Hook, line, and sinker: Three tips to communicating with a technical audience

Communicating to non-communicators: the challenge of any marketing and communication program. How do you break through the veil and create engaging content? It’s not as simple as you’d think. Getting the right content out there takes research, targeting, and practice. So where can you start? Here are three tips when communicating with a technical audience.

1. Know your audience.

“All employees” or “everyone” is not a targetable audience. Home in on a select group or groups for your article. Ask yourself a few questions:

• Who am I writing this for?

• What is the objective of this article?

• How does this align with the company’s communication plan?

People want to know what the content has to do with them. They won’t read it if they don’t know what’s in it for them. These questions will help determine the people who will read through your content.

2. Get rid of occupation-specific language.

Assume that your audience knows nothing. Remove jargon, or special words that are used by professions and are hard to understand for outsiders, from your vocabulary. According to a Journal of Language and Social Psychology study, jargon disrupts people’s ability to process scientific information. This is no different for office interactions. You can ostracize people using colloquial words, especially when dealing with language barriers.

When you first mention an acronym, define and write it out completely, no matter how common it is. Again, assume your audience knows nothing. A new hire may need to learn the definition of an acronym. In the age of the internet, sure, they can look it up, but that takes them away from your article. All pertinent information should be on the page.

3. Use snackable content and video.

The average worker receives 121 emails per day. So, another text-based email or newsletter is bound to be skimmed over. Why not try a video? 90% of our brain is visual, and videos are processed 60,000 times faster than raw text. People aren’t looking for an in-depth explanation of everything. Keep the text and video short. Get your main points across and tell your audience what they need.

People are busy. Don’t bog them down with long articles with every bit of detail, but don’t leave out definitions of acronyms. Give them the information they need to know in a bite-sized form. The world is trending toward short videos—lean into it! Know your audience, keep it short, and people will retain more content you put out.