When we start talking about video, we always begin with a Creative Brief and one of the first questions that brief asks is, “Who is your audience?”. Without a clear understanding of your audience we will never be able to speak to them, because we won’t know who “they” are.
The second question is, “What do you want that audience to do?”. You have to know the desired outcome, what you want your audience to do, the action they need to take, before you can craft an engaging message that moves them to action.
We recently met with a client who needed a three minute video, but wanted it to address two completely different audiences. The more they talked, the more we realized we couldn’t craft a call to action for both audiences because the action for each audience was so different. When this issue rears its ugly head, and it often does, I find at its root two temptations that lead clients to try to speak to multiple audiences.

Temptation #1 – Money

Clients don’t have the money to produce two videos, so they want one video to do twice the work. The problem is that by trying to talk to both audiences, they speak to neither. In short, they have invested in a solution that has little chance of a return. Instead, we encourage them to create a single targeted video that has a well-defined audience and outcome and as such, a greater return on investment.

Temptation #2 – Message

The second temptation is usually some variation of, “we have a very important message and want as large of an audience as possible to hear our message”. The disconnect here is that the purpose of the video is NOT for the audience to hear your message but for the audience to ACT on your message. The call to action for one audience may be completely different than the call to action for another audience. By trying to craft a call to action that speaks to everyone, they are actually in danger of crafting a call to action that speaks to no one.

Both temptations end in the same place, a video that is too broad to call your audience to action. Don’t let money or message tempt you to broaden your audience. As a video production company our job is to remind our clients that one message and one audience always delvers the most targeted video and strongest return on investment.

QUESTION: What do you think?