• Unit 3: Key Target Audiences

    Certainly the most important aspect of any outreach campaign is to first know your target audience. Once you have clearly identified the target, all other aspects of your communications plan may readily fall into place. Some of the demographic identifiers most critical to a communicator are age, gender, and income level. Other useful demographic information includes education level, marital status, geographical location, culture, and psychographic information such as a person's hopes and fears. As we come to better understand our target audience, we are much better prepared to develop a public relations message and strategize how to disseminate this message. Publics and stakeholders are those who share some sort of interest in the issues and outcome of an endeavor; they could be stockholders, employees, customers, members of the community, government regulators, vendors, suppliers, distributors, or even competitors. Being a stakeholder does necessarily mean having a financial stake or even awareness that one may be connected to a company or program's work. Quite often, an organization's stakeholders have conflicting interests, such as a company's managers looking to reduce costs, while its workers demand higher pay and better benefits. As you consider the materials in this unit, try to imagine all of the people who may have an interest in a particular message or position and the different approaches you might take to communicate with them.

    Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.