A website selling wholesale breakfast foods
that are quick and easy features a picture of a smiling Caucasian
woman and her two Caucasian children. To some this may be
the perfect representation of what an all-American family
stands for, but in a country where this is not the only "all-American"
family, is the messaging turning off customers? While some
products or services were created for a certain niche of the
market, many products have the ability to stretch across several
audiences, so how can you rework your existing content to
make sure that the right message reaches the right audiences?
Be cognizant of the differences
The first step in accomplishing this goal
is to be aware of what the differences in your audiences are.
Based on this information, you can easily determine how you
can rework your content. For example, Wachovia bank has a
marketing campaign about how customers should expect more
out of their bank—and of course how it meets these expectations.
Their campaigns run in English and in Spanish. The wording
is exactly the same for both campaigns (except the Spanish
campaigns are written in Spanish). The difference is in the
visual representation. The English campaigns show Caucasians,
African Americans, or Asians, while the Spanish ads use Hispanic
subjects.
It may be as simple as translating the message
and using a visual representation that your audience can relate
to that allows to you to reach multiple audiences.
Keep it simple, silly (KISS)
One of the key marketing concepts applies
when marketing over a wide range of audiences. The last thing
you want to do is alienate a portion of your audience by speaking
over their heads. When you are creating content for your brochures,
websites, or other marketing material keep it as basic and
simple as you can. Use common words instead of jargon. Use
pictures with ethnic diversity represented. So if you know,
or if you suspect, that your audience is diverse, be inclusive
of all your audiences when you are creating content. This
may require that you consult with people who fall in these
audiences because your perspective may be different from those
who represent the audience you are targeting.
For example, a financial services company
has the same website copy for all of its audiences. Its pictures
include groups with men and women of various ethnicities.
Instead of translating and creating different versions for
different audiences, they have covered all of their audiences
in one shot.
Create different versions
You may have seen this firsthand. You go
to a website and you see a little link at the top that says
something in a different language. When you click on it out
of curiosity, you see that the whole website switches over
to a foreign language. This is a company responding to the
fact that they have many different audiences. A German or
Latino family may be just as interested as an English speaking
person to buy your product, so do you really want to alienate
them and lose their business because they can’t read
your website? The answer here is no and if it all it takes
is some minor tweaking and translating copy, then spend the
money or take the time to do it.
It may not be a cultural marketing snafu
either. It may be a gender snafu. While there are products
that are specifically used by certain genders, there are also
products that are gender neutral. But if all of your campaigns
and marketing materials feature women, are you alienating
your male audiences? Maybe. So when thinking of your audiences,
be sure to think of all of the variations including gender,
age, ethnicity, income brackets, etc.
So do you have to run out and create a completely
different brand, mission, website, or brochure for each audience
you market or sell to? Not necessarily, but you do need to
be aware of the differences between your audiences before
making this decision. It may be as simple as changing out
a few pictures on your website. It may be as simple as rewording
your copy to make it easy to understand by native speakers
and non-native speakers of English. Knowing your audience
is the first step to determining how you can tweak the content
you already have to get their attention.
