Introduction
A piece of content is considered useful, and rightly so, if it appeals to the correct audience. Effective technical writing is no exception as the trade involves presenting information in a way that resonates with the “end user.”
How can technical writers learn who to target with their content? This is precisely where audience analysis comes into the picture.
With in-depth audience analysis, technical writers get to understand the audience’s needs, goals, expectations, motivations, challenges, and other factors that influence its decisions.
In this extensive guide, we focus entirely on audience analysis and ways it helps with effective content development. Stay with us till the end as we share steps you can take for successful audience analysis. Let’s get started.
What is audience analysis?
Before having an in-depth discussion, let’s define “audience analysis,” shall we?
Audience analysis is essentially the process that allows writers to get closer to their target audience, and understand its needs, preferences, and challenges which helps with highly targeted content development.
This is important because writers need to picture the people they are writing for. Once they have clarity over the target audience, they can tailor the messages to match the content with the audience’s objectives and influence change.
Audience analysis is significant in the technical writing process as writers need to write primarily for the “end users” to render the document (manuals, guides, how-tos, tutorials, and more) effective.
Benefits of conducting audience analysis for technical writing
Let’s learn how audience analysis helps with successful technical writing. Here are the benefits of audience analysis —
1. Ensure effective communication
Once technical writers have clarity over their target audience, it becomes easier for them to tailor the content in a way that makes the topic more accessible and clear for the readers. Effective audience analysis is the key to highly effective and personalized technical content writing.
2. Improve engagement
As a technical writer, you want the readers to stay on the page till the very end. This can only happen if you consistently refer to the problems and issues that resonate with them. Once you tap into their specific needs and interests, you can boost engagement through your technical content.
3. Boost reader satisfaction
Audience analysis paves the road for technical content writing that addresses the readers’ needs and interests. Through extensive audience analysis, technical writers can consolidate adequate information about the readers, which can fulfill their hunger for information and improve reader satisfaction.
4. Establish credibility
As writers get close to their target audience through in-depth audience analysis, it allows them to create high-quality and informative content. The more useful the content is, the more trust you will gain. In other words, it is an excellent opportunity for businesses to establish credibility in the market through their content.
5. Opportunity to discover trends
Audience analysis is an effective medium to unlock new trends in the target audience. Technical writers can discover untouched issues through audience analysis and prepare a content strategy accordingly. It may even help refine the target audience and bring in more customers.
What are the different types of audiences?
Technical writers might have to tailor their content to map the needs, preferences, expectations, and challenges of these different types of audiences —
1. Technicians
Technical professionals like engineers, scientists, mechanics, and others often have a theoretical understanding of their fields. This is a group of audiences that are generally well-acquainted with the technical concepts and are looking for the practical aspects of the field.
2. Executive and managers
Technical content that is prepared for executives and managers generally doesn’t have a practical bend. This is because the executives already know how the product or concept is being applied to their lives or workplace. Managers seek technical content to understand the technical information about the products and use it for efficient product application.
3. Non-specialists and laypersons
This is the group of audience that doesn’t possess extensive theoretical or practical understanding of the issue. A non-specialist audience seeks content that contains simple language and explanations of key technical terms and concepts. The idea is to make the concept accessible to a not-so-technical audience.
4. Subject matter experts
These are highly knowledgeable individuals who have an extensive understanding of the field. They possess considerable experience in the field and are looking for detailed and technical information in your content. Therefore, the content should have in-depth technical information and must use specialized language and terms.
How to conduct audience analysis for technical writing?
Here are the key steps involved in successful audience analysis for technical writing. Let’s discuss them in detail.
1. Identify potential audiences
It all starts with identifying the potential audiences that are affected by the issues discussed in the content. For instance, if the issue to be mentioned in the content is about family planning, the potential audiences could be men, women, family planning policymakers, and healthcare workers.
2. Select the priority audience
While selecting the most important audience, the focus shouldn’t be on the most affected audience. This is because you want to direct the message to the group of people who need to change. The group is your priority audience as a change in their behavior will have a significant impact on the issue.
3. Identify priority audience characteristics
Once you have the priority audience, the next step is to identify its socio-demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics.
You can look for sources like DHS, census data, local government data, market research, consumer surveys, media reports, and project research reports.
Writers may even consider the communication channels the audience uses to learn about the issues.
4. Identify knowledge, attitudes, and practices
The next step is to figure out the priority audience’s stage of behavioral change. This can be done by considering the audience’s existing knowledge, thoughts, and experiences regarding the problem discussed in the content.
Besides, you should consider ideational factors like attitudes, self-image, perceived risks, norms, self-efficacy, emotions, social support and influence, personal advocacy, and more. This helps tailor the messages in the content.
5. Identify barriers and facilitators
What are the factors that prevent or encourage the audience to take action or bring in necessary behavioral change? Issues related to availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, habit, fear, negative experience, and others should be considered to identify the barriers and facilitators.
6. Consider audience segmentation
There will be times when the set channels, messages, and interventions will not be adequately effective for the subgroups in the priority audience. This is when you should consider segmenting the audience.
Audience segmentation is required when a particular subset of the priority audience is difficult to reach, is at greater risk, has distinct views about the issue, or requires a different message for behavioral change.
7. Identify key influencers (influencing audience)
The next step in audience analysis involves key influencer identification. Influencers are individuals or groups that have a significant impact on the priority audience’s behavior.
You can identify key influencers by determining who has the most impact (both positive and negative) on the audience’s behavior and who helps the audience make a decision.
8. Organize influencing audience information
Make sure you have an in-depth understanding of the influencing audience. Use the literature available to figure out how strongly it influences the priority audience, the behaviors encouraged to practice, and ways you can reach the influencing audience.
9. Develop audience profiles
Finally, you will need to review the notes about the priority audience, the segments, and the influencing audience to achieve successful audience analysis.
Use the information to develop audience profiles, which will give life to the segments and help you tell a story.
The audience analysis report should have information regarding the audience’s age, income level, religion, sex, behaviors, motivation, emotions, values, attitudes, barriers, and more.
10. Conduct audience analysis regularly
The market trends are dependent on changing customer needs and preferences. Therefore, companies should set proper timelines to conduct regular audience analysis for their technical writing projects.
Conclusion
Technical writing is more like writing a prescription — you can recommend the right medicines only if you know what the patient suffers from.
For technical writers, audience analysis provides a reference point that can be used to create more effective and engaging content. In other words, choosing the right audience first helps with choosing the right words.
We discussed the benefits of audience analysis and the key steps involved in the process. Did you find the guide helpful? Stay tuned for more informative upcoming posts
