The audience of a piece changes what the piece must say, what it can assume, and which words it uses. The Content Hub asks for the audience because a general audience gives general content. General content does not answer the question of a person exactly.

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Why it is important for AI visibility

Answer engines lift passages that answer a question directly. A passage for “anyone interested in CRM” seldom answers a question exactly enough for an engine to lift it. A passage for a sales lead at an agency with twenty people answers a question that a person really asked. Engines quote this type of passage.

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Select the audience

  • Select the person who asks the question, not the person who signs the contract. These are frequently different persons. The question of the buyer and the question of the user have different vocabulary and different sources.
  • Use the personas that you already have. If the brand has personas, the personas give the context: the role, the constraints, and what the person already knows. Personas also keep the pieces of a team consistent.
  • Tell exactly what the audience already knows. The largest difference between a useful piece and a padded piece is how much basic information it does not repeat.

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A frequent mistake

Some teams select the widest audience to “reach more people”. The result is a piece that explains what all readers already know, and that does not answer a specific question. Narrow pieces are more quotable. More quotable pieces get more citations.