From target group profile to communication strategy

Your target group profile is complete. You have goals, associations, pain points and objections to consider. Now you need a website, campaign or sales conversation. That requires choices: which insight takes priority, what will you promise, how will you support it and what next step will you ask the recipient to take?

Define one decision situation, prioritise the relevant insights and connect them to a core message, evidence, tone, channels and a measurable objective. Record the insight behind each choice and the effect that still needs testing.

This approach is a practical editorial synthesis. The scientific models below help inform individual choices; they do not automatically validate the whole approach or your campaign.

In 1948, Lasswell organised communication around the sender, message, channel, recipient and effect. His text is available, among other editions, in a later Spanish translation hosted by Universidad de Chile.

This provides a useful historical starting point for our application: a target group profile primarily describes the recipient. Your strategy must also determine who speaks, what they say, where it happens and the intended result. Lasswell’s publication is background here; we do not attribute the origin of the broad term communication strategy to him.

We use four working definitions:

• Communication strategy: connected choices about the audience, intended effect, message, supporting evidence, tone and contact points.
• Communication brief: the document that communicates those choices to the people creating and delivering the communication.
• Core message: the central idea the recipient should take away.
• Effect hypothesis: a testable expectation about what a communication choice changes for a defined audience in a particular situation.

The strategy sets direction. The brief translates it into an actionable assignment, including materials, responsibilities and testing.

First specify who can take which step. For example, an operations manager is assessing whether to propose a pilot internally. That is more concrete than “greater interest in our solution”. Identify advisers, budget approvers and the information missing at that moment.

Here, we define an associative target group as people who make decisions based on similar associations within a particular decision situation. This approach investigates which shared meanings guide their assessment. Age, role or sector may help describe and reach the group; they do not themselves demonstrate shared associations.

Document how you identify the group, the evidence behind the boundaries and the situation to which they apply. Treat an untested association profile as a hypothesis. Read what an associative target group is for the underlying approach.

Review the profile using three questions:

1. What do we know? Record source and date: research, customer conversation, sales experience or assumption. A constructed customer voice is not a verbatim participant quotation.
2. What matters for this decision? Select the relevant goal, main tension and barrier. Choose a few guiding insights and give the remaining information a supporting role.
3. What can we act on? Connect the insight to a real feature of the offer, available evidence or an improvement that must first be delivered.

Keep uncertainties and contradictory observations alongside each selection. If different parts of the audience appear to need different arguments, develop separate hypotheses. Treat them as distinct segments only when the boundaries can be justified.

These are examples of editorial choices and research questions, not established effects.

A claim about your offer always requires its own support. An audience’s desire for certainty does not prove that a provider can guarantee it.

Use this working sentence: “For people in situation X who want to achieve Y, our approach offers Z, supported by evidence B.” This belongs in the brief. The final headline or advertisement can be shorter and more natural.

Connect a functional benefit to its meaning for the recipient. “You can see the implementation schedule” describes something different from “you can support your proposal internally”. Choose what should lead in the situation studied and check that the offer can support it.

Keep the emotional thread coherent. A motive describes what matters to someone; emotional pain describes the current tension; emotional benefit describes the desired experience. Choose which thread guides the brief so the text does not jump between fear, status and convenience without a clear connection.

Create a short evidence list alongside the core message. For each claim, record the available source or material, what it demonstrates and the relevant conditions. A specification, customer story and comparative study answer different questions.

In the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Petty and Cacioppo (1986)60214-2) describe how motivation and ability to process information relate to the way people evaluate arguments.

Our practical application is to determine the explanation needed at this contact point and make further evidence accessible. A short initial message can lead to a demonstration or detailed case. Avoid treating “emotional” and “rational” as two fixed types of people.

Make tone concrete. “Calm and knowledgeable” might mean explaining conditions, using familiar words, making technical terms understandable and answering the main question early. Also specify which exaggerations or expressions do not fit.

Then distinguish two functions:

• Discovery: where does someone encounter or explore the topic?
• Decision: where do they find the information, conversation or action that moves the choice forward?

A newsletter might introduce the topic, an article provide depth and a conversation address implementation questions. This is a possible arrangement, not an assumption about your audience. Ground channel choices in the profile and check actual reach and use.

In the Theory of Planned Behavior, Ajzen (1991) describes relationships between attitude, subjective norm, perceived control, intention and behaviour. A favourable evaluation alone therefore does not establish action.

Specify separately what someone should understand, which assessment might change and the behaviour you ultimately want to observe. “Understands the pilot conditions” and “submits a pilot proposal” are different outcomes.

The COM-B model by Michie, Van Stralen and West (2011) connects behaviour with capability, opportunity and motivation. Here it helps raise a broader question: can the person actually take the requested step?

If budget, access or authority is missing, identify who can address that barrier. A brief might request information for a budget holder; a missing product feature requires a decision beyond copy production.

Fictional example, without research findings. A software provider wants operations managers to propose a pilot. Suppose the associative target group to be tested mainly associates implementation with extra work and loss of oversight, while seeking manageable improvement.

The strategic direction is to clarify implementation and responsibilities. A possible message is: “See what a pilot would require from your team before you start.” Supporting material includes an implementation overview and a demonstration of the steps, provided these exist and match the service.

The next step is a conversation in which the manager and implementation lead discuss feasibility. In an initial test, assess whether people understand the division of tasks and what workload questions remain. Investigate separately whether the communication leads to suitable enquiries. The example illustrates the translation process; it demonstrates no conversion gain.

Kohavi, Henne and Sommerfield (2007) describe how controlled online experiments can connect changes to behaviour, addressing random assignment and evaluation criteria.

Specify at least the following:

1. Expectation: what difference do you expect, for whom and why?
2. Comparison: which variants will you compare and what remains constant?
3. Outcome: which primary measure supports the decision? Which other outcomes must not deteriorate?
4. Execution: determine assignment, required data, duration and analysis in advance.
5. Decision rule: when will you retain, change or further investigate the direction?

Use exploratory conversations to identify unclear points and possible explanations. Claiming that a message causes a behavioural difference requires an appropriate impact study. Without sufficient data, the conclusion remains uncertain; the project team’s preference does not supply the missing evidence.

• Every row becomes a message. Choose a central direction and decide what supports it.
• A desired outcome becomes a product promise. First check whether the offer can deliver it.
• An association is treated as a cause. State the proposed effect as a hypothesis and test it.
• A BIS or BAS profile dictates the copy. Use scores as context for research questions; a profile does not prescribe a proven advertisement.
• A channel substitutes for strategy. First define the task of each contact point.
• A click becomes the ultimate goal. Choose the measure around the decision and also assess the quality of the next step.

A useful brief contains the decision situation, defined audience, selected insights with sources, communication objective, core message, evidence, tone guidance, channel roles, next step and test plan. Add responsible people, available materials and delivery dates.

Then ask a creator to explain in their own words what the recipient should take away and why that direction was chosen. Differences in their explanation give you a concrete issue to resolve before production.

A target group profile becomes useful for communication when you make choices. Connect each important insight to a specific message or arrangement, identify the available evidence and make the expected effect testable. This connects research, strategy and execution.