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An organization cannot be successful
without involvement from its members.
So when a new campaign is launched or a
website redesigned, how can you be sure
your audience – which includes both current and prospective members – is being
targeted effectively? An in-depth understanding of your audience will provide you
with valuable communication channels
to expand and distribute your message,
catalyzing its effectiveness. Audience
research is the key to this understanding.
The voice of your organization speaks to
move people towards a greater level of
involvement and to pointedly express the
issues you care about. But those who comprise your audience each hold a unique
perspective that informs their choices,
collectively defined by their personal and
professional histories, political opinions,
interests, and environments. Your organization will communicate best to these
audiences by knowing their perspective
and affecting them in as many ways possible: emotionally, intellectually, personally
and professionally. So before redesigning
a website, creating a viral flash movie, or
launching a new advocacy campaign, it
is crucial to gain a concrete sense of the
people you are addressing.
What do you research?
In general, our audience research questions fall into the following categories:
- Baseline Demographics. Most organizations inaccurately believe they know just who their members are.
Surveying for demographic information is a good way to
compare an organization’s perceptions of their members to their actual membership pool, as the reality often
departs from expectations.
Demographics questions are most helpful when they probe
information such as age; gender; education level; career; income; family
status; location; and number of years affiliated with the organization.
- Membership Involvement. These questions
address the reasons why your members are your members.
For example, many organizations build their contact lists
through advocacy petitions. By signing petitions during
these campaigns, members are essentially allowing the
organization to speak on their behalf because members
feel their concern is aligned with that of the organization. However, this can result in a membership pool that is
not necessarily attached to the organization’s community
– they are only attached to the issue being addressed in
the petition. Therefore, attempting to build a community
with these particular members – such as through a social
networking site or community blog – will require additional groundwork to successfully galvanize the group.
Membership involvement questions can probe information
such as: how your members first heard about your organization;
what motivated them to join; what organizational activities they currently participate in; how they feel about the issues your organization
addresses; and what they hope to gain from their membership.
- Brand Association. These questions are designed to
determine how well your members recognize and understand who you are. In order to increase membership
involvement and reach out to new people, your organization needs to articulate its mission, vision, and values in
a way that is clear to the public and differentiated from
peer organizations. Brand association questions uncover
the effectiveness of your branding.
Brand association questions can probe information such as:
how your members describe your mission; whether your members
can differentiate between you and other peer organizations; what
your members know about your organization’s activities, programs,
and initiatives; and whether your members know how they can participate in your organization’s activities and/or what their roles are.
- Technology Comfort and Online Behavior. Technology comfort and online behavior questions are
designed to help your organization interact more effectively with its members through web-based content. For
example, many organizations want to develop their own
blogs to attract regular traffic to their website. However,
few organizations have the human resource capacity
to maintain a blog with continuously fresh content.
Determining which third party blogs are being read
allows the organization to pull those RSS feeds onto
their website, thus providing content to the audience
directly through its own website. By understanding how
your members behave online, organizational efforts can
be placed squarely into their lifestyles.
Technology comfort and online behavior questions can probe
information such as: comfort level with online activity and blogging, etc.; what other websites members visit regularly; what other
activities members do online (from banking to shopping to finding
music, etc.); and what kind of media members are consuming both
on and offline.
- Website Content, Needs and Changes. In
web design, there are a myriad of ways to display content
and organize the architecture of the site. This means
both the visual look and feel as well as the navigation,
layout, and tools provided by the website. Understanding
why your visitors come to your website will help you tailor your user’s experience to their needs, interests, and
expectations.
Website content, needs and changes questions can probe
information such as: why visitors go to the website; what visitors
feel is successful on the current website; what features or content
visitors want to see on a new website; and what online content and
features would facilitate internal and organizational processes.
- Aesthetic Preferences. The visual branding of
your website is what ties it to your organization, and
the aesthetic impact of your site’s design and structure
will serve as a direct reflection of the organization itself.
Effective use of simple elements such as color, photos,
and graphics can convey a sense of cohesion that viewers will recognize. And the best way to understand your
viewers’ aesthetic preferences is to ask them, and then
use the results as a foundation for your design.
Aesthetic preferences questions can probe information such
as: color palettes that most immediately signify your organization;
specific photos and imagery that appeal to viewers; and preferences
regarding the simplicity versus detail of the site’s text.
How Do You Research?
There are several specific
methods for conducting audience research. Choosing which
methodology to use depends on both the organization’s
resources and the goals of the research.
- Online Surveys. The wide reach of the Internet
makes online surveys a highly affordable (often free) and
efficient way to gather input from a large sample covering a wide geographical area. Online surveys provide
the flexibility to allow participants to take their time, as
well as the option to cover a wide range of topics. And
because online surveys are necessarily computerized, you
can observe quantitative results and trends at-a-glance.
Surveymonkey.com is an excellent tool for the administration and analysis of online surveys.
- Online Surveys with One-on-One Follow-up
Phone Interviews. Following up an online survey
with a phone call to the participant allows you to clarify
your questions and address trends, providing both quantitative and qualitative data. You can also adjust your questions mid-interview in response to the participant’s specific
feedback, resulting in a more productive conversation.
- In-Person One-on-One Interviews. Interviewing
in person provides you with in-depth qualitative answers
to your questions and allows your conversation to become
closely personal, as well as affording you the benefits of
being in-person, such as observing body language. Your
results will be highly specific to that particular participant, and as with phone interviews, you can yield more
productive results by adjusting your questions in response
to the participant’s specific feedback. Because you will
use your members (stakeholders, donors, volunteers) as
your sample, approaching them for an interview makes
them feel more included in the process of improving your
organization, and can also help you identify your organization’s most enthusiastic and motivated members.
- Focus Groups. Focus groups, which are open-ended
interviews involving a group of multiple participants, are
the most fluid and dynamic type of research. During a focus
group session, one question can launch an evolving discussion amongst the participants that raises new ideas and
issues that may not have been anticipated. Additionally,
group dynamics enable participants to provide more candid responses, chiming in when they agree with others.
Being in-person will provide similar benefits to one-on-one
interviews, such as observing body language, and including your organization’s members in the conversation.
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