Last night, my husband and I attended a formal ball complete with a guest speaker and a comedian for entertainment. These formal occasions are intended to be fun mixed with networking…or “shmoosing” as I like to say. We went through the receiving line, cocktail hour and sat for our dinner. As soon as the plates were cleared from our table, the guest speaker began followed by the comedian. Living in coastal Georgia, a Southern comedian sounded like a great idea to the formal planner. One major flaw in this line of thinking was that 90% of the ball-goers were not originally from coastal Georgia, but instead transferred here due to their profession. The comedian bombed. His red-neck jokes were politely chuckled at, but the rest of the dialect-driven humor was missed by the audience. Locals would probably have chortled and guffawed at the jokes, but the idiosyncrasies of the locale was not found funny to the misplaced Northerners and west-coasters. The comedian, and the party planner, just didn’t know the audience.
How closely do you pay attention to your audience? With social media it is easier than ever before to see what someone “likes” or “follows”. People put that information out there for anyone to see. Spend some time getting to know the likes and dislikes of your clients. When they share something on their social media outlet, read it and respond. Then use that information to consider how you can make your product apply to that client even more.
You have a great product. Just find the right audience.