In PR and marketing it’s essential to know who it is you want to communicate with. We spend a lot of time and effort defining our audience – sometimes we even give them cute names such as Yuppie (young upwardly mobile professionals), Dinkies (Double Income No Kids) or Bobos (Bourgeois Bohemians). We think we know all about their lifestyles and purchasing habits – but how well do we really know them?
If you want to get to know your target audience you need to get out of your comfort zone. Try going to places you don’t normally go, take part in activities you wouldn’t normally do, and make a deliberate attempt to look at things from different angles. It’s all about engaging with people from all walks of life and getting to know their thoughts and motivations.
A simple but effective way to do this is to change your weekly grocery shopping routine. Deliberately choose a different supermarket and drive across town to another suburb that’s totally different to where you would normally shop. For instance, a spin around an inner city supermarket is always an eye opener if you want to see where the market for pre-prepared meals is. Look around, notice differences in what people buy and how they go about making their purchasing decisions. Heck – you could even talk to them if you’re in a chatty mood!
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone’s like you. Recently a ‘brief’ in NBR sagely pointed out that not everyone has a mortgage. It quoted figures suggesting that New Zealand has around 1.45 million private dwellings and that it’s estimated about 775,000 of these has a loan secured against them. The lesson is that not all Kiwis are ‘living in eternal fear’ of the Reserve Bank. In fact they may well be reaping the rewards of unusually high deposit rates. You don’t see much media coverage of that angle, do you? It’s very easy to assume we’re all being crippled by rising mortgage costs – the truth may be that the satisfied freeholders are just keeping their heads down in deference to those who are struggling. Interest rate rises can be either welcomed or feared – it all depends on your perspective.
There was recently a particularly sad example of how not understanding our target audience can mean we sometimes think we’re communicating clearly when the message that’s being received is something quite different.
We’re all familiar with the sad case of Folole Muliaga who died shortly after Mercury Energy switched off the power supply to the family home. Her daughter spoke at the inquest recalling a lecture a nurse had given her mother on healthy eating. The daughter said all they were told was to eat lots of vegetables and that this lecture made them feel like failures. Her most touching comment was that despite finding the lecture very upsetting, “I was very polite and nodded my head.”
It can be uncomfortable walking in another’s shoes, but the understanding and insight that’s generated can be very rewarding. Slip on an unfamiliar pair of shoes and get walking!
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