that you might have to make some pretty concrete decisions about your audience. Yes, we would like to say that anyone can read your book, benefit from a marketing product, or peruse your website. The truth is that it's actually easier to write when you have a concrete, detailed picture of your reader. It's much harder to write for everyone. That doesn't mean that other people can't read your book or buy your product. What it means is that your words, style, explanations need to fit one specific reader. Then everyone else can just follow along.