As a communication professional, one of the first things I ask my clients about is their target audience for a message or campaign. Some organizations have a specific answer; some have a generic answer, and some have no idea what I’m talking about. The dictionary definition of target audience is pretty much what you would expect, “a particular group of people, identified as the intended recipient of an advertisement or message.”
Here’s a real-life example:
In 2015, GlaxoSmithKline launched a new advertising and informational campaign for the pertussis (more commonly known as whooping cough) vaccine, aimed at grandparents of newborns. In the commercial, a new grandmother picks up her infant grandchild and her head morphs into that of the big bad wolf while a voiceover talks about how dangerous whooping cough can be for babies amidst slightly sinister music. Subtle, no. Directly addressing the target audience, yes.
Why did GSK choose this target audience? According to this article from FiercePharma, only 17% of adults and 10% of grandparents are up to date on their Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccine, while adults are primarily the carriers who spread the disease to infants. While pregnant women receive the Tdap vaccine later in their pregnancy and some of that immunity passes on to the new baby, the child can not be vaccinated themselves for several months. Whooping cough is both highly contagious and can be fatal for infants.
In this behind the scenes video, GSK explains that they launched this campaign specifically to address the low numbers of grandparents who are not up to date on recommended vaccinations. Their research showed that along with having lower vaccination rates than the general adult population, less than 2% of grandparents were aware that whooping cough was dangerous to newborns. In the campaign, they reference a familiar story (The Big Bad Wolf) that focuses on hidden dangers, and they capitalize on the desire grandparents have to protect their grandchildren from harm.
Do new grandparents make up the entire audience that GSK would like to receive vaccines? No; of course not. They’d like to see every child and adult be up to date on their recommended vaccines, both for public health and financial reasons. But can GSK reach every adult in the United States with one campaign? Also no. So, they selected a subset of their audience that had the most room for growth and developed a campaign aimed specifically at their target audience.
Anecdotally, it works. Neither of my parents are up to date on their recommended vaccinations, but with their first grandchild arriving this summer, they’ve both mentioned this commercial to me and made appointments with their primary care physicians.
Now that you know what a target audience is, why should you select one for your campaign?
- Defining a target audience forces your organization to identify their priorities
Ideally, like GSK, your organization may want to reach an extremely broad audience. But what group can you most effectively reach and create the desired outcome among? The process of defining a target audience (or audiences, in the case of more than one campaign) will help your organization determine where you should put the most attention and resources. It also forces a consensus on what the desired outcome is, if that has not yet been determined.
- Messaging can be more specific and focused
The more specifically a message speaks to an individual, the more likely they are to act on it. Creating more individualized messaging and dissemination plans can be more costly upfront (both in time and/or money), but the ultimate return on investment will be higher.
- Tracking results is easier
A campaign aimed at a specific audience makes it easier to track results and, in turn, tweak your communication to better fit the population over time. A communication campaign shouldn’t consist of shouting to the world and then wondering why no one is responding – your organization should be constantly looking at results and adapting your language, tone, style, dissemination techniques, etc. as you go.