The Power of Knowing Your Audience

As Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for SHPE Southwestern College, I had the privilege of growing our social media audience by more than 80% and increasing chapter membership by roughly 200% as our college moved toward full reopening. In less than one month and under remote learning constraints, my team and I converted three apprehensive students into SHPE National members and received 32 unique responses to our recruitment surveys. How was this accomplished?

In Amazon's words: customer obsession.

When I had my first team meeting, my fellow board members were eager to recruit everyone and anyone who would listen. That enthusiasm was welcome, but enthusiasm without direction rarely produces results. Before thinking about bringing in new members, I pulled out a Thorns, Buds and Roses exercise. What were we doing well? What needed improvement? What was not working at all? No amount of eagerness would be useful if we were unclear about the current state of the chapter.

Once we had that clarity, I got to work. If we were going to provide programming that was both relatable and professionally impactful, we had to know who our members and potential members actually were. I designed a simple demographics survey and called upon STEM professors to help distribute it. Around the same time, the Associated Students announced they were offering up to $5,000 to any campus organization that submitted a detailed allocations package. The demographics survey was the missing piece of the puzzle. One effort, two outcomes: a clear picture of our users and the data needed to justify our funding request.

So who was our audience? According to the survey, the typical SHPE member or potential member was Hispanic, male, between 20 and 25 years old, already a SHPE national member, majoring in Electrical Engineering, and motivated primarily by personal and professional development. Given that the college was located in a lower-income area, we also factored socioeconomic context into our programming decisions.

Knowing our audience paid forward in three concrete ways.

1. A $5,000 Grant

Because we knew exactly who our audience was, we were able to produce a detailed allocations package with a proposed event schedule, budget breakdown, and explicit descriptions of the value each initiative would deliver to members and potential members. The package passed the Associated Students meeting without objection. That outcome was not luck. It was the result of taking the time to know who we were serving and letting that data drive our proposal. Membership grew by over 200% in the months that followed.

2. Identifying Disadvantaged Users

Building a user persona from majority data is valuable, but its real power is in what it reveals about everyone else. Who are the minority users? What barriers do they face? Why are they underrepresented in the first place?

Our data showed that for every one active female member, there were three male members. Female members also spanned a broader range of majors, which meant their needs were more complex and varied. This insight led directly to the creation of a SWE, Society of Women Engineers, chapter at our college, a dedicated space for women in STEM that now collaborates directly with SHPE on events and programming.

On the other end of the spectrum, LGBTQ+ and disabled members represented the smallest segment of the chapter, and some had already disengaged and moved on to external organizations. Identifying disadvantaged users does not stop at acknowledging their disadvantaged status. It requires accountability. If users leave, the question worth asking is why, and what can be done differently. Customer obsession means caring about the full picture, not just the majority.

3. Expanded Collaborations

Knowing our audience also revealed which other organizations our members were interested in. That information made outreach and collaboration significantly easier. It resulted in one workshop with MSC, the Math and Science Club, two guest speaker collaborations with SWE, the Society of Women Engineers, one panel discussion with A.Ch.A, the Association of Chicana Activists, three socials and study nights, and the creation of a SHPE San Diego Discord connecting our chapter with UC and CSU sister chapters.

Knowing your audience does not just improve your own programming. It shows you where to expand, who to partner with, and what your users want that you cannot provide alone. If your users want apples and oranges and you only sell apples, you have two options: grow your own orange tree or find someone who already has one. User research is what tells you they wanted oranges in the first place.

Reflection

The power of knowing your audience is in turning that knowledge into the ability to attract and retain them. Happy users tell their friends. Disengaged users tell their friends too.

If you spread your user base across a bell curve, most users fall in the middle. They are content and find value in what you offer, but they are not the ones actively recruiting or deterring others. That role belongs to the outliers. The top percentile are your enthusiastic advocates, the ones who bring people in because they genuinely believe in what you are doing. The bottom percentile are users who were once satisfied but had an experience that eroded that satisfaction. If they have not already left, they are close, and they are talking.

A responsible organization addresses both. It works to sustain the experience for satisfied users and actively investigates what went wrong for disengaged ones. That is customer obsession in practice. It is keeping your user data current, addressing pain points as they arise, and never assuming that the value you provide today is sufficient for tomorrow.

During my time as Marketing and Outreach Coordinator, I conducted one demographics survey and two in-depth user surveys, which produced two full user analyses and strategic outreach reports. What began as a chapter of 7 board members grew into an active membership of 32, and the data gathered during that period continues to serve as a foundation for the boards that followed.