About Writing, Part I – The Audience

The Most Important Consideration of a Good Writer

This ongoing feature, About Writing, is offered to those who write either professionally or during the daily course of their work.  These basic principles will include many tips and tricks I’ve learned after more than 23 years of professional writing of all kinds. 

The first three considerations for a good writer are: the audience, the audience and the audience.  That’s emphasized for good reason - there’s no other purpose to a writer’s work than to affect an audience.  None.  It’s not for self-expression as many believe, although that is a by-product.  It’s always meant to affect an audience.  Hopefully I’ve highlighted that sufficiently.

Demographics - The audience can be described in part by the demographics or position in life as described by statistics.  The typical measures are aspects such as income, age, gender, occupation type, reading level, etc.  These are only the beginning though, because although this data is important to get a general framework for thinking about the members of your audience, they hardly tell the whole story.  For that, we need to look deeper.

Psychographics - These are data about how audience members processes information and what they may already know or believe.  Survey information is particularly useful in this part of the writer’s process, and many new writers will be pleasantly surprised about how much survey data is available.

For example, if your client is a birth control manufacturer who wants to increase sales in the South and Midwest United States, it would be a very good idea to first get  demographic data for the region - average family size, income level and marital status numbers may be particularly relevant - and then overlay psychographic information such as religious beliefs and the availability of sex education in area grade schools.  This information will help determine the amount of previous exposure your audience has had about birth control and their likely attitude about the subject.

The above can be then used to gauge two other very important audience metrics: the lowest common denominator and message resistance. 

Although I’ve never personally been a fan of the term “lowest common denominator,” it is a necessary consideration.  It defines the basement floor for the writing style and level of complexity.  Usually, this means things such as the ability to read and understand the topic area. 

Message resistance, by contrast, is how receptive or resistant the audience is likely to be to what is presented.  Is the material easy to incorporate into their existing beliefs and lifestyle?  Will the message raise concerns or mean a change to their daily routine?  These factors in turn influence the organization of the message and the complexity of the words and concepts the writer can use.

After many years, I’ve also made it a common practice to develop an idea of what I call the best-case scenario, which is a concept of the most receptive and best-educated audience member.  This isn’t necessary for every project, but it is applicable to many, because the finished work has to affect the entire audience.  It’s not a good idea to lose the uppermost segment of the audience by concentrating too much on the needs of the lower end of the spectrum.  This is particularly true for marketing writing, because the more receptive members of the audience are also the ones most likely to buy the product.

A good example to illustrate the point above is writing for a magazine such as Boys’ Life.  The audience for that national publication ranges in age from 8 to 20 years.  There are three stages of psychological development in that range.  It’s a difficult thing to write with enough simplicity for the younger age group while maintaining enough sophistication to keep the older age group engaged.  That’s some of the toughest writing there is in the business.

The last step to considering the audience has been a secret of mine for many years, but readers of my blog are entitled to it.

I mentally create a representation for the lowest common denominator and best-case scenario segments of my market.  I even assign each representation a series of traits and habits that are common for that segment of the population - from their ability to spell or do math to their likely hobbies and nightlife. 

Many might question bothering with such a silly exercise.  My answer is that it promotes a sense of empathy.  If you can’t empathize with your audience, you should probably find another line of work, because you won’t be very successful at reaching them.

We’re in the business of transferring ideas from one subset of the population to another.  Trying to force those ideas on another or coercing them does not work.  Just being exposed to your brilliance will not be sufficient for audience members to instantly adopt and integrate your ideas into their neural network.  In the end, the audience member has to essentially believe, and with time they will, that the idea the writer introduced them to is actually their own - if it’s done with sufficient understanding of their world and their existing beliefs.

Part II will deal with the most potent weapon a writer has - emotion.