“The secret of great storytelling is that it doesn’t
start with the story, it starts with the audience.”

      — Karen Eber, author of The Perfect Story

What storytelling expert Karen Eber tells us about storytelling is true of every kind of messaging.

If you want to get someone’s attention, you better know who you’re talking to. It’s hard – perhaps impossible –  to communicate persuasively if you don’t have a solid grasp on your audience. 

That’s the case whether you’re writing a speech, storyboarding a campaign ad, posting on social media, or crafting a fundraising appeal.

When editors or account teams provide a creative brief, it hopefully supplies writers and designers with adequate information about the message’s content. But it’s just as crucial to make sure creatives have a clear picture of the people who will receive the message.

If you’re a writer or designer and don’t have that kind of information, ask for it, pursue it. Why? Because you can’t do an effective job without it.

Most groups think they know their key audiences. But too often they’re settling for surface level knowledge. Here’s what you actually need to know. You have to understand their emotional landscape. 

What makes them tick? What keeps them up at night? How do they talk?  Where do they get their information? What touches their heart? What drives them crazy?

To gain peoples’ attention you need what commercial marketers call “deep audience knowledge.”  

Empathy is the emotion at the heart of the best, most authentic communications. And, as writer Seth Godin makes clear, it’s not easy to access: “Empathy is hard. I’m not you. I can’t imagine the path you’ve traveled, the stories you tell yourself and the pressures you’re under.”

There’s a world of difference between a message premised on basic facts about the person you’re writing to and one grounded in a deeper, visceral feel for who they are and how they move through the world.

Only if you dig deeper can you develop that gut feeling for your audience that creates and sustains connection.

We’re at our most persuasive when we can take our audience on an emotional journey — one that really speaks to them and leads them to take the action we’re aiming to inspire. That starts with understanding the emotions they are bringing to the table. 

You’ve got to know what moves them. What emotions will drive them to act? What counter ones might be holding them back?

Then you have to forge a conversation built around those emotional anchors. A specific example might help clarify.

Let’s say we’re working to convince people to support an emergency campaign to rescue children trapped in an escalating conflict.

A number of emotions might be in play. Love for the children in their own lives whom they can’t imagine facing such risk. Outrage that people would ever allow innocent children to be put in such jeopardy. 

Fear that, despite the best of intentions, nothing can be done. Heartbreak over the agony the children’s parents must be going through.

Our creative task is to weave a mix of those emotions into a compelling conversation.  The stronger your feel for the emotional life of your audience, the more compelling that emotional narrative is likely to be.  

And the less risk you will end up creating dissonance between the emotions your audience is actually feeling and the ones you’re choosing to call out in your message.   

In closing, let me offer one final reminder from author Erin K. Larson-Burnett: “Knowing your audience doesn’t require clairvoyance. It’s more like detective work.” Commit to doing that detective work. Approach the creative process from an audience-first perspective. And you will be well on your way to communicating in ways that touch peoples’ hearts and move them to act.