Understanding your audience: gathering and applying insight

In this talk, Tim explored what we mean by good audience insight. He outlines a plethora of research tools and techniques for a range of budgets and explored how we might best apply this insight to our communications. Tim also highlights some of the most common research mistakes people make, to help us avoid common pitfalls.  

Charities are often sitting on a wealth of data, but how do you know you’re making the most of the insight it holds? How do you identify, extract and share compelling stories from your data? In this short talk, you’ll hear top tips for making the most of the information you already have.

When it comes to data, your whole organisation needs to be on board – from collecting information to keeping data up-to–date, and from integrating systems to building rich, sharable audience insights. In her talk, Secil shared early learnings from building an insight team and developing an insight culture at the Wellcome Trust. She also explored how to get buy-in from colleagues at all levels.   

In this insightful session, Charlotte shared results from a recently commissioned YouGov poll to help us better understand how the cost of living crisis is already changing behaviour in our audiences. You’ll be able to use these insights as a basis for conversation in your own organisations, and to help inform your comms plans and activity this autumn/winter.

People don’t talk to researchers the way they talk to each other, which is why social data is so important. It’s a chance to observe what really matters to people. But we need more than pretty dashboards and superficial metrics. We need something that will help us to think creatively, innovatively and strategically. But where do you start? In this session, we’ll explore how charities can conduct deep qualitative analyses of online conversations to get more comprehensive and true-to-life insights about customers and their world.

For your communications strategy to have an impact understanding your audiences and applying these insights is key. However communications and marketing departments are not the only people who hold this information, and working with your organisation to build an understanding of the characteristics of your priority audiences to tailor your communications will help you achieve your goals. Watch this session to get tools and tips for mapping your audiences and using this information to develop effective communications plans.