Audience Segmentation Workshop

One of the most powerful realisations an activist or anyone working on change can have is that when it comes to communication, ‘one size does not fit all’, and that people are scattered along a spectrum of values, awareness, issue literacy and motivation.

Advertisers and marketers have long known and practiced 'market segmentation' but all too often, communications approaches treat their audience as a single, amorphous mass – ‘the public’ – without understanding that different values may be in play at different times within different societal groups. In particular, the environment, social change and sustainability movements have tended to frame their messages to appeal to people based on their own values, which may not be shared by the audiences they are trying to reach.

This complexity is why one size fits all is easier to do, even though it isn’t as effective.

Luckily, there are simple tools that can help address this.

Knowing your audience, knowing how to communicate when you don’t know your audience; thinking about the issue from their perspective and how what you are doing might align or clash; and bottling the essence of your message in a way that resonates for them in an engagement story, are all critical to whether or not your message gains traction.

• Introduction (2 mins)
   
• What is audience segmentation, and why do we need it? (5 mins)
   
• Post Growth example (5 mins)
   
• Fab City example (5 mins)
   
• Try It Yourself - how can you apply audience segmentation to an initiative you are working on? Small group/pairs exercise (10 mins)
   
• Summary + online resources (3 mins)
   
• Q + A (10 mins)