5 Ways to Speak to Different Audiences

One of the challenges in getting your message out is that your audience is typically quite diverse, especially when dealing with a technology product. Engineers have one way of talking; Chief Financial Officers have another and end-users yet another. Effective marketing and business communications dictate that you offer a message for each of your targeted audiences to ensure your message is understood by all relevant stakeholders. You need to speak in their language.

Complex software or other technology sales are seldom performed in a vacuum or decided by an individual. Therefore, a consensus must be achieved before a final “buy” decision can be reached. For business communications in high-tech industries, you must address a wide, diverse group of individuals. Finding your audience for a cult movie such as the Rocky Horror Picture Show might be equally difficult!

The challenge is how do you accomplish this task?

First, you need to realize that you can’t speak to each of these different “personas” at the same time, in the same venue. Not only would this be complicated to write, but it would also be difficult to read! Your best course of action is to pick different media or channels to conduct your varying messages.

Here are five different venues for your consideration when speaking to your different audiences:

  1. Write a white paper that offers a detailed explanation of how your product works, how it is used, why it is better than the competition, etc. Point is that this is a venue that highly technical IT or engineering audiences can understand your message or communications
  2. Record a video interviewing your president, speaking to how he/she/they is committed to the direction of your company, the research that has been done to ensure the product is delivering maximum value … busy “C” level executives might have time to listen to a 4-minute video of your president
  3. Get a placement of a contributed article in a publication that speaks to return on investment (ROI, return on assets (ROA), etc., to entice potential senior financial management audiences to read and understand the financial impact of purchasing your product
  4. Post a blog entry for middle management or “line of business” personnel to read, on a topic that concerns actually using your product, or what specific challenges can be addressed … getting more into the “weeds” of what your product does
  5. Be a sponsor at a trade show with a booth, staffed by employees. This type of venue offers a different “slice” of who you can speak with about your product, but one audience that it is quite effective at reaching is your partners, who might also be exhibiting or attending. This is  an important audience to speak with, both from a future partnering perspective as well as to convince them that your product is viable in the markets you serve

Teachers understand this task, as seldom do each of their students learn the same way. Some might be visual learners; others learn by doing and some may learn only by reading. Marketing or business plan writing is no different. Marketers must recognize that quite often a different language and medium must be chosen to communicate with each of these different stakeholders. Business plan writers must know what type of investor they are writing for, to then better understand what level of industry terms and jargon should be included and what should be defined better, for novice readers.

Who do you write for? I would be interested in hearing what other venues have worked for you in the past.

Gordon Benzie is a marketing adviser and business plan writer that specializes in preparing and executing business plans and marketing strategies.

Try to Avoid FUD in Marketing Communications

I find it interesting how one industry trend / improvement can often lead to new problems.  Growing globalization of manufacturing systems is a trend that has been in place for well over a decade.  It has put a new threat on the table that isolated plants never faced – the threat of a cyber attack from remote locations.  This is a threat that will undoubtedly catch some manufacturers off guard, but, theoretically, this threat has been around for at least 10 years.

Having a perspective from working in the network security industry, administration and implementation of a new security system typically doesn’t just happen on its own, given the tight focus on improving bottom line results.  Often, it takes a cataclysmic event to warrant the additional, new expenditure on a security measure.  It takes a global “black eye” on the industry to get serious traction and attention by those not yet impacted by the event.

For Visa card merchants, it was the TJ Max high jacking of information from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards.  Hackers accessed customer information in a security breach that the discount retailer disclosed back in 2007.  See the story here. After this event, security became a top of mind event.

FUD_hammer1From a marketing perspective, there is no tougher topic to communicate and try to influence purchase behavior. The gatekeepers seem to have only a vague connection between what is happening to their competitors and what might happen at their own firm. With everyone over-worked today – often for less pay in our current recession / post-recession period, not many managers are looking to take on a new job or responsibility.

One thing for certain, the FUD approach doesn’t seem to work. Trying to use Fear, Uncertainty or Doubt to “hammer down” a purchase decision seems to backfire more often than not, leaving a bad taste in the mouth for those prospects you reach out to.  It is almost as if your reader doesn’t believe it, doesn’t want to believe it, or, if the numbers are so bad, can’t believe it. I have found that the best approach is to simply lay out the facts whenever possible, pointing to the probability of a serious event occurring, and how that likelihood of happening might impact that person’s company and job, as a “soft selling” message approach.

As an example, security is really a preventative purchase rather than a “threat” one. So, perhaps it should be viewed as an insurance cost to manage or mitigate risk.  Therefore, the right person to speak with is not the IT manager whose job will be harder to implement a new system, but rather, the one who is responsible for managing the company’s risk.  This might instead be the CFO or controller, but most likely, will be someone in the corporate office, rather than an IT or single plant manager.

The first key to effective marketing communications is to understand who the best person to speak to is.  With that settled you can then figure out how to write with the appropriate message, tone and wording to get their attention.  This can be the first step to building credibility as a trusted adviser – a company that your prospect wants to do business with. A trusted adviser doesn’t try to scare their client into doing something. Instead, they try to offer insights to trends and analytical support to help them make the best decision given the current environment and knowledge available.

Gordon Benzie is a marketing adviser and business plan writer that specializes in preparing and executing upon business plans and marketing strategies.