Faith Cedela
YOU THINK YOU KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. YOU PROBABLY DON'T.
Here's a humbling truth: most communicators spend more time crafting the message than understanding who's receiving it. We wordsmith the headline, agonize over the send time, A/B test the subject line — and then skip the part where we actually ask people what they need.
It's like planning a dinner party without asking if anyone's vegetarian. Sure, you made something impressive. But half the room isn't eating it.
According to a recent episode of Ragan's Ask the Board video series, communications leaders are putting audience insight front and center — specifically, the practice of asking employees better questions before building out your messaging and channel strategy. Three members of Ragan's Advisory Board weighed in on what they believe communicators need to ask their audiences more often. The answers, while not shocking, are a solid reminder of what the craft requires.
ASKING IS A STRATEGY, NOT A NICETY
There's a version of internal comms that feels like broadcasting. Leadership has a message, comms packages it, employees receive it. Done. Except it's not done, because half of them didn't read it, a quarter misunderstood it, and the other quarter have follow-up questions nobody planned for.
The fix isn't a better newsletter template. It's building in the habit of asking before you communicate — not just after, in a survey that lives and dies in a spreadsheet somewhere.
What does your audience want to know? What format works for them? What do they feel like leadership never addresses? These aren't soft questions. They're the architecture your messaging gets built on.
When you skip them, you're essentially writing fiction — a story about an audience you invented rather than the one sitting in front of you.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR PR STRATEGY
Whether you're handling internal comms, external PR, or both, the principle is the same: insight precedes messaging. That's not a new idea, but it's one that gets deprioritized the moment a deadline shows up.
Here's what building a question-first approach actually looks like in practice:
- Start campaigns with a listening phase. Before you write a single word of copy, talk to the people you're trying to reach. Even informal conversations surface things no analytics dashboard will tell you.
- Ask about channel preference, not just content. Your audience might trust the message but never check the channel you're using to deliver it. That's a distribution problem, not a messaging problem.
- Make it ongoing, not occasional. One annual employee survey isn't a listening strategy. It's a checkbox. Build in regular touchpoints — short pulse checks, open Q&As, manager feedback loops — so your understanding of the audience evolves as they do.
- Actually do something with what you hear. Nothing kills future participation faster than asking for input and visibly ignoring it. Close the loop. Tell people what you heard and what you're doing about it.
The communicators who are consistently effective aren't the ones with the cleverest copy. They're the ones who did the work before they sat down to write. They asked. They listened. Then they built something the audience actually wanted.
It's less glamorous than a beautifully designed campaign launch. But it's the part that makes the campaign land.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Audience insight isn't a phase you complete once and move on from. It's a practice — ongoing, iterative, and honestly kind of humbling. Because the more you ask, the more you realize how much your assumptions were doing the heavy lifting.
Start with one question you haven't been asking your audience. Go from there.
If you want communications strategy that's built on actual insight — not assumption — Winsome Marketing can help. We work with brands to develop PR and messaging strategies grounded in real audience understanding. Let's talk.
This post was originally inspired by WATCH: Communications leaders discuss the top questions to ask employees via ragan. We encourage you to read the original piece for full context.