What Is “Relevant”?
To a communications or fundraising professional, "what is relevant" to my target audience or prospect is — or should be — the threshold question.
Relevance to the receiver — not you the sender — is what determines whether your message or appeal has the remotest chance of penetrating the media clutter, as well as all the conscious and unconscious "screens" that the receiver has installed to manage their limited attention span.
I usually try to avoid going back to the same source too quickly, but in this case I want to pass along another discussion posed by Loren McDonald of e-marketing firm Silverpop.
Via Twitter, Loren asked colleagues to define "relevance" — all came up with some version of "right message at right time." Check out the ensuing discussion.
Here are some words that emerged:
- Wanted.
- Trusted and Recognized.
- Expected.
- Timely.
- Surprising.
- Usable.
- Personalized.
- Differentiated.
- Valued.
- Humanized.
Of course, this perhaps obvious piece of marketing theory is tough to apply in practice on any consistent basis. For starters, it requires that the marketer have an uncommon ability to put him- or herself in the shoes of their audience … and not just in "segment" terms ("here’s what female Boomers are thinking"), but with as much feel for an individual’s mind state as possible.
Who do you know who does that really well and consistently?
Many of us probably believe we can infer what’s going on in our prospect’s head and heart … but it might be better to ask!
Tom
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