I have a bad habit of assuming people want the same things I want in the same way I want them.

There was a long-time client of the agency I worked at, but I didn’t support that work until a content migration project came along. My first interaction would be presenting to the client, in person, some of the overall content migration strategy and planning. The agency team had already put the deck together, and sent it my way to prepare.

I spent several days reviewing the slides, which was a lot of bulletpoints and big blocks of text, in order to develop my actual presentation. Surely no one wanted me to just stand there and read what was on the slide out loud.

We had an internal review scheduled among the agency team and I had my notes ready. I presented the first two or three slides, speaking to and summarizing what was there, sharing the overall narrative of what was happening, and working to engage directly with my audience.

By the fourth slide someone raised their hand and said they weren’t able to follow where I was on the slide. I told them I was presenting the information, and surely they didn’t want me to just stand there and read what was on the slide out loud.

They did, in fact, want that. In their defense, it’s because that’s apparently what the client wanted. And I’m guessing the client wanted that because that’s what you do. You pay an agency gobs of money to put together a PowerPoint, fly them all down to Baton Rouge, meet in a windowless Marriott conference room, have one of them read the slides out loud to the other adults in the room for a day and a half, and then send everyone home.

You know, marketing.

Yes, I’m being a bit melodramatic, but the reality is that I made assumptions and projected my preference onto them. That’s not good marketing.

All of this is representative of a genuine conflict marketers have when trying to connect with their target audience. On one end of the spectrum are companies so rigid and idealistic about their own vision for what they’re offering that they alienate people who aren’t willing to blindly follow. On the other end are companies without any real foundation or positioning, willing to kowtow to anything and everything their perceived target audiences asks for — like when I had an executive ask, during a brand exercise, "But what do our customers want us to be?"

This is why it’s vital for companies to do upfront research to not only establish your target audience, but to understand the when, where, why, and how you’re going to be communicating with them.

I will say, if you’re going to lean toward one end of the spectrum, I’d suggest the former. Clear positioning, clear offerings, and clear expectations will help you find your base — people whose values and approach already align with what your company is — and then adjust as you go.

Clarity is sometimes more important than accommodation, so don’t be afraid to integrate what you know are best practices in order to earn the alignment and engagement you’re looking for.

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