A guest post in our “Christian Authorship Series” by Jennifer Harshman from HarshmanServices.com
Your Audience and Purpose
Your audience and purpose dictate what you’ll write, where, and in which format you’ll create that writing. They can also even dictate when you write, how many words you put into any given piece, and whether you include images or other media. If it seems like your audience and purpose have a lot of control over what you create, that’s because they do, and there’s good reason for that.
In a previous post, we explored why Christians should be writing. Here, we’re going to talk about your audience and purpose for writing.
Target audience
Target audience is a term that means the people for whom a creation is intended, whether that creation is a song, movie, painting, or piece of writing. Which people do you want to have reading your writing? Is it parents, the unchurched, Millennials? Each of those is an example of a target audience.
Identifying your audience
Identifying your audience can be challenging, but there are ways to make it easier.
First, keep in mind that this is a Type 2 decision, which means one that can be easily changed. The Type 1 and Type 2 decision concept was made popular by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and they are discussed in The Bezos Letters, one of the books I edited.
Next, consider the groups of people or types of people you’d like to help. This will aid you in identifying your audience. Below are some questions that will help you narrow it down because even though you might want to help everyone, your audience can’t be “everyone.” There’s a saying you might like to keep in mind: “If your audience is everyone, then your audience is no one.” It’s perfectly fine to select just a sliver of people to serve. In fact, that could be the wisest choice.
Audience analysis questions
Here are some things to ask yourself as you determine who your target audience is. Whether you prefer to write or record audio, capture your answers to these audience analysis questions. You’ll want to make use of your answers now and refer to them later as needed. You might want to change directions at some point, and the answers to these questions can help you to quickly identify another target audience to serve.
Which groups have you been a member of?
Christians
Parents
Your level of education, your alma mater
Your generation
Sports fans
Survivors of a specific tragedy (911 First Responder, victims of domestic violence)
Pet owners
Fans of Silly Songs with Larry
Defining Your Purpose
What groups of people are near and dear to your heart?
What angers you?
What breaks your heart?
What do you think everyone should be/do/have?
If you could say only one sentence, as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy does (I am Groot), and that’s all you could say to your audience, what would that one sentence be? I have my clients and students do this exercise to help them pick a focus, a starting point. No one is going to limit you to that one sentence, of course. But having it is like having a lens to focus diffuse sunlight into a laserlike beam. Here are some examples to get you started:
God loves you, looks out for you, and if you’re willing, He will help you through this.
With the right resources and attitudes, you can do amazing things.
Do, or do not. There is no try. —Yoda
Niching down
There is more than one way to niche, as we’ll talk about in a post titled Niches for Writing. For now, just be sure you select a small group as your target audience, and think of one or two specific things you’d like to help them with via your writing. If you said “parents” earlier, you might want to narrow it down to just fathers. Is it fathers of daughters only like my friend Greg Gerber, or single dads of preschoolers?
Attract target audience
Your goal is to find your target audience wherever they are, and then to attract them to the piece(s) you wrote for them. You might find your audience on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Clubhouse, or other social media platforms. After interacting with them long enough to build trust and learn about them, you will find natural opportunities to answer their questions.
You also might attract readers to your own online properties such as your blog or niche websites by writing specific pieces that answer a question, teach them something they want or need to know, or provide resources they might want to use. Once you have attracted your target audience, serve them with an audience-centered approach.
What an audience-centered approach means
An audience-centered approach means that what you create is designed to serve your audience rather than fulfilling your own needs or desires. Does that mean you never get to write the things you’ve dreamed of? Of course not. Does it mean that your needs, such as for income, can never be met? No. It just means that you think of your audience’s desires and needs first and foremost, and you use your creativity and other skills to deliver what that audience wants and needs. If you serve your audience well—and consistently over time—eventually, good things will come to you, too.
If you have not thoroughly considered who your audience is or what they need, you might be making some of these common mistakes:
providing excessive or insufficient background information
providing too much or not enough detail
using the wrong language or unfamiliar terminology
misjudging the audience’s level of interest in or understanding of the topic at hand
Wrong target audience
Reaching the wrong target audience can cost you in a few ways. Not only will you be wasting your effort and irreplaceable time, you could also be throwing away your marketing budget by putting ads in front of the wrong people. These are not terrible, and this is not a permanent problem, fortunately. As soon as you identify the issue, you can make the shift that’s needed and begin serving the right audience for you.
Purpose
Consider your purpose for writing before you write the first word. Thinking about the purpose is part of your planning procedure. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help determine your purpose for writing any given work.
Why are you writing this particular piece?
Which format would work best?
Why will your audience read your document?
What do they want or need to get from it?
What do you want them to know, believe, or be able to do when they’re finished reading it?
Serve your target audience
The important thing is to serve your target audience. Solve their problems by doing the things you are excellent at doing. Give them the best you have. Remember, if you do this, and keep doing it, you will benefit, too. In next month’s post, I’ll talk about two ways to narrow down whom you serve and what you offer, and explain why the riches are in the niches in Niches for Writing.
