OF PEARS AND ELM TREES : Knowing Your Audience

By Sara Montoya

You are in the beginning stages of planning an event. There is an anticipation over what this event can become. Whether it is an annual event or the first of its kind, you want the event to be fun, educational, engaging, and if planned correctly, perhaps even financially beneficial. Before you begin brainstorming on themes, creating opportunities for speakers or partnerships, or mapping out the logistics of the event, it is important to pause and take a step back.

Knowing Your Audience: Why?

Consider your audience. Who will be attending your event? Without knowing who the event is for, your planning amounts to guessing and grasping for straws.

You want your attendees to enjoy the event and leave feeling like they gained value from it. The only way to give them that experience is to know who they are. Everyone learns, is entertained, and engages differently, your event attendees included.

Before you start planning activities for your attendees to engage in, you have to find out what they are interested in first. Knowing your audience helps to figure out the kind of message that your attendees will resonate with.

Audience Analysis

The University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication defines audience analysis as “identifying the audience and adapting a speech to their interests, level of understanding, attitudes, and beliefs. Taking an audience-centered approach is important because a speaker’s effectiveness will be improved if the presentation is created and delivered in an appropriate manner,” in other words, recognizing your attendees and modifying your event to fit their passions, culture, and attitudes.

Some audience analysis characteristics include:

• Attendees’ expectations of your event

• Demographics and psychographics (the measurement of people’s attitudes and interests)

• Event setting

• Event and audience size

Most people attend events that directly impact them or their community. You need to show your attendees why your event is worth their time, effort, and in most cases, money.

“Baila Esta Cumbia” blasted from the speakers as the captivated audience of abuelitos and children danced around the raised stage, which was lined up with over 20 eager contestants ready to model their intricate, midriff-baring costumes. Girls of all ages, including a baby styled in a vibrant purple outfit and long wig while being carried by her mother, walked, danced, and twirled across the stage in a nod to the late Mexican-American Tejano icon Selena Quintanilla for a Selena Look-Alike Contest on Saturday, April 30 - El día de los niños/ El día de los libros (Children’s Day/ Book Day).

Día, as the event is most commonly called, is an annual celebration of children, families, and reading that emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Día is a Mexican tradition started in 1925 and was adopted by Texas native and nationally recognized author Pat Mora, who suggested the idea to Latino faculty at the University of Arizona. Grassroots support for a celebration linking language and literature grew with REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, MANA, a national Latina advocacy organization, and NABE, the National Association of Bilingual Education, advocating for it.

McAllen Public Library in McAllen, Texas celebrates Día every year with festive programming for families from both side of this region’s border that includes bilingual story times, author visits, free books and treats (such as raspas) for children and teens, crafts and activities, visits from community partners, and musical performances. A recent Día celebration included a partnership with the Consulate of Mexico in McAllen to pay tribute to the popular Mexican composer Cri-Cri in an event that brought together guests of all ages, including busloads of students from the Mexican border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

McAllen, Texas is a city of 144,000 in the southernmost part of Texas, whose population is 86% Hispanic and fully bilingual. US News writes, “Despite its reputation as a mere border town, McAllen, Texas, is a vibrant metro area and a major center for retail, international trade, tourism, and manufacturing.” Two international bridges, the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge and the Anzalduas International Bridge, saw 11.5 million personal vehicles cross to McAllen in 2022, a 27% increase from 2021.

Tailor Your Event

Because of its proximity to the US-Mexican border and its own bi-national culture, McAllen Public Library tailors its events to their target audience and potential library patrons, knowing that planning events that are too generalized will end up connecting with very few.

Tailoring your event and promotional materials to your target audience will allow you to create messages that will resonate with your attendees on a deep, meaningful level, resulting in long-term relationships with your brand. Finally, if done correctly, your target audience will encourage their families, friends, and colleagues to organically grow your event and brand through word-of-mouth marketing.

Once you understand who your target audience is and what their expectations are, you can begin to tailor your event to meet and exceed their expectations. For example, if the goal of your target audience is to learn, filling your program with speakers who are experts in their field would be the best move. If your target audience is families with small children, games, crafts, and entertainment would be worth the time and effort that it might take to get to your event. If you know that your target audience wants to meet people, you might want to include plenty of networking activities.

However, keep in mind that the attendees from your last event, even if it is a reoccurring event, may not be the same as the attendees you are anticipating for your current program or festival. Your marketing for previous events may have drawn in new people. Think of your target audience as a new group of attendees to reach and develop a relationship with.

McAllen Public Library’s South Texas Book Festival started in 2013 as the McAllen Book Festival. Initially, it was an event for children and teens only. In the many years since its conception, the book festival has transformed several times to meet their audience’s growing expectations.

The first transformation was changing the name and branding of the book festival to the South Texas Book Festival to better showcase the festival’s increasing scope.

“The change to South Texas Book Festival more accurately described our expanded reach; especially, as many of our authors are from, or live in, South Texas,” said Kate Horan, McAllen Public Library Director. “Additionally, our programming also reflects South Texas culture and language, which is so important to feature since so many families from all over South Texas attend our event, which features the best in children’s and teens’ authors and fun activities for the whole family.”

Along with the new name, South Texas Book Festival developed a new logo. The logo featured bright colors to represent the book festival’s audience, children and teens, and a star icon to represent the state of Texas.

While the entire world pivoted as a result of COVID-19, McAllen Public Library staff quickly learned new streaming software to bring the 2020 and 2021 South Texas Book Festival to our audiences in a virtual format. The core elements of the festival were kept the same, but as a whole, the event was modified to fit the circumstances and meet our audiences’ expectations.

The most recent change to the South Texas Book Festival was a result of receiving valuable feedback from our attendees: adding elements for adults to an event that catered to youth only. McAllen Public Library created the current festival model: a multiday event that includes South Texas Reads!, a region-wide literary event encouraging the Rio Grande Valley community to read and discuss the same book and a presentation by the author during the book festival, and an evening of live poetry readings by South Texas poets. Knowing and listening to our audience, tailoring our event to their feedback, and making these changes has proved to be successful, with over 7,000 attendees enjoying the festival in 2022.

Market to Your Target Audience

There’s an old Spanish saying, No le puedes pedir peras al olmo or “You can’t ask pears from an elm tree” that means you cannot ask for something from people who cannot provide them. This saying affirms that you must know your target audience to meet their needs and expectations; you cannot expect an audience when you do not know who they are. Knowing your audience will provide insight as to how you market your event, including what kind of voice, tone, design, and content you should use. It is important to appeal to your target audience’s motivation for attending your event, so clarify exactly what they will be gaining from their experience. When attendees feel a personal connection to an event or brand, they are more likely to be invested in it and have a more positive experience.

Equally as important is to choose to market on the right channels to reach your intended audience. There is a plethora of channels to choose, and some will be more effective than others, including a website landing page, various social media pages (that each have their own audience themselves), emails, text messages, influencer marketing, among others. Using the right marketing channel ensures that you are meeting your target audience where they are.

McAllen Public Library’s annual Trick-or-Treat Trail in 2021 marked the first in-person event after the hardships of COVID-19 forced us to go viral with our programming. Even though we knew our patrons were eager to get back into the library for programs and events, there was an obvious hesitation about whether that time was now, and whether our community was ready. Traditionally, the Trick-or-Treat Trail takes place inside the 123,000 square foot Main Library, but the event was tailored to meet the needs of our attendees, and we held the event outside and the trail lined the perimeter of the library. The event attendance exceeded 6,000 people. The main marketing strategy for the entire event boiled down to one word: safe. All marketing materials spotlighted the fact that the event was going to be a fun way to get the entire family to participate in trick-or-treating in a safe way – outdoors with plenty of social distancing. Entire families dressed up and waited in lines that snaked our parking lot multiple times for the opportunity to get back to a fun event in a secure, healthy way.

As it is often heard in the marketing world, when you know your audience, the audience knows. Our jobs as event planners and marketers are to understand what our target audience wants to attend and help them get there. Peter F. Drucker said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

Sara P. Montoya-Hernandez is a Marketing & Events Coordinator for the McAllen Public Library system. She and her amazing team plan and promote library services and events to engage and serve the community. She began working with the City of McAllen at McAllen Public Library in 2010. Sara is passionate about sharing library services with her community and has presented on communication and social media for the City of McAllen, the Hidalgo County Library System, Texas Library Association, and the Texas Municipal League. She aspires to continue to work towards making the library accessible to every person in the community, regardless of ability or social or economic standing. She enjoys experiencing amazing events with her four-year-old and looks forward to napping whenever she gets the chance.

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