How to adapt your content for different audiences

A fundamental activity, when it comes to communication, lies in adjusting your content so that it can have maximum impact on your different audiences.

You can see this in action at the moment in the way governments around the world are trying to influence the behaviour of their populations to manage the spread of Covid-19. It starts with a central set of messages delivered by leaders through press conferences and other news briefings, and then those messages are adapted in various ways to reach audiences as varied as schoolchildren, the elderly, the owners of small business, the leaders of larger ones, and so on.

The bottom line is there is no one size fits all with communication, so the first step is to divide your audience into four segments based on demographic factors (e.g. seniority, type of job), geographical factors, psychographic factors (to do with culture and values) and behavioural factors (e.g. how they access information and make their decisions).

We’ll talk in the future about cultural elements as this is a rich and well-researched area. For now, let’s look at what exactly you might adjust in terms of your content.

We’ll talk in the future about cultural elements as this is a rich and well-researched area. For now, let’s look at what exactly you might adjust in terms of your content.