Why a deep dive into understanding your audience(s) is crucial to the success of your work
In trauma, mental health and interconnected wellbeing spaces, branding and marketing practice often lag behind other sectors. A common misstep is the belief that personal lived experience equates to deep audience understanding. While lived experience offers valuable perspective, relying on it as the sole lens through which to understand your audience can result in skewed assumptions, limited reach, and costly decisions.
We would never consider implementing clinical interventions or therapeutic approaches without a foundation of robust evidence. So why do we risk shaping services, messaging or strategy without the same rigour applied to audience insight?
Much of our work is rooted in a compassionate understanding of the human condition. Yet many practitioners and organisations fail to bring that same curiosity and care to understanding the people they’re trying to reach. Just as there is no universal treatment pathway for trauma or mental health, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to audience profiling.
Audience needs vary significantly – by cultural background, lived experience, value system, financial pressures, and more. These nuances matter. They shape how people access support, what language resonates, and which barriers persist.
Deep empathy still matters – even more so now
As AI becomes increasingly embedded across our work, systems and communications, it’s tempting to lean into convenience over connection. While AI can help us scale, organise and automate, it cannot – and should not – replace the role of deep empathy in understanding human behaviour.
Especially in trauma-informed and mental health contexts, it’s the human insight – the subtle cues, unspoken contradictions, and complexity of lived experience – that provides the most meaningful understanding. These are the things that make people feel seen. And they can’t be fully grasped by pattern recognition alone.
When it comes to understanding your audiences in a way that builds trust and long-term impact, you can’t afford to miss the nuance. The kind of insight that drives genuine relevance, connection and memorability isn’t surface-level – it sits in the depth of human connection.
So it’s worth asking:
- Do I truly understand the needs of my different audiences – and am I meeting them effectively?
- In what ways might I be overestimating how much others care about something I do or don’t do?
- How might this inflated belief be influencing my decisions, behaviours or communications?
- Does my own perspective – formed in a particular professional or personal context – give me the full picture?
If we’re honest, many of us will realise we don’t yet have all the information we need to make our work as effective and inclusive as it could be.
The risks of assumption
Operating on assumption can lead to a number of avoidable pitfalls:
- Inaccurate targeting – Assuming you know your audience and their pain points without proper research can lead to targeting the wrong people or personas. This results in wasted resources and ineffective marketing that fails to resonate with the actual audience.
- Misaligned messaging – When businesses make assumptions about their audience, they may craft messaging that doesn’t accurately reflect the audience’s needs, values, language, or preferences. This can result in messaging that fails to capture the audience’s attention or, worse, alienates them.
- Missed opportunities – Assuming you understand your audience fully can blind you to emerging trends, changing preferences, or new segments within your audience. This can cause businesses to miss out on opportunities for growth or innovation because they fail to adapt to the evolving needs of their audience.
- Poor product or service development – If businesses base product development decisions on assumptions rather than concrete insight about their audience, they risk creating products or services that miss the mark and that ultimately fail to gain traction in the market.
- Lack of customer engagement – Assuming you know what, your audience wants without actively engaging with them can lead to a disconnect between the business and its customers. This lack of engagement can result in decreased satisfaction, lower retention rates, and a weakened reputation.
- Difficulty in building relationships – Building strong relationships with people requires understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviours. When businesses make assumptions about their audience, they may struggle to connect with them on a meaningful level, hindering efforts to build loyalty and advocacy.
What can we do instead?
Gaining meaningful insight into your audience isn’t out of reach – it just requires intention and the right tools. From 1-to-1 depth interviews, surveys, and qualitative or quantitative market research, through to analytics and behavioural data, there are many accessible ways to better understand who you are serving – and how to serve them more effectively.
Developing ‘pen portraits’ or detailed audience profiles based on real insight allows you to:
- Design better services – Rooted in what people genuinely need, rather than what we assume they want
- Achieve a stronger competitive position – By identifying unmet needs and underserved communities
- Communicate more clearly – With messaging that reflects people’s language, motivations, and challenges
- Enhance the user experience – Through more tailored, responsive and sensitive interactions
- Make stronger decisions – Grounded in insight, not instinct
- Build lasting trust – By showing people that they are seen, heard and understood
In summary
Understanding your audience(s) deeply isn’t a marketing exercise – it’s a vital part of doing meaningful, ethical work in this space. It supports inclusion, improves outcomes, and helps you reach those who might otherwise be left out.
In a world where so much is being automated, remembering the value of a human lens isn’t nostalgic – it’s necessary. Because at its core, this work is – and always will be – about people.
