A Project of |
Guidelines | Rants | Patterns | Poems | Services | Classes | Press | Blog | Resources | About Us | Site Map |
Home > Rants > Talk like a human being. > Probe your audiences--gently. |
What info consumers want from your text Do you know who you are talking to? |
Probe your audiences--gentlyWe used to write for a mass audience--one big, amorphous, floating cloud of people out there somewhere, just beyond the TV set. Now we write for small groups--niche markets, segments, special interest groups. And within those groups, we often talk directly to one person at a time. We have returned to writing for an audience of one. Like a poet writing to a beloved, or a traveler writing to a spouse, we create text designed to move, amuse, entertain, persuade that one person. Customizing text for a group, and then personalizing what we say for individuals, we take advantage of the fancy software on our web sites, but we go back to a way of writing that's more like a conversation. The question is: can we stop sounding like corporations, and begin to talk like human beings? |
Resource Who am I writing for, and, incidentally, who am I? (Full chapter from Hot Text, in PDF, 566K, or about 10 minutes at 56k) Exploring audiences (PDF 82K, or about 2 minutes at 56K) |
Home |
Guidelines |
Rants |
Patterns |
Poems |
Services |
Classes |
Press |
Blog |
Web
Writing that Works!
|