So, you want to conduct an audience anaylsis?

Audience analyses can be intimidating. They take time and effort to collect and analyze the data. Additionally, they aren't free and may cost a significant amount of money depending on how in depth the analysis goes. It can also be hard to come up with an answer when a C-Suite executive asks, "Is this really necessary?" 

An audience analysis is an important step in the marketing process. Audience analyses are helpful when creating engaging, relevant content. I spoke with Lindsay Douglas, a senior product manager for the B2C audience at ACT, about the importance of audience analyses and creating relevant content. Douglas has been with ACT since 2018 and has served as a content marketing manager as well as a senior product marketing manager. 

Q: How would you describe what an audience analysis is? 

A:  I think an audience analysis can be done both formally and informally. I think the best way to tackle it is using the resources you have at your fingertips already, so things like social media data, Google Analytics and results from email campaigns. ​

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Q: Do you see any drawbacks to doing an audience analysis? 

A: No, I don't really think there's ever not a reason to get to know your audience better and to really understand the buyer persona. So, anything that's going to give you better insight to who you're talking to is going to be a good investment. 

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Q: How often do you recommend conducting an audience analysis?

A: I think the biggest mistake is between not using the data collected and trusting the data too much. The other mistake I think we make is assuming we know what our audience thinks, so letting our feelings guide what we think would best resonate with our audience. 

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Q: What kind of content do you produce? 

A: For our marketing campaigns, it's all digital, but we do one snail mailer a year. Everything else is very digital focused so we're developing static images, videos, and GIFs. 

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Q: How do you ensure the content you produce appeals to the appropriate audience? 

A: I think it goes back to what you learn from the audience analysis, but probably more so some of those daily misunderstandings of what worked from one campaign to the next. I think it's also conducting a competitor analysis to see what is working before you come up with anything out of thin air. 

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Q: What do you do if the content doesn't perform as well as you anticipated? 

A: I think the best approach is probably using incremental changes to get where you want to be. You would talk about experimenting different things, but if it just didn't work out at all, we say, "Well that was great, fail fast. Now we know that, and we won't be doing that again." 

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Q: How do you maintain a consistent brand identity? 

A: We have a set of brand guidelines that include color, text and type of images. We can run all our questions past the guidelines as a last sign of defense just to make sure that we're staying consistent. 

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So, the next time someone asks you about the importance of an audience analysis, you can confidently say, "An audience analysis is necessary to help inform the content we produce and is worth the cost to the company!"