The First Pillar of a Great Video – Audience

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Start with the Audience  

Always begin with the audience in mind, not the company. Placing the audience ahead will help you maintain a trajectory that will lead to success. You must be conscious and mindful of the fact that you serve the audience. Aim to please the audience, not the organisation.  

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Four questions to ask  

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What do they already know?  

Try to gain an understanding of what is common knowledge amongst your audience. This will help craft your messaging that is relatable. If you are creating content for diehard fans of F1, it would not make sense to waste time in explaining what a clutch is.  

By building an understanding of the level of knowledge of your audience, you will be able to craft content that holds their interest.  

Audiences like to be stimulated and the easiest way to do that is to present new knowledge in a language they easily understand.  

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What are they most concerned about?  

Let us say you are a consultancy company helping people improve the way they conduct business. It always helps to know what your audiences are currently concerned about. Being able to match their needs with a possible solution that you offer shall get them interested.  

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What is the best way to connect with them?  

Unsolicited advice loses value. People do not like to be lectured or patronized. But if you can find the right reasons to talk to them, your chances of a response will be much higher.  

The easiest way to do this is to provide value through interest.  

People like to be entertained and nothing entertains more than creativity. This is where a good quality video is different from an average one. Videos that are driven by strong stories and capable visuals generate interest. Once the audience is interested in your content, you have their tacit permission. Follow with a strong Call to Action at the end of a well-crafted video and the results will amaze you.  

What do you expect them to do?  

The best of videos shall be able to garner interest for a short period of time. Generating interest must be followed with a clear direction about what to do next.  

If you are going to ask them to share their emails or call a certain number, ensure that they are responded to via capable people. Never underestimate the power of the negative. It takes one bad experience for the audience to change their mind. So plan your audience journey from the start to the end carefully.  

Defining your audience  

When you try to sell to everyone, you end up selling to no one. Define your audience well. While demographic features such as location and age are important, you must not stop there. Try to imagine your audience as a persona. What are their interests, what kind of activities do they like? Such qualitative inputs are equally important.  

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The importance of secondary audience  

When you want to sell a baby’s formula it is the mother that is the primary audience. Always identify who is the decision-maker.  

However, you should also consider a set of secondary audiences that could be key influencers. While selling a CRM product you may pitch to the chief information officer, but it is equally important to consider that the sales team’s inputs can be taken into consideration.

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Try to define a matrix between the primary, secondary, and tertiary audience and build your strategy around common sense. Human beings are not Excel charts neither they behave like one.   

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And the last tip which is also the most important is the way you conduct your audience research. While data is important, you must analyze quantitative aspects. However, this is not a replacement for a face-to-face conversation with real people. Humans are nuanced beings and sometimes the greatest insights are based in common sense over numerical data.  

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If you want to identify the right audience for your video, we are happy to discuss. Reach us at hello@allinmotion.com