Do you know your audience's little secrets? | Willow & Blake

Enough shouting into the void.

We’ve all been in conversation with that person who, chest puffed, speaks out as if addressing the whole room (aka the void).

You want to tap them on the shoulder and say hey, I’m just here. 

The same thing applies to your audience. No one likes to be shouted at or bombarded with impersonal information. We like to feel known and appreciated. As a brand, it’s your job to know your audience as well as you knew (read: stalked) your childhood crush.

And by that, we mean striving to know their favourite music, what car they hope to drive one day, what time they go to sports practice and why they love licking Cheetos dust off their fingers. 

We do not mean categorising your target market as a female aged 25-40. Think how much you changed in one or two years—and how your views, shopping habits, and dating preferences reflect this. 

In brief, don’t lump a demographic together, wrap a ribbon around them and hope they’ll read your EDMs.

Your audience walks into a bar and orders a drink… 

We like to focus on psychographics; the values and drivers that motivate your customer’s attitudes, beliefs and clicking habits. It helps to stop treating your customers like part of one homogenous group.

To do so, think of your audience as one specific person and describe their nuances thoroughly. Some questions to help you form their image:

• What books do they read? Are they Kindle or old-school?

• What topics do they passionately debate at dinner? 

• How do they talk to their friends?

• Which celebs do they find aspirational?

• What are they afraid of?

• Why do they buy certain products? Why would they buy your product?

• What problem is your product solving for them?

• Which other brands do they love? Why?

From here, write a little bio of your audience in 5-6 sentences. Each time you go to post or send something to your customer, read through this and check if it will land. Ask yourself: is this something X would respond to in the way I want them to?

Once you know who your audience is, marketing is much more like talking to a friend, or strange-but-loveable relative, depending on the target market. You know how to speak so they will listen, how to get them onto a new trend, or into a new restaurant. 

Some of our favourite examples of this done well.

1. Groove Therapy

Speaking of communicating with your audience like a good friend, Groove-Therapy tackled one of the hardest tasks even a BFFL could attempt—getting a non-dancer to a dance class.

To achieve this feat, they brand themselves as dance classes for people who are convinced they can’t dance, explaining that the company “was born from conversations with people who wished they could dance, but found the idea of stepping into a dance studio way too intimidating.”

This is effective because it taps into the yearning we all have to be free, fun-loving dancing queens. And at the same time, it acknowledges (and gently shuts up) our demons’ monologue of reasons why we couldn’t go. 

1. YAAY 

YAAY, a sexy gut health product, is a great example of speaking directly to customers without the false crutch of demographics. Going after an age demographic for YAAY would have meant targeting our 7.9 billion neighbours—a data-gathering odyssey with little reward.

Instead, YAAY spoke to the intimate parts of people who don’t want their gut health to control their lives. The slogan “because life doesn’t happen in the bathroom” celebrates the fact that (thankfully) life does not happen in the bathroom by subtly reminding us of when we're fighting for our life on the porcelain throne.

While the microbiome may now be a common term, effective care practices are decidedly less ubiquitous. So when YAAY comes out with a slogan, “no-fuss for less-mess!” this easy-breezy sentiment sings relief from the gut minefield.

1. Go-To Skincare

Zoë Foster Blake, founder of Go-To Skincare, birthed a brand that quickly became every Australian skincare user’s big sister. Zoë explains how during her time as a beauty editor, she met countless overwhelmed people, unsure of what was up or down when it came to skincare.

They just wanted something simple. 

Cue the simple peach packaging, cheeky slogans and easy-to-read blog posts that have become a veritable cult. 

Go-To’s way of speaking to its audience feels like being spoken to by a best friend, sister, or auntie—and it works. It opened the door to skincare for millions of people across the world—and generated millions of dollars while doing so.

As you enter the life of Audience Expert, learn how to connect with your customers further by writing a welcome eDM that won't go straight to trash.

If this sounds great, but you are more of a Busy Person than Audience Expert, call us.