How to reach your target audience: a workshop with examples

Your website, your marketing, and your general business communication all have one ultimate purpose: to reach your target audience, meaning the people who are most likely to buy your products or services. 

To help you achieve this, we have created a workshop!

The workshop can be completed either individually or with your colleagues. 

After completing the workshop, you will have a tailored communication profile for your target audience. This will help you strengthen your marketing with content that resonates with the target audience, while maintaining your company’s identity and tone of voice. 

Before we get started, let’s quickly look at some fundamental factors that are important to remember when creating content aimed at a target audience. 

Audience-driven content

Audience-driven content is simply communication directed specifically at the audience you are trying to reach. The concept is straightforward, but what does it really mean for you as a communicator? 

A few factors need to be considered to achieve this: 

• Knowledge of your audience: The more you know about your audience, what they like, and what resonates with them, the easier it is to tailor your communication in a way that connects with them.
  
• Knowledge of the channel on which you are communicating:
  The way we communicate today varies depending on the channel we are on. For example, a long, text-heavy post will not perform as well on video-based platforms like TikTok as it would on the more professionally-oriented LinkedIn.

By starting with these two key factors in mind, you’ll begin the workshop with a good foundation for what content to create to reach your unique target audience. 

Let’s also quickly look at what it means to create content that has value for your audience. 

Content with value for your target audience

Whether you’re creating content for a newsletter, a social media channel, or your own website, it’s important to consider what value it has for your audience. 

The content obviously has value for you, as it is a tool designed to ultimately bring attention and sales to your business. However, the hard truth is that most of your potential customers are not particularly concerned with your company and its success; rather, they are concerned with themselves.  

Therefore, we must think about what we can offer the audience when we create content. 

Content with value for the audience can be divided into three main categories: 

• Content that inspires
• Content that entertains
• Content that informs

No matter who you are trying to reach, an audience that sees your content and then feels inspired, entertained, or informed is an audience you have successfully engaged. 

Consider your company identity

While the most effective way to reach your target audience is through audience-driven content, it must be balanced with maintaining your company’s identity and tone of voice. 

Your content should always be recognisable and consistent, as too many differing voices can appear unprofessional and risk a lower brand trust. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t vary between different media and content. It just has to be done while keeping this balance in mind.   

A good example of an organisation that achieves this balance is the UK Metropolitan Police, and their presence on the social media platform TikTok, where they publish short, informative clips with important messages. These help them connect better with a younger audience.  

In other words: work with a variety of content that doesn’t compromise the brand and its key values. 

Checklist

So far, we have looked at some important factors to consider when creating audience driven content. Take this checklist with you when you start the workshop. 

Audience-driven content should be: 

• Based on knowledge of your audience
• Based on knowledge of the channel you are communicating in 
• Content that has value for the audience; inspiring, entertaining, or informative
• Part of your brand; recognisable and with a consistent tone of voice, regardless of the channel in which the content is published

Now it’s time to start the workshop! 

Workshop – Part 1: Get to know your audience better

The workshop has begun! In Part 1, we’ll complete some tasks to help you understand your audience better. 

To complete this part, you will need: 

• A target audience to investigate 
• A place to record your findings 
• A computer, tablet, or phone with internet access for research 

Task: Use a persona or the information you already have about your audience and dig even deeper. Gather all the answers in a document. Set aside approximately 30 minutes for this task.  

What this research entails depends on what your audience looks like, but here are some examples of segments that can be elaborated: 

Age

The age group of your audience can influence how relevant your product or service is to them, how they use it, and what type of content suits them best. Investigating your audience’s age doesn’t necessarily just mean their chronological age. You can also delve into which generation they belong to. 

Some questions to get you started: 

• What are the typical characteristics of the age group your audience is in? 
• Does age affect how they use your products or services? 
• What challenges does this age group face in everyday life that your products or services can solve? 
• What channels does this age group typically use? For example, are they often on social media, or do they frequently read online news? 

Geography

It’s important to consider where your target audience lives. Location plays a major role in their identity and shapes who they are, both for practical reasons such as climate and due to access to cultural and political influences in the area. 

Read up on the place your audience is from, regardless of whether they cover a small or large area. 

Here are some questions to guide your research: 

• What is it like to live in this place? 
• How has this place developed over the years your audience has lived there? 
• What is available to the people who live there?  
  (Depending on what you sell, this can be anything from internet access, public transportation, proximity to other cities, or something entirely different) 
• Can your products and services help with a geographical challenge that your audience faces? 
• Does your product or service fit into the culture of the place? If yes, how can it stand out? If no, how can you introduce it as something that should fit in? 

Use these questions to delve deeper into understanding the geographical context of your target audience. This will help you tailor your content to better resonate with them, considering the unique aspects of their location and lifestyle. 

Interests

Understanding your audience’s interests is a broad field that covers a lot. How you approach this will depend on the specific interests involved. A common thread is that it is useful to have an in-depth understanding of what these interests entail. 

Consider the following: 

• What does a day with this interest look like? 
• How does this interest affect the audience’s social interactions? 
• Are there any specific activities or other products and services associated with this interest? 
• How does the audience stay updated and engaged in their interest? 
• How does this interest influence the audience’s identity and self-perception? 

These questions let you look deeper into what applies to the segments you’ve included in your target audience analysis.

Reflecting on the answers to these questions will help shape how the content and communication towards your audience can look, allowing you to connect with them on a more personal level. 

However, remember that no matter how deeply you look into your audience, the data you gather won’t apply to everyone. Like all other content, audience-driven content should be analysed, evaluated over time, and A/B tested. 

Consolidate your information

Now it’s time to gather all the information you have found. Structure your document so you have a clear overview or discuss with your colleagues to determine which information is relevant to carry forward. 

Having taken a deep dive into your target audience and gotten to know them even better, it’s time to look at the different channels you will use to reach them. 

Workshop – Part 2: Get to know your platforms

In part 2 of the workshop, we will focus on getting to know the platforms you will be using for communication. These can include anything from newsletters and forums to social media platforms. 

 To complete this part, you will need: 

• An overview of the platforms you communicate in, or plan to start communicating in 
• A place to record your findings 
• A computer, tablet, or phone with internet access for research 

Task: Create a list of the platforms where you publish content and use these as a starting point. Alternatively, or in addition, you can also focus on platforms where you know your audience often spends time. 

Dive deep into these channels and find out everything you can about them. Write down your findings and feel free to supplement with screenshots or images. Set aside approximately 30 minutes for this task. 

This is an important part of both the workshop and your marketing strategy in general because: 

• Users visiting a specific platform will have certain expectations and will be in a mode to receive the type of content that is typical for that platform. 
  
• Different platforms have different algorithms. These algorithms are based on rules set by the platform and automate what the platform looks for when choosing relevant content for users. Content that is tailored to these algorithms will have an increased chance of reaching a wider audience. 

Let’s get started!

Here are some questions to help guide your research: 

• What type of content do you typically see on this platform?  
• What does the platform itself say about its purpose and content focus? 
• Are your competitors or other businesses in the same industry on this platform? 
• If yes, what does their content look like? 
• What does inspiring content look like on this platform? 
• What does entertaining content look like on this platform? 
• What does informative content look like on this platform? 

Feel free to take screenshots of posts or content you find inspiring and add them to your findings. 

Workshop – Part 3: Brainstorming content ideas

Now it’s time to take off your researcher hat and tap into your creative side! In this part of the workshop, we will brainstorm ideas. The goal here is to be efficient and not exclude any ideas. 

To complete this part, you will need: 

• To have the findings from Part 1 and Part 2 fresh in your mind 
• Something to write on 
• A stopwatch (or the timer function on your phone) 

Task – part 1: Grab a pen and paper or open a document on your computer. Set the timer for three minutes. During these three minutes, write down everything you can think of. Nothing is too silly; it’s better to have too many ideas than too few. 

Spend three minutes on each question: 

• What content can I create that inspires our target audience? 
   
• What content can I create that entertains our target audience? 
   
• What content can I create that informs our target audience in a way that makes them feel the information is valuable? 

Task – Part 2: Review your notes. If you are doing the workshop with others, go through what everyone has written down and discuss together.

If you are doing the workshop alone, read through your notes and evaluate which ideas are worth taking forward. 

After the brainstorming session, you or your group will hopefully have a good starting point for exciting content that can be tested on your various platforms! 

Workshop – Part 4: Putting together your communication profile

You’re almost at the finish line! Now that you have all the pieces, it’s time to put together the puzzle that will be your tailored communication profile for audience-driven communication. 

To complete this part, you will need: 

• To have completed parts 1-3 of the workshop 
• A format to create communication profiles in, such as a Word document or on Canva 

Task: Collect and structure your data into a communication profile. 

Review all the information you have gathered and select the relevant findings for your target audience and the platforms they use.

Structure the profile in a format of your choice, whether it’s a text document or a more creative solution in Canva or another design tool. 

To give you a starting point, we’ve created an example of a communication profile. You can use this as a template, adjusting it to suit your needs and preferences. 

Example of a communication profile 

Target audience:
X.

Characteristics of the target audience: 

• Age: XX

• Geographic location(s): XX

• Interests: XX

Key findings about the target audience:

• Millenials: grew up with Z
• Interests: X, likely spend a lot of time on Y

Platforms the target audience uses: 

• List out platforms

One key sentence about the platforms: 

Linkedin: xxxx

Facebook: xxx

How can our content inspire this audience? 

xxxx 

How can our content entertain this audience? 

xxxx

How can our content inform this audience in a useful way? 

xxxx

Inspiration wall or mood board: 

Here you can insert images or screenshots of content that inspired you. 

All sections of the communication profile can and should be updated as you discover new insights. 

Workshop takeaways

We hope this workshop has helped you create a tailored communication profile that you can use to reach your target audience. Keep your communication profile handy and use it as a foundation for further content development.  

Remember to continuously update your plan as you learn more about your target audience and get even better insights into how best to reach out to it!