Audiences are complicated. Whether you are public speaking to an audience or developing advertisements tailored to a specific audience you have outliers, average, and within each audience, there is so much to learn. When I thinking about audiences, I definitely think it is more important to focus on what an audience does versus what they say. My main reason, people can say whatever they want, but what they do is concrete and patterns develop based on what audiences do every day.
If I were to take lets say a health workout program and try to create a campaign to market it to people right after New Years, my main concern would be not the initial purchase of the health workout program, instead it would be the recurring purchase of the program after the month of January or February when the health frenzy die down. I would be looking at what people do the other ten months of the year that keeps them from committing to a health program. What are they doing? Is work getting in the way? School? Family? What is their daily routine? When could I convince them that they have enough time to complete a workout daily or even a few days a week?
However, on that note, I also think it is important to couple the two concepts of watching versus listening. When I was conducting my focus group for my campaign, I focused on not only what my group members were saying but also how they reacted to different questions. Did they feel uncomfortable with certain questions versus others? Did some people feel more ready to speak than others? I focused on the group dynamic and I actually learned a lot more about my audience and how they deal with a serious issue such as suicidality by watching and listening to them.
My advice, take in everything you possibly can about your audience. Do your research, listen to them, watch them. See if there is a pattern or a difference between what they say and what they do and see if you can find common ground. The only way to really understand an audience or group is to put in the work and dedicate your time to figuring them out.
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