And who might YOU be? (Writing for different audiences)

Writing for different audiences can be taxing.

For many people, writing for people like yourself is what comes naturally. You know what will appeal to you, and what language to use: formal, friendly, slangy, chatty… Also, you’ll know what vocabulary to use. And what the in-words are, what common abbreviations you understand, what cultural references will make sense.

So if you’re writing for a different demographic than your own, or a targeted publication to the trade, or aiming to appeal to a wide variety of people, you need to approach it differently.

With teens, their language can be almost incomprehensible to people even a decade older, never mind half a century older. And the reverse is also true. The historical landmarks of people in their sixties and older include the Second World War and its aftermath, Kennedy’s assassination, the Cold War, and music and popular entertainment that might be completely foreign to those in their twenties.

I’m sure you’ve had conversations where you reminisce about childhood memories, and discover that someone has no recollection of your favourite kids TV programme, because they weren’t born when it was aired. And then you feel really old and try to change the subject, yes?

So if in your writing you refer to a TV programme, music, popular culture or a historical event, you need to be aware of the demographic of your readership, and ask yourself whether they’ll understand the reference.

Technical audiences

Writing for a technical audience can be equally challenging. If you know the jargon, or acronyms, you’ll be tempted to put them in without explanation. Or conversely, over-simplify for people who know the subject better than you do. The key for acronyms is to put the words in full first time you mention them, then give the acronym in brackets, then use the acronym thereafter. For instance:

The three letter acronym (TLA) is the bane of many business communications. TLAs crop up so frequently, you can almost forget what they mean!

Interpreting technical work for a lay audience is often an exercise requiring a dictionary, an on-call expert, and a pack of ibuprofen. Any subject area has its own jargon, abbreviations and assumptions, so you need to assess exactly how ‘lay’ your audience is. From my own experience, writing in the social care sector, some people who receive care are almost as knowledgeable as the professionals who work with them, where others are new to the subject, having just been assessed as requiring support.  Therefore a leaflet for newly-assessed people needs to be approached differently to a leaflet on people receiving long-term care, though even some of those might be new to the subject-matter.

And writing for different genders can be a whole different minefield. Compare the two different sets of advertising that are out at the moment for incontinence pads for men and women.   Both are saying ‘you can get on with your life without worrying about this, if you have our product’, but the ad for men is new, and tackles the subject from a totally different perspective. Next time you see an advert for a car, try and work out whether it’s being sold to men, or women, or whether they’re trying to sell to both. Cosmetics for males is another interesting area to watch for the marketing tricks!

So, ‘know your audience’ is they key advice here. See how you get on!