When working with a new client, it's crucial to understand who their audience is and what they care about. For example, Apple effectively marketed the iPod by focusing on the ability to store a thousand songs, rather than emphasizing the five gigabytes of data. This shows the importance of aligning with the audience's knowledge and interests. It's also important to provide only necessary information and help people get to the bottom line sooner.
As communicators, we often need to take complex information (e.g., financial, technical, or scientific) and make it more understandable for our audience – we’re experts and they likely aren’t. But having so much knowledge on the topics we discuss can often make the job more difficult: we dive in too quickly, forget about our audience's needs, or use jargon that goes over their heads.
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, strategic communications lecturers Matt Abrahams and Lauren Weinstein explore the “curse of knowledge” and offer specific techniques you can use to be more successful in getting your point across.
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