I grabbed a half day last week so I could assist my electrician John with some work around the house.
And by “assist,” I mean handing him the wrong tools and pacing nervously until he says it might be better if I went into the other room.
But John perked up when I told him Wylie was taking Mandarin among his other 8th-grade classes.
You see, John lived in China for 13 years. And I figured he rarely got a chance to air out his second language beyond the occasional take-out order.
Wylie was a little less enthusiastic. He held his own with basic conversation. But it wasn’t long until his confidence got swallowed up by more advanced phrasings and vocabulary.
As if teenagers need more reasons to feel painfully self-aware.
I had just gone back to my knitting when John said something I didn’t see coming …
“Schools in the United States teach languages all wrong.”
Since I wasn’t paying by the hour (or the rant), I urged him to continue.
He said the best way to learn a language is the same way we all did as babies—total immersion. Since our first exposure to language was through context, intonation, and repetition, why should it be any different when learning a new one later in life?
We didn’t start by reading and writing then. So, why begin the curriculum with those now?
If you’re wondering when I’m going to flip this tale into a marketing nugget, it’s right here. 📍
Because you can’t speak your reader’s language until you know everything about them.
Total immersion.
It’s impossible to rely on broad characteristics and generalities found in your treasured (and, in my experience, useless) audience personas.
You’ve got to go deeper on people’s hopes, dreams, fears, desires, pains, anxieties, objections, the consequences of doing nothing, and most importantly …
The words they use to express them.
Only then can you acknowledge your reader’s own personal truths and vulnerabilities. You can say: “We see you. We get you. We can help you.”
That’s why audience research isn’t just for “when you have time.” It’s a necessary step toward knowing your readers at their emotional core.
If you don’t know where to start, here are a handful of great places to listen in:
✔️️ Surveys with new leads and customers
✔️️ Customer interviews
✔️️ Transcripts from sales and support chats
✔️️ Sales call recordings
✔️️ Online reviews and forums
(h/t to Copyhackers for that list)
Bluntly, whenever I talk about the need to do a little extra digging, people act like I suggested we euthanize their pet.
“You’ll never find some mind-blowing insight,” they say. But I’m not looking for a single, grand “a-ha” moment. I’m listening for an accumulation of little things—fragments of feelings that add up to an unrealized gain or inescapable pain.
To prove it, I pull out this snippet of copy I clipped from a CRM provider’s website …
I guarantee this copywriter didn’t fill the blank page with educated guesses. Looking at the word choices, I’ll wager 90% of this copy came directly from a chorus of frustrated prospects.
It leapfrogs the persona and speaks right to the person.
That should always be the goal of your messaging—to meet your audience at the conversation they’re having in their heads.
And when your readers can see themselves in your copy …
You got ‘em.
Here’s a song to play you out >>>
See you next time. — Matt
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