When you have clarified the actions you want your readers to take in response to your writing, think about the people you most want to reach—audiences today can be as close as your immediate neighbors or as dispersed as global netizens. Who will be interested in the topic you are writing about? For example, if you are trying to encourage your elementary school to plant a garden, you might try to interest parents, teachers, and PTA members; if you are planning a voter registration drive, you might start with eighteen-year-olds.

Once you have a target audience in mind, you’ll need to think carefully about where and how you are likely to find them, how you can get their attention, and what you can say to achieve your purpose.

Appealing to an audience

What do you know about your audience’s interests? Why should they appreciate what you want to communicate? If you want to convince your neighbors to contribute their time, effort, and resources to build a local playground, then you may have a head start: knowing the neighbors and their children, and understanding local concerns about safety, can help you think of effective appeals to get their attention and convince them to join in this project. If you want to create a flash mob to publicize ineffective security at chemical plants near your city, on the other hand, you will need to reach as many people as possible, most of whom you will not know. Finding ways to reach appropriate audiences and convince them to join your project will probably require you to do some research.

Choosing genre and media

Even if you know the members of your audience, you still need to think about the genre and media that will be most likely to reach them. To get neighbors involved in the playground project mentioned above, you might decide that a colorful print flyer delivered door to door and posted at neighborhood gathering places would work best, or you may put together a neighborhood Facebook page or email list in order to share information digitally. To gather a flash mob, an easily forwarded message—text, tweet, or email—will probably work best.

Using appropriate language

For all public writing, think carefully about the audience you want to reach—as well as unintended audiences your message might reach. Doing so can help you craft writing that will be persuasive without being offensive.

Considering timing

Making sure your text will appear in a timely manner is crucial to the success of your project. If you want people to plan to attend an event, present your text to them at least two weeks ahead of time. If you are issuing a blog or newsletter, make sure that you create content frequently enough to keep people interested (but not so often that readers can’t or won’t bother to keep up). If you are reporting information based on something that has already happened, make it available as soon as possible so that your audience won’t consider your report “old news.”