Researching a Quality Report's Audience for Promotional Purposes
In the planning stages of your project, it is important to gather information about the characteristics of the audience you have identified. This research helps you:
- Select measures your audience will find relevant and important.
- Present yourself as a sponsor in a way that engenders trust.
- Make your report very easy to understand.
- Avoid cultural pitfalls when talking about important health care issues.
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Audience research is also critical to creating an effective promotional campaign. You need to learn:
- Where does your primary audience go to find information on health and health care now? Why?
- Whom do they trust most to give them accurate information about health and health care? Whom do they not trust?
- What would they see as the greatest benefits to using comparative quality information?
- What would they see as the biggest barriers to using such information?
- What media are most prominent in their lives? Possibilities include:
- Television
- Radio
- National newspapers
- Local papers
- General magazines
- Health-specific magazines
- Media for a group defined by language, culture, religion or some other characteristic
- “Traditional” Web sites
- Social networking sites
- Blogs and other new Web-based media
- Which local organizations do they regard as a part of their everyday lives? Which do they see as a credible resource regarding health and health care?
- What service agencies do they go to when they face problems? What faith-based organizations do they identify with and trust?
- Are there celebrities of one kind or another whom they would view as a trusted and attractive “messenger” about health care quality? Why?
Eventually, you will need to do audience research to test specific aspects of your promotional campaign, such as your main messages, visual and graphic elements, and specific placement. Your early audience research is an important foundation for this later work.
