How do you communicate with your audience? Do they engage with your communications, and, crucially, do your communications generate new opportunities for you? Or could it be that your communications are failing to reach and/or resonate with enough of your audience?

It could be worse than that – it could be that you are inadvertently excluding people from the way you communicate your brand messaging. And it could be that the format you communicate in leaves people out in the cold. You could even be actively discouraging people from engaging with your brand without even realising it. If you’re spending time creating communications that are not delivering on engagement and opportunities for you, then it’s time to look at why that might be.

Inclusive communications is something we are passionate about, so here are our tips for creating communications that appeal to everyone.

Audience

First, let’s think about your audience. Do you know who you want to connect with? Does your brand have a target audience in mind, and is it segmented so you know about all the varied people you’re trying to talk to within that audience? How much thought have you put into who all these people are, what their lives are like and what matters to them? Without this knowledge, your communications are not going to reach the right people, and the people they do reach are far less likely to care.

You need to define your audience, then you can tailor your communications to connect with them in a way that is appealing and interesting for them. This requires collaborative work to generate ideas to define who it is you want to reach, their characteristics, their digital presence, and how you can reach them to engage with them. 

Language and tone

When you have that knowledge of who your audience is, you can start to think about language and tone. So if you want to reach a young audience you will need to use the language they use, and research the market so you connect with them. It might be that you want to reach a young market with some products or services, and an older market with others. There’s a lot of factors and differentiators to consider about the people you want to reach, as people are different! So you need to clearly map out each segment and match language and tone to that audience. You will also need to understand your overall brand persona so that you’re not putting out conflicting messages or attracting people with one piece of content but alienating them with another. Putting thought and care into this will ensure you reach the right people and that your message resonates with them. 

With your language and tone, you also need to consider how inclusive you are, and how considerate you are of difference in the words you use and the tone of voice of your marketing and communications. We have an online training course to help you learn about inclusive communications. 

Format

Now let’s think about the format. There are so many ways in which you can connect with people through your communications. This all needs lots of thought too. Think about your website, your emails, your social media posts, and presentations. Consider how you can connect with people through writing, video, images, podcasts, and how to make sure those methods are accessible for everyone, engaging for everyone, and connect with people.

If you’re not already using video content, here’s some reasons why you should… video content is a proven way to reach your audience.  82% of Twitter users watch video content and 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. Add to that the fact that 92% of those who access videos on their mobile phones share the content, and marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. People who watch videos retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. If you’re not using video to connect with your audience, talk to us and we can help. 


It’s a lot to think about, we get that. So how about you let us help you through all of this? Talk to us about our communications project packages. We start with a collaborative workshop, where we work together with you to explore who your audience is and set objectives. Then we deliver on the different elements you need for your communications. We film videos, take photos, write, design, and wave our magic wands to create the communications you need to connect with the people you want to connect with. 

So talk to us! To can chat about how we can help you, email hello@watchthisspace.uk