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I'm interested in hearing about what sort of questions you include in your
analysis, how often
you perform an audience analysis, and anything else you deem relevant...
Any thoughts, ideas, considerations, references would be greately
appreciated.
If of interest, I'll be happy to summarize responses for the list.
Thanks,
Pegasus
------------
IMHO, you may be barking up the wrong tree to be asking to do a formal
audience analysis. There are more informal ways to do this that do not
require management approval.
You can simply ask around your company. Ask the people who are in touch with
your actual customers every day, i.e. your sales people, your marketing
people, your tech support people. They will be able to give you lots of
information, especially the veterans who have been there a few years. Get a
few phone numbers of people who are "typical" customers, and talk to a dozen
of them.
There are two aspects of an audience analysis: demographics and
psychographics. The first is hard facts, like age, sex, title, years of
experience, type of industry, etc. The second is attitudes, which are much
more interesting. Ask people about both.
I worked as a journalist for many years, sometimes doing stories that
required a "national checkup" on something or other. Once everyone started
telling me things I'd already heard, I knew my research was done. This
usually took 10 to 20 phone calls, and I could do it in two days. The most
research I ever did was surveying 65 companies, and after that I wrote an
award-winning study of an entire industry. And that only took me a couple of
weeks. So surely you can cover your key customers in a few days.
My partner and I say in our workshops that you can do a rough audience
analysis in 15 minutes, and it's far better than doing none at all. You are
aiming higher, I know, but my advice is not to aim so high that you can
easily get shot down. This kind of research is a basic prerequisite of
effective technical communication, so try not to position it as some big
deal that someone has to approve. Just do it.
And then, use your findings to continuously argue for better products and
better documentation. Don't do it as an all-or-nothing campaign, do it as a
battle for continuous improvement.
================================
Gordon Graham, partner
Gordon & Gordon
-----------------------------------------
Technical Writing for the Real World
Marketing Writing for the Real World
-----------------------------------------
Tel (514) 488-1875
Web http://www.gordonandgordon.com
================================
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