Why you need to know your audience to create winning video content 

If you’ve clicked on this blog title, we’re going to go out on a limb and suggest you want to get to know your audience so you can create videos that they actually want to watch. You’d be mad not to, right? 

Well, here’s a fun fact for any marketer, content creator or inspiring video producer out there – people make a decision about whether they’ll stick around to watch your video within the first 3 – 10 seconds. 

We knew we all had short attention spans, but that’s a seriously minuscule amount of time to win your viewer over. 

Plus, with so much video content out there these days (1/3 third of all online activity is spent watching video), if you can’t captivate your audience instantly, they’ll click away and move on to the next aspiring YouTube star. 

What does this mean? It means you REALLY need to know your audience from the get-go if you want your video to be watched all the way through. 

Why you ask? Let’s get into it. 

So I need to know my audience before I start? I thought the mantra was if I build it, they will come? 

This is a saying as old as time but it rarely applies to marketing, especially video marketing. Sure, it sounded great in your last board meeting, but here’s some advice to live by (or create videos by): people will only tune in to your video if you’re saying something that is actually Speaking. To. Them. 

Which means you have to climb inside the head of your customer to create content that connects.  

A common mistake is assuming that your audience is everyone. Yes, it would be pretty fabulous if you could reach every single person on the platform formally known as Facebook (at last count there were 1.9 billion daily active users) but that’s never going to happen. Sorry. 

So while your video can appeal to everyone, it must be geared specifically towards your target audience. Determining who that audience is exactly might take some extra time, but it will pay off in the long run. 

To give your audience what they want, you need to know who they are 

That being said, you can’t really understand what makes your audience tick until you figure out who they are in the first place. 

Traditional marketers love to go down the avatar route. They like to think of it as little work of fiction that will lead you to a gold mine of truth – your ideal customer. 

But an avatar is just that. An an icon or figure representing a particular person. There are heaps of guides out there to help get you started with outlining your avatar and if you work in communications, PR, marketing or advertising you’ve probably had plenty of experience creating your own. 

The things is, avatars are an abstract idea, a caricature. of someone. that might represent who you’re trying to talk to. You’re not really getting to the essence of who they are when you reduce them down to their age, marital status and profession. 

At Moonshine Agency, we like to go a little deeper. Because the viewers of our films are real people, just like you. They have complex views of the world , varied interests and opinions, and they can’t be boxed in quite so tightly. 

Over the past decade of making and distributing impact films, we’ve devised a formula to define the ideal audience for each of our projects. While our projects have a common goal – to make a real, tangible difference – the subject matter, and therefore the audience, have differed dramatically. 

Still, our films like Hippocratic, Take Heat and Little Stars have reached millions, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and changed policies. And It all comes down to the steps we follow to define who we’re talking to. 

And do you want to know the best news? We’ve now packaged up that winning formula into a shiny new short course called Define Your Ideal Audience. 

What is the Define Your Ideal Audience Course?

A straightforward guide to researching and defining the ideal audience for your next video project. So you can create content that your audience will care about. 

There’s no jargon, no confusing information and no gobbledegook – promise!

Instead, Sue Collins, our in house producer, walks you through the formula that we use time and again to define audiences so that you can do this for your project.  

You’ll learn: 

• Simple research techniques that you or your team can easily use to define an audience for any project
• You’ll learn what to research in order to identify your audiences values, worldview and interests
• You’ll know what questions to ask and what data is useful to collect

Why have we created the Define Your Ideal Audience course?

Crickets.  That’s right, crickets!  Nobody wants to hear them when they launch a new video.  

The main reason for hearing crickets is because the video failed to reach an audience.  And how could it if you don’t know who your audience is before you start producing your project.

When you move away from the cookie cutter definitions, you begin to get a much deeper knowledge and understanding of who you’re really talking to.  And that’s where the magic happens!

When you know exactly who you’re talking to you can craft stories that powerfully connect.  

Our new course will help you spend a few hours defining your ideal audience right at the start of your project so that all the work you put into producing a great video really does hit the mark.

Will I really have a defined audience for my video by the end? 

Yes! But you’ll have to do the work. Because buying a course is a bit like buying a gym membership to get fit. You actually have to make time to go to the gym. 

But if you do the hard yards, by the end of it you’ll know exactly who your audience is so you can use your videos to speak directly to them and see the results you’re hoping for. 

You can register now by clicking the button below.

I know my audience – now what?

Great! Have you thought of the type of video you want to put out there? Do you want to build brand awareness? Educate your consumers? Show off a new product? Share a few winning testimonials? No matter your message, you must ensure that it will engage your audience.

See it always comes back to your audience.

Always.

Consider the tone of your video and what style will click. Your company might be made up of middle-aged corporate types but what if your message, product or service is geared towards Gen Zs? Do you know how to use video to effectively communicate to them?

This is a challenge absolutely everyone working in marketing, communications or video production has faced. Us too! But after experimenting with all the different ways to speak to people through film, we think we’ve got a pretty good handle on it. So if you’ve got some questions, don’t be shy. We’d love to help. Leave a comment for us below

And check out the clip above to hear some of Mike and Sue’s musings on the topic.

PS. We’d love to know what you got out of this (it will help us create the content you want to read or watch) so please let us know by leaving a comment or flicking an email through to hello@moonshine.agency with any takeaways or questions.