It’s not enough to know your audience, you have to meet them where there are
Most of us have heard the maxim know your audience. And it is true we make better connections with our audience—be they business stakeholders, a target consumer audience or employees—when we understand who they are. Less talked about is the concept of meeting your audience members where they are. It’s a subtle but important difference. If their starting point to your narrative is different than yours, it is easy to lose them quickly. To know them means to understand who they are. To meet them where they are is about recognizing there may need to be some education or context-setting before you can even begin your narrative.
The importance of the red thread narrative
The challenge lately for professional communicators (communicators with a capital C, as I like to say) is that communications is currently a hot topic, a business priority and a leadership quality. This is good for capital C communicators, of course. But because everyone must communicate all day, every day, too many people (communicators with a lower case c) think they know what good communication looks like. This is not as good for you if you’re a communicator with a capital C, as—in my experience—what most people really know is what bad communication looks like.