Soul Business blog 7: Radio days – Sharpening the focus on your target audience

23 Nov Soul Business blog 7: Radio days – Sharpening the focus on your target audience

Soul Business is an ethos to inspire and enable people, business and organisations to communicate better by connecting deeper.

Right, this one is awkward.

Call it target marketing or focusing on ideal customers, most of us are poor at identifying our audience – and therefore nuancing our message to appeal to different types of people we need to communicate with.

Communicating well in business isn’t just about winning customers. The people who make our businesses tick come in many guises – not simply as buyers but also suppliers, staff, network colleagues, investors, advocates and so on.

Narrowing the focus just to customers isn’t enough. Engaging your multi-faceted audience always is.

A decade or so ago when I was a reporter for Sport on Five we were shaping a programme about the problems with violence ruining recreational football be it players, coaches, spectators or parents.

As an investigative reporter, I was tasked to find real-life instances of the effect this was having on the grassroots game. Far from the enjoyment sport can bring, I discovered instances of stabbings, people bringing guns to games (honest), referees being attacked and all sorts.

My editors were unsure of the merit of this topic. It sat outside the jolly bonhomie of the Premier and Champions Leagues, the workaday diet of 5 Live’s evening and weekend sports coverage. Would the audience come with us on this?

Having identified a suitable Monday night slot there was still some doubt. I was less sure.

“What are our audience doing at that time of the evening?” I asked. Everyone in radio knows once listeners are lost to TV they rarely return so the focus was on other potential listeners.

We agreed the home – be it cooking, in the garage, garden shed or home office/study – may preoccupy some but a sizeable percentage would be on the move, travelling in cars – some on their way back home from work, on business or ferrying their kids to sports training or going to or from the gym, themselves.

Honing in on the last group, I reasoned “What does that make them?”. Everyone looked around the room – they were of course our target audience. They are the victims or they experience the sort of anti-social behaviour our three-hour programme would focus on.

Three hours’ worth of dedicated broadcasting to this one specific topic had never been done before.

It was wonderful, focused targeted broadcasting – and an example to ponder for wider marketing.

Armed with extensive pre-programme publicity and toe curling but enticing soundbites, our target audience got it and was primed to respond.

Within minutes of going on air, 5 Live’s email system crashed under the weight of people emailing and texting to have their say or wanting to be put on air to pose a question or recant a tale.

This was their subject, their lives, their reality and they wanted to have their say. The programme was a staggering success. The FA took part but were listening hard too. Soon after, they launched their Respect campaign with Ray Winstone playing the potentially over-zealous touchline parent/coach.

So…the Soul Business question is – where is your focus?

Chris Green is an award-winning author and broadcaster – and managing partner of Chris Green Media – which inspires organisations to communicate better by connecting deeper.