Back to: Writing Skills and Editing Principles
We cannot write for everyone. A principle of effective communications is that our written and oral communications should be based on key messages and targeted as much as possible to our primary audiences. We also have to bear in mind secondary audiences and even the unintended groups of people that may read our texts.
It is good practice to spend some time analysing our target audiences. The table below provides a useful way of categorising our target audiences.
The big question we are asking about our readers is “Are they with us?” We can interpret this question in two ways.
Do they have the same level of knowledge as us? Or do we have to inform and educate them?
Are they in agreement with our views and positions? Or do we need to persuade them?
Target audiences: “Are they with us?”
This simple way of categorising our audiences is very useful. It helps us to decide whether we need to devise messages that inform, persuade, motivate or activate. These decisions affect the word choice, tone and style of our writing.
Questions we need to ask
- What do they need to know about the issue?
- How do they view your organisation or sector?
- What do they expect?
- What is important to them?
The preferences and needs of the readers
Another important factor is how and where people read ECB documents. Here are some other questions to consider when planning your writing.
| Factors | Questions to ask to put into the plan |
| Level of knowledge | Do the readers have a high level of knowledge of the issues, ECB and financial terminology? |
| Level of influence | If the readers are senior decision makers – are we giving the evidence they need to make decisions? |
| Where they read texts | Do they read printed versions or digital? Digital reading behaviour is different – read scan differently and scroll when reading from mobile or tablets. |
| Preferences | Do reader expect engaging layout with charts, graphs, images or are they accustomed to text heavy documents. |
| Internal versus external texts | Are the documents published online? Do we need to take account of secondary or unintended audiences? |