Identifying your target audience is as important as defining what you want them to do. Everything you do will be focused on the target audience you define. If you get this part wrong, nothing you do will work the way you want it to. If your research shows that you need to talk to two or more different groups then you must produce materials targeted toward each of those groups, as well as the general coverage materials.

 Don’t let that frighten you, in most cases you will find that your audience is clear enough once you get down to exploring who they are and what they want. The key is, you must get out and talk to the people you want to communicate with. Listen carefully and they will tell you exactly what you need to know. 

 I’ve been in briefings from major social marketing agencies where the target audience was defined as “ the rural people”. That may sound good on a report going to the head office or an application for funding. As a brief to work from it gets a big zero. Are you talking to men, women, or both? What age group comprises your main target audience - and don’t say everyone, because what works well for young children, will be a complete no-no for young adults and mature heads of families. Are they farmers, artisans, and bankers? Are they married or single? Can they read or not?

 Each time you answer one of these questions you refine your understanding of the people you want to receive - an act upon - your message. You will also get a better understanding of how to reach those people. There is one way that you may have already made your life a lot easier. Remember that second paper you just nailed to the wall? Well, that paper contains, if you were smart and ask the right questions, a profile of exactly the type of people you can target with the highest possibility of success.

 That’s right, the ones who are already doing exactly what you want them to do. I am by nature a very lazy person. I hate wasting good time working when I could be on a beach profitably soaking up the sun. So, when I plan a campaign I keep two things in the front of my mind. The first is: If it doesn’t convince enough people my current boss will be very upset. The second is: Why try to go for the hard cases when I can more profitably target the easy borderline cases?

 It’s a simple fact that some people will always be easier to convince than others. Some people will never change, while others are just waiting for an excuse to change. Assuming that your objective really will make peoples lives better, that those objectives do not conflict with their culture of religious beliefs, and that the socio-political environment is conducive the majority of any given population are open to “try it your way.” 

 On one end of the curve you will have a small group who will do it just because it’s new, and on the other end a group who will never even consider trying it. In between will be the vast majority, open and ready to listen to your ideas. If I target the hard cases I may get one out of 100,000. If I target the easy cases I may get as high as one in 1,000. Now which sounds like the most appropriate target group to you? Right, you got it! You would be absolutely astonished how many “Experts” have never stopped to consider that simple fact.

 I can understand their point. It is a lot easier to target “the entire Population” than to target selected segments. It is also easier to use “off the shelf” campaigns, which might have worked a charm some place else. But, remember the “Experts” do not usually have to stick around and live with the results of the campaigns they design. You do!

 My advice when you are starting from scratch is to target the easy changers first, get them over to your side then ease into the hard cases in stages. Keep at that strategy long enough and you will finally arrive at the point where you are banging away at the hard core “never changers”. But you will have converted a whole lot of other people along the way.

 When I give seminars this is the point where some smart person in the far back of the hall usually wakes up just long enough to ask how this would apply to sub groups such as professionals, farmers, and the like? Well it does, so there. The point is you would not have done your targeting and objective defining on the whole population if your actual target group is that specific.

 In fact it usually works even better, because someone else has already defined your target group for you. Well, the broad strokes in any case. The curve will have fewer people but the distribution will be the same. The interesting thing about my technique is that usually the easy changers are right in the middle of the curve, where the bumpy bit is the highest. There is often a lot to be said for being lazy - the smart way.

 I find that as a project progresses I begin to have a mental image of whom I’m addressing, what they look like, how they dress, where they live, what they eat, how they amuse themselves. Then as I walk about the town I look for that person. If I find them everywhere then “Bingo” I usually have it right. If they re hard to find then it’s usually time for a target rethink.

 WARNING:  In most developing countries the majority of people in the big cities are not really indicative of the average rural population. It is easy to confuse the people we see every day in the capital with the rural population. That is why you must get out frequently and “ fact find” in small villages. Talk to people, get into their homes, see how they live, and how they amuse themselves. If you don’t you may wind up talking to a target group that only exists in your fantasies.

 You should by now have a good idea of who the People you need to convince are and if you were smart you were asking a few questions about the best ways to reach them the next time you want to. Why did I say the next time? Because those are the very people you want to reach out and touch with your messages. It’s always a lot easier to do if you know where and how to find them when you want to - media wise, that is.

 Knowing how your target audience feels and why they do the things they do gives you an insight into how to convince them to do what you want them to do. Identifying potential obstacles, which may impede people from adopting change, is an important part of the process. By knowing, and understanding these obstacles, you will be able to choose messages and strategies that help diminish the validity of those obstacles in the minds of your targets.

 You want to have a good idea of the differences between those who act your way and those who do not. Those differences may provide a lot of answers to a lot of very important questions you want answered. How you use those answers will depend upon how well you actually understand the motivations behind them.

 Study your data carefully, but never fully trust it. Data and studies are a form of educated guess which is right almost as many times as it is wrong. In reality testing results usually fall some where between right and wrong. So, beware! If something just doesn’t sound right, it most likely isn’t. Test it again, if it’s important.

 Try and imagine what makes your target tick. Like a good general you want to get into the enemies head so that you can plan a strategy using all of your available resources to gain the advantages you will need to win. Pay attention. You will be tested on this bit, also.

 Once you think you have a clear idea of who your target audience is and the best manner in which to motivate them take your notes and write them out in a clear, concise, statement of who they are, where they are, what they think, why they think that way, and how you plan to get your message across to them. At this point you might also have started to develop an idea of what your message will sound like.

 Keep editing and re writing until the whole thing fits on one half of one A4 page. When you have that nail it up on the wall beside your statement of what you want the target audience to do. Just to make life easier put it on the left hand side of the “What I Want Page”, unless of coarse you’re’ writing in Arabic in which case put it on the right hand side, and if your Mongolian put it on top. Got the idea?

 Another method is the brain storming session technique. There you bring all of the gang together and bounce ideas about until you find a few good ones. In these sessions you should write down every idea no matter how silly it may sound. What you are after is food for your thought, ideas you can work on.

 Rule number one in these sessions is that no one is allowed to ridicule any one else’s idea. Your advisors, and that’s what they are, should be absolutely free to say anything that runs through their minds. You want them to free associate, to drift, but absolutely not get into discussions about the pros and cons of one idea over another - that’s for another day. During these sessions your ideas go directly onto your paper, you shouldn’t contribute in any way. Your job is to look, listen, and take notes. It’s amazing what you will learn by doing that.

 When you have a list go back to your cave and start looking for similarities, thoughts or concepts that keep popping up, words that appear in again and again. Another point to note is the time element. It can take days, even weeks, to find a good slogan and once you have one you will probably find a better one next week.

 That last bit is a simple fact of life, once you start the creative process it’s a bit hard to turn off. So, another hard fast rule states that no slogan is final until you give it to the designer. If you change it after that - look out! That’s about the best way I know to excite your designer in ways you will not enjoy.

 Now your wall should have in order, who you want to talk to or your target audience profile, what you want them to do - your goals, and your slogans. I assume you nailed the list of slogans beside the rest in order. If you didn’t then best do it now. 

 Just a word about “Experts” here. Experts are people who have been doing something for a while and decided to keep on doing it for money. In this case yours. Some “Experts “ know what they are doing and can be very helpful to have around. Others haven’t a clue - no matter how many degrees they have - and can actually do your campaign more harm than good. Assuming the best about the “Expert” you have chosen: always remember that being an expert in media, production, or “communications” does not mean that they are experts in your target audience.

 In fact the odds are strongly against your ever being that lucky. Always use “expert “ advice carefully. As an example, I have seen text and slogans created by experts, who actually knew their business, which when pre tested bombed completely. On the other hand I have seen cases where the best text and slogan writer in the place was the gardener. No joke, the gardener! The man couldn’t even write, but he could sure enough deliver great slogans, and text, for someone else to write down.

 Always be ready to take talent where you find it, after all what you want are results, people deciding to do it your way, and I’ll bet you could actually care less how you get the materials that give you those results. Am I right, or not? That leaves one more item you should consider.