Marketing principles practice; how's this for an idea?

Marketing & Content Hub Content Strategy & SEO
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Hey! Glad to be here.

So I’ve recently taken up a volunteer position as a marketing strategist at a non-for-profit backbone organization that promotes advocacy and research for a wide range of stakeholders in developing community resilience. I am currently focusing on regional Youth resilience (ages 13-25) which involves their contributions and voices in important social movements. In order to not feel like a fraud, I’ve taken up the Hubspot Academy course on content marketing strategy.
As I understand what is necessary to develop an effective strategy and campaign, I must be empathetic; thus in understanding the audience I seek to appeal to, I need to walk within their shoes. And one thing I’ve noticed about some of the copy that my organization uses, it reaks of “hello fellow kids” energy. It seems overly stylistic and infantile in its presentation and I think it almost sends the message of ‘We severely underestimate you due to your age’.
As I understand it, kids are not all constantly seeking attention and bouncing around for the sake of it and actually have things they genuinely care about, such as climate change, non-communicable diseases, etc. To treat them all as such I believe is doing them a disservice. Instead, in writing my copy and developing a strategy, I want to be able to resonate with them in a way that gives their voices and opinions credibility; I aim to speak to them straightforwardly and seriously as they would expect me to.
Of course this is an incredibly rough an idea, and it most likely won’t stand the litmus test once I’ve made my intentions and message clear, however, I believe the prinicple and practice remains; seeing the audience through their lens and not purely what I *think* they want to see.
How did I go? Is this a marketing technique and principle to keep in mind and nurture? Would love some feedback!

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Hi @JGrotegoed,

Thanks for reaching out to the Content Marketing Study Group!

I wanted to invite our study group members to this conversation.

Hi @DFernandezLib, @Jnix284, @jolle, @ASapey - Do you have any feedback for @JGrotegoed?

Thank you!

Best,

Kristen

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Thanks for the mention, @kvlschaefer! And I love your thought process, @JGrotegoed!

Like you said, it’s critical to match the tone and voice that your target audience prefers. Have you spoken with any readers and gotten feedback that confirms your “hello fellow kids” vibe? I would definitely get a sense for how the current content is resonating with your audience before changing anything substantially.

Assuming that something needs to change to better engage your audience, I think you’ve got a great start! Instead of speaking to the kids, you could include them in the conversation and encourage them to share their thoughts and resources. This is super generic advice, but you could consider identifying other age-similar influencers/advocates in the space to both reference how they speak to their audience and invite them to co-create with you. It could take considerable time to tweak and test your new approach, so involving someone who already has it dialed in could be a good move. These are serious issues, so I appreciate you taking a serious approach to this regardless of the age range!

Best of luck in moving this forward!!

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Hey Jacob,
Thanks so much! It honestly shouldn’t be hard for me to see their perspective since I’m closely adjacent to their demographic. But I definitely will take some more time to consider your perspectives!
I honestly feel a tad nervous and overwhelmed by the feeling that I won’t be able to conduct enough rigorous research to get most of my copy published on time. Though it’s a volunteer position, I still don’t cut myself enough slack.
Anyways, will be posting some more :slightly_smiling_face:

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I love the perspective and desire to talk to these younger folks in an authentic and meaningful way, @JGrotegoed. The “hey kids we’re hip and talk like you” approach rarely works.

It feels like in the movies when an undercover officer goes into a high school and tries to be young… with gray hair and a backwards baseball cap…

Instead, like @jolle said, engage with the audience. Ask them how to serve them (surveys). Speak to them in an honest, authentic voice. Use platforms they’re using like Tik Tok and Discord for research.

Focus groups and surveys will be great tools, along with testing ideas out to see how they resonate. I believe respectful and helpful communications will win.

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Hey Dan, thanks for the suggestions! I happen to use Discord a lot anyway, so that’s already a win in my favour.
Talk soon

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@JGrotegoed nice! I’m a reluctant discord user as my youngest uses it a ton and I try to monitor some of it. Good luck!

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Hi @JGrotegoed I think it is wonderful to hear your perspective on how you perceive the content and the direction you’d like to go with your copywriting. Having served on local boards that serve underprivileged youth, not every volunteer puts the thought and consideration into what they are doing as you’ve shown here.

@jolle and @danmoyle have shared some great insights (as always), so I don’t have a lot to add, but I wanted to reiterate how important it is to be authentic.

I agree with Jacob that a drastic change without evaluating how it resonates could be harmful and also with Dan that surveying the audience will help you solidify your gut feeling.

With that said, I’m a firm believer in the “fresh eyes” approach and sometimes it takes someone new to come in and point out the obvious.

I think there are ways you can start to incorporate new, more authentic language into your copywriting without creating a complete break in the identity.

Remember that the brand voice is a collection of every image and copy used, so you have to be mindful that you’re creating a consistent conversion path when you’re creating content.

For example, if you start a TikTok with a complete disconnect from the existing lanugage, when they arrive at your website it can create a confusing experience.

With Discord and 1:1 and 1:many conversations, this shock will likely be less since they are seeing you as an individual, but it can still create a disconnect if you don’t work on consistency.

My suggestion would be to gain as much feedback and insights from your audience as possible, even if it is asking your own peers (since you’re close to the demographic) to validate your impression.

Then you can start to make slow and meaningful changes. It will be helpful if you can clearly communicate your ideas internally, so that the people you volunteer with understand your perspective and what you’re hoping to acheive.

Ultimately, the brand voice should resonate with the audience, how you transition might not be as quickly as you’d like, but will be worth it in the end.

Best of luck, and keep on doing what you’re doing, we need more people like you in our communities (locally and online of course) :orange_heart:

Thanks for the tag @kvlschaefer

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bravo.gif

Bravo @Jnix284 - love the thoughtful advice and insight.

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Thanks for the advice, Jennifer! I also appreciate that you acknowledge my efforts to uphold my integrity, so thank you for that as well.
I know my volunteer coordinator wants me to get the blog posts done on a per weekly basis, but I might have to communicate to him that it’s not just about our message, but the collective message of whom we are addressing, thus requiring a bit more rigour than just ‘write and edit’.
On a sidenote, I think my need to do the right thing is both my greatest strength but also my greatest weakness; cause it’d be so easy for me to just settle for generic and “engaging” copy and be done with it; but I’m no fan of insomnia, so I won’t do that.
And honestly, I feel a little bit of imposter syndrome because I realize the burden of my actions in this profession yet I feel I may not be able to uphold my conduct in the face of these burdens. Does HubSpot potentially include a short course on marketing ethics? If not here, then perhaps you could recommend one?
I appreciate this all, I’m honestly overwhelmed by how helpful everyone has been so far, so thank all of you :heart:

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you’re welcome @JGrotegoed, I don’t remember an ethics lesson in HubSpot Academy and couldn’t find one with a quick search, but here is an Ethics in Marketing course from LinkedIn focused on integrity.

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You’re not alone in your desires to do it right, @JGrotegoed. If I may offer this advice from my experience in marketing, TV, and content creation: Remember that done is better than perfect.

I don’t want you to sacrifice integrity, but marketing and content creation is about trying things out, testing, analyzing, and iterating. Content will never be perfect.

You got this!

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Totally agree @danmoyle , published is better than perfect!

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Totally agree

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Thank you!