Your Audience Doesn't Know What You Know

One of the easiest mistakes to make in marketing is assuming your audience has the same context you do, which is completely understandable. You spend every day immersed in your organization. You know the programs, the terminology, the history, and the reasons behind every decision.

After a while, it's hard to imagine not knowing those things. Your audience doesn't have that advantage. They're meeting you for the first time. They're deciding in a matter of seconds whether to keep reading, click a link, attend an event, or move on.

That means your marketing has one job before it can do anything else: Help people understand.

Familiarity creates blind spots

The longer we work somewhere, the more we begin to speak in shorthand. We use acronyms without realizing it. We refer to annual events as though everyone has attended them before. We mention programs by name instead of describing what they actually do.

Inside the organization, that language feels perfectly natural. Outside the organization, it can leave people wondering if they're missing something. They're not. They just haven't lived your experience.

Your audience is asking different questions

While you're thinking about your mission, your audience is often thinking about something much simpler. "Is this for me?" "Do I belong here?" "Why should I care?" "How does this help me?"

Good marketing answers those questions before asking people to take the next step.

The curse of knowledge

There's a concept in psychology called the curse of knowledge. Once we know something well, it's incredibly difficult to remember what it was like not to know it. That's why experts often skip the very information beginners need.

Organizations do the same thing. We assume people understand our process, our purpose, or our terminology because it's become second nature to us. But what feels obvious internally is often invisible externally.

A simple exercise

Choose a page on your website or one of your recent social media posts. Now imagine you're seeing it for the very first time.

Ask yourself:

• Would I understand what this organization actually does?

• Would I know who it's for?

• Would I know what to do next?

• Are there words that only an insider would recognize?

If the answer to any of those questions is "I'm not sure," you've found an opportunity to make your marketing more welcoming.

Clarity is an act of empathy

One of my favorite things about marketing is that, at its best, it's an exercise in empathy. It's not about proving how much your organization knows. It's about meeting people where they are. The clearer your communication, the easier it is for someone to say, "I understand what you do, and I think it's for me."

That's the moment good marketing is trying to create.